Notes: In Arkham Files, the characters from the Caffrey Conversation AU are placed in the world of the Cthulhu Mythos. Cinereous Skies takes place after the events in the third Arkham Files story, The Crypt. In the first chapter I've included a short recap of the main events for new readers. I've also written short summaries of the previous three Arkham Files stories for our blog, Penna Nomen & Silbrith Conversation. The post is called "Inside the Arkham Files Vault."

Miskatonic University, Arkham, Massachusetts. Friday, November 14, 1975.

"Professor Carter!"

Neal spun around to see Charlene waving at him as she determinedly plowed a path through the crowd of students coming down the main stairway at Wingate Hall at Miskatonic University. Charlene was in his Anglo-Saxon seminar. A junior, she was earnest to the point of being obsessed. She was president of the college's Middle-earth club, and Neal suspected she dreamed of becoming the next J.R.R. Tolkien. For that glorious future to come to pass, she believed the essential first step was a mastery of Anglo-Saxon.

It was disheartening that she had so little aptitude for languages.

Not that Charlene realized that. She'd latched upon Neal to be her Gandalf on the road to enlightenment. The path ahead was a dangerous one, fraught with harrowing obstacles. The dragon confronting her at the moment was her final paper. The selection of a subject had turned into an agonizing process not only for her but for him as well. Neal steeled himself for another onslaught of questions.

He'd arrived at the front entrance a few minutes earlier and taken his designated position by the bulletin board to meet Peter. Their last classes of the morning concluded at the same time and they'd agreed to walk over to the library together.

Charlene's face was eloquent of distress as she approached him. "I just heard that you won't be teaching the lecture on Science of Language anymore. Tell me it's not true."

"Professor Whipple is an outstanding scholar," he reminded her. "She's the head of the department and —"

"—but she can't be as inspiring as you!" she interrupted. "When you lecture, you transform language into an art form. Your words are like poetry." Before Neal could divert her onto another subject, any subject—her final paper, for instance—she plunged ahead. "You'll still have office hours for students, won't you? Can I come to you with my questions?" As she continued to plead her case, Neal saw Peter walking down the stairs. He slowed down as he approached them, apparently amused by Neal's efforts to placate his student.

"You should give Professor Whipple a fair chance," Neal said finally, cutting short her entreaties. He attempted to use Peter's no-nonsense voice which was so effective on his own students.

"Professor Carter may be away on field work in December," Peter added.

Charlene reacted with horror. "You can't! You're scheduled to speak to our club in December. Can you meet with us next Thursday?"

Neal knew Charlene. When it came to Tolkien, she would haunt his office until he agreed. A few minutes later, Charlene left satisfied, having extracted his commitment to the new date and a promise to discuss the dreaded paper with her on Monday.

"Are all your students reacting the same way to the news?" Peter asked after she headed back upstairs.

"Pretty much," Neal admitted. "When Marjorie offered to take over the lecture, I didn't realize it would cause such a furor. I'll be happy to escape to the library vault."

In the wake of their discovery of an ancient artifact underneath a mausoleum in Arkham, his and Peter's lives had been transformed. The disk, dated to 6,000 BC, was composed of a bronze alloy containing trace amounts of algolnium, a chemical element which had only been awarded preliminary recognition a couple of weeks ago.

The university president was now lending Miskatonic's full support to their research into the civilization which had crafted it. He'd arranged for both Peter and Neal to have reduced teaching loads. A major benefactor to the university, Gideon Talmadge, offered to back the effort. The fact that the disk enabled them to seal a wormhole to another world was a closely guarded secret for now. How would the public react to the news that Earth had likely been visited in its remote past by extraterrestrials? Until more evidence was obtained, they'd probably all be branded as crackpots.

Marjorie Whipple, a senior professor of linguistics in Neal's department, had been delegated to teach his lecture course as well as substitute for his other teaching assignments as needed. No longer would Neal and Peter be forced to sacrifice their free time for research. Assisting Peter was Eleanor Templeton, the head of the archaeology department. "I suspect Eleanor is getting as much an earful as Marjorie," Neal commented. "Having your professor reassigned midterm can be a traumatizing ordeal."

Peter shrugged. "It's character building. What was the club Charlene was talking about?"

Neal told him about the Middle-earth group. "When she found out I have photos of Tolkien's home and study—even the tree which inspired Tolkien to create Ents—she insisted I meet with them."

"You're teaching Anglo-Saxon. You were at Oxford last year. No wonder she's fixated on you." Peter pointed to a poster on the bulletin board. "Did you meet Professor Dittlesworth when you were there?"

The poster had been tacked in a prominent spot. Illustrated with a colorful image of a Hyacinth Macaw, the text read: The Amazon comes to Miskatonic! One night only. Phineas Dittlesworth, renowned Professor of Ornithology at Oxford University will present a lecture on Amazonian birdlife at the Wingate Hall of Humanities on Wednesday, November 19.

"I used to run along the River Cherwell where I'd see him leading bird walks. I sometimes stopped to chat with the group."

"El and I plan to attend. Dittlesworth has written articles in Archaeology Review about the connection between birds and ancient ruins. He's made quite a study of the subject, pointing out how a careful observation of bird behavior can be used as a tool to discover hidden sites."

They turned away from the bulletin board and exited the building. Neal buttoned his wool overcoat. A cold wind was blowing through the university quad. The trees had lost their leaves a month ago and were now mere skeletons. The library was set on an isolated knoll on the hilly campus—a brisk walk away.

Neal hadn't seen Phineas since Oxford. He'd spent the previous year there while finishing his PhD thesis. Would Phineas remember him? Even though it was only a short while ago, he was so absentminded, it was unlikely. Now if Neal were a bird, the odds would be much higher.

"When Kate visited me over Christmas, we joined his group on a couple of walks," Neal said.

"I didn't realize you're into birding," Peter said, turning up his coat collar. "El will be delighted. She'll ask you to come along on our field trips."

"I dabble," Neal corrected. "Kate was the birder, not me."

"Ah yes, birding can make a great excuse for romantic strolls around Lake Whittier."

The wooded path surrounding the campus lake was a favorite destination for couples, and yes, he and Kate had made the circuit many times. Neal took it as a sign of progress that he could revisit those memories without them being too painful. He slanted a glance at Peter. "You sound as if you speak from personal knowledge."

"I proposed on one of those walks," Peter confided. "My scheme was to wear her down by walking around the lake so many times, she'd relent simply to stop the torture."

"A tall tale if I ever heard one." Peter and his wife Elizabeth were the perfect couple. More likely Elizabeth had planted the idea of a walk to encourage him to pop the question.

"So tell me, what's Dittlesworth like?"

"He's one of those quintessential British eccentrics who are lampooned on Monty Python. His standard wardrobe consists of safari clothing complete with pith helmet, even in winter. I half-expected to see a bird poking out from one of his pockets."

"We should go to the lecture together," Peter declared. "Come to our house for dinner first. Would you like to invite Sara to join us?"

He cocked a brow as if expecting Neal to give him grief, and earlier in the month Neal might have. That was when Sara was merely his fake girlfriend. She'd tossed him a life preserver when she made the offer at the start of the school year. Neal had enough of a challenge learning the ropes of teaching, but some of his students were much more fascinated with him than their assignments. He supposed it was understandable. Since he'd skipped several years, he was about the same age as many of them.

Sara liked to tease him that they didn't view him as Gandalf but Aragorn. And if Aragorn didn't latch onto Arwen, he was doomed. Neal could lecture till he was blue in the face that he was no Aragorn. His sword skills were non-existent. In hand-to-hand combat he might as well surrender out of the gate. As for Sara being Arwen . . . She might be many things but elf-maiden was not the first image that came to mind.

She countered that he was so appealing precisely because he was still mourning Kate. His situation was similar to Aragorn's, the man who lived the life of an exile, denied from being with the woman he loved.

Whatever.

Sara was between boyfriends and volunteered to help him out. He and Kate had hung out with Sara as undergrads. Maintaining the pretense was easier than he'd expected, and the plan had worked. Once his students saw them together, they quickly got the message.

But the fake girlfriend nonsense had been cast aside. Sara was now someone much more meaningful.

She'd graduated to her new role of private investigator, and she was a natural at it. She'd majored in journalism and was now an investigative reporter for the Arkham Gazette. There was nothing Sara loved more than a mystery, and Neal had mysteries in spades for her.

"Thanks for the invitation," Neal said. "Sara arrived back in Arkham today. I'm meeting her this evening at the coffeehouse, and will ask her. Sara's not a birder, but her dreams of being an international investigative journalist may include the Amazon."

"Do you know if she's included Egypt in her plans?"

Neal stopped, suddenly suspicious. Peter was organizing a series of expeditions to search for more artifacts. At the top of his list was Abydos, an ancient site in Egypt. A predynastic tomb in that archaeologically-significant region was where Peter had discovered a soapstone carved in the shape of a starfish. Neal's sensitivity to the object had led to the discovery of algolnium. Sara knew about Abydos and had been vocal in her envy of the trip. Had she taken matters into her own hands?

"Talmadge called me about her," said Peter. "I wasn't surprised. We both knew that once she found out about our plans she wouldn't stop until she wrangled a way to go with us."

Neal sighed. "The woman has the persistence of a mockingbird. I used to call her a news-ferret but she's gone beyond that."

"I'm glad you changed her title. Ferret is too close to weasel, and Sara's not a weasel."

"What did Sara do?" Neal asked uneasily.

"Your mockingbird made an appointment to meet with Talmadge this morning. She pleaded in no uncertain terms that a journalist needed to be present to document any discoveries we'd make. Talmadge called me to talk about it. That's why I was running late."

Neal groaned. That was the problem with mockingbirds. Never content to sit on the sidelines or consult with others first. "Was he upset?"

"He didn't appear to be. Sara had prepared an extensive portfolio of her work. She must have spent several nights cramming on ancient Egyptian history. Talmadge said he could hardly get a word in edgewise. Didn't she tell you anything about this?"

"Not a word."

Peter made a halfhearted attempt to restrain his laughter. "Fascinating. Especially since she claimed we were her colleagues and in full support of her inclusion."

"Why didn't she check with us first?"

"Hey, don't ask me. She's your fake girlfriend, not mine."

Sara had returned to Arkham last night. She'd finagled an assignment from her newspaper to cover a story in Providence and had used the opportunity to research an armillary sphere in Mozzie's possession. He'd purchased the ancient astronomical instrument after a ghast attempted to steal it from a local shop.

A couple of weeks ago Neal discovered that the brass rings surrounding the sphere were inscribed in an unknown language which was apparently the same as the script embedded in the crystal manuscript. That priceless relic in the library vault was a slab of translucent quartz-like material. Deciphering its language had become an even higher priority since they discovered the ancient disk in the mausoleum was inscribed with the same script. They now had three objects—a disk dating back thousands of years, an armillary sphere from the Renaissance and a crystal slab of unknown origin—all bearing the same unknown language.

Deciphering the crystal manuscript had at first seemed unfeasible. How do you even start to decode three-dimensional intricate threads of Gordian knot complexity? Recently, however, Neal had reason for optimism.

He'd discovered that if he let his eyes unfocus while staring at an unknown script, gradually it would make sense. Neal had first used the technique to translate the Necronomicon appendices, a challenge which had also appeared near impossible to master.

Mozzie said it was comparable to his experience when he observed the night sky. In a flash insight, he saw underlying cosmological patterns—links which connected his observations to the structure of the universe. Mozzie had discussed the topic with a colleague in India who called it the flash of knowledge which comes from meditation. Some mathematicians had it when they looked at formulas. For Neal, it was languages.

A Eureka effect or osmosis? Sara called him a psychic linguist. Whatever it was, Neal was convinced the crystal manuscript would follow the same pattern. A path forward now existed for what had before seemed unattainable. Understanding why was of lesser importance.

WCWCWCWCWCWCWC

When they reached the library vault, Peter signed in for both of them while Neal chatted with the guard, Ephraim Nash. His job was a lonely one. The vault's formidable guardian, the head librarian Lavinia Armitage, granted access privileges to only a select few. Many of the treasures were unique copies and literally priceless. Despite their value, there had never been any attempts to break into the vault that Peter was aware of.

Ephraim had retired from the police force. The low-stress job appeared to suit him. He enjoyed acting as a senior uncle to the students and was equally popular with the faculty. Peter wished some of his congeniality would rub off on Lavinia.

He and Neal had the vault to themselves that afternoon. The focus of Peter's current research was Laban Shrewsbury. The famous anthropologist had led groundbreaking expeditions for Miskatonic University from 1910 to 1930 when he traveled the globe searching for evidence of lost cultures. His death at the relatively young age of fifty-one had been a great loss to the scientific community.

Over the past couple of months Peter and Neal had spent countless hours in the vault. Neal's original intent was to translate the appendices to the Necronomicon, a task his former advisor Thaddeus Shrewsbury, Laban's son, had assigned him shortly before falling into a coma. Neal had succeeded in the project a few weeks ago. It was a tragedy that Thaddeus had passed away without knowing of Neal's success.

Peter had only occasionally visited the vault before he met Neal. Lavinia had granted him access two years ago when he'd solicited her help with cryptic starfish symbols he'd found in an ancient Moroccan tomb. She encouraged him to explore the illustrations in the Necronomicon. It was the first time he'd heard of the eighth century work by an Arab scholar. Little had he realized that some of the creatures described within that tome would be found on the streets of Arkham, and that the discoverer would be one of the unlikeliest of people—the quiet young linguistics scholar sitting across the table from him.

He glanced over at Neal, already buried in his translation work. The intersection of their lives contained so much that was mysterious. They'd both been found to contain algolnium within their spinal fluid. Algolnium would have continued to be unknown if Neal hadn't experienced such a strong reaction to its presence in a starfish-shaped artifact Peter had discovered only a few months earlier. What were the odds of that happening?

Now they were on the trail of an early advanced civilization which had created bronze alloys containing algolnium. Peter's earlier skepticism of Earth being colonized by an extraterrestrial civilization had crumbled in the face of mounting evidence.

Thaddeus had granted Neal access to the Shrewsbury cabinet within the vault. There weren't many documents from Thaddeus inside, but for his father, it was a goldmine. Handwritten accounts of expeditions to sites Peter had read about nowhere else. And perhaps even a greater puzzle was that so many of the documents were written in unknown scripts. Laban had been an anthropologist, not a linguist. Where had he acquired such an extensive knowledge of languages? Peter was familiar with many ancient tongues, but he, like most archaeologists, relied on experts for extensive translations.

Such as Neal.

A gasp from Miskatonic's wunderkind roused Peter from his musings.

"What did you find?" Peter asked, walking around the table to view what Neal was studying so intently. In his hands he held a single sheet of notebook paper, yellowed with age. At the top in Laban's distinctive scrawl was the date of September 30, 1929. Laban had returned from his last expedition on September 10 of that same year. The body of the text was in one of the unknown scripts. To Peter's eyes, the closest approximation was an ancient Chinese cursive script.

When Neal didn't answer, he repeated the question. They'd been searching for records of Laban's travels in the late '20s. For the period from May 1928 until September of the following year, they'd so far drawn a blank. "Is that about his last expedition?"

"If he'd used a spaceship." Neal exhaled and muttered, "I can't believe I just said that." He put the paper down to look at Peter. "I wasn't having any luck with the crystal manuscript so I put it aside to work on this document. Laban wrote it in English, but he used a script of his own devising. It's a code, based on ancient Chinese."

"Why would he have gone to such extreme lengths?"

"Perhaps to keep others from being able to read it?" Neal scanned the page. "Laban mentions visiting an alien planet with Andrew Phelan."

"The man you believe may be your grandfather?"

Nodding, Neal pointed to a word on the page. "This translates to Celaeno. Do you remember when I first scanned through Laban's journals, I found the line: My dreams are haunted by Celaeno? We were puzzled about the significance of the word. It turns out Mozzie was the closest when he explained that Celaeno is one of the stars in the cluster Pleiades. Laban claims he visited the fourth planet orbiting Celaeno. He calls it Celaeno-D."

"Did he explain how he got there?" Peter asked, excited about the implications. In October, he and Neal had traveled through a wormhole in an abandoned house. They'd emerged in a tower overlooking an alien landscape and the Plateau of Leng. Could that have been Celaeno-D?

"He didn't describe the mechanism, but he does their guide. Laban writes that they were helped by a man claiming to be from the third planet orbiting the star Merope. That's another star in the Pleiades star cluster."

An extraterrestrial walking on Earth? Mozzie liked to joke that Neal and Peter were starmen, but this was the real thing. Someone who looked human but wasn't. Even more significant, it was an alien who was friendly to Laban and Andrew.

Over the past few months, Peter and Neal had encountered several hostile alien species—ghasts, nightgaunts, gugs, and zoogs. The closest they'd come to a friendly species was when Peter heard a voice inside his head giving him directions on how to seal off a wormhole.

"Laban could find nothing about him which looked out of the ordinary but he possessed abilities which demonstrated categorically he wasn't human. Unfortunately, Laban didn't describe what they were. This alien—Zophar was his name—said that his people were fighting an intergalactic battle with another race of extraterrestrials." Neal paused to scan the text. "Laban calls them the Ymar. He further explains that the Ymar are the same race that Abdul Alhazred calls the Outer Gods in the Necronomicon."

Peter's heart sank with a thud. The criminal cult they'd tangled with—the Church of Starry Wisdom—worshiped an entity called Azathoth. In the Necronomicon he was described as one of the Outer Gods. Azathoth was supposedly the creator of all the other gods, an amorphous mass of tentacles who dwelt in the center of the universe in a region of chaos. Neal had encountered a priest on the Plateau of Leng who asserted he served Azathoth. Alhazred wrote that the priest went by many names, but his true name was Nyarlathotep and he was also one of the Outer Gods. If Laban was right, they weren't deities but a race of warlike aliens.

Peter wrenched his mind from the unsettling possibility that Azathoth was real. "Why did Zophar take Laban and Andrew to Celaeno?"

"The Celaenians are supposedly the only ones who know how to defeat the Ymar. They maintain a library on their planet which contains the accumulated knowledge of the galaxy. The Ymar had in the distant past ruled Earth and are coming back to reclaim it. Zophar said they're completely evil and must be destroyed." Neal sat back and exhaled. "Can this be true? Should we warn someone? But who would believe this?"

"I don't know." Peter muttered, glanced around the chamber. Dumb move. Did he think the books might have an answer?

"Peter, look! The crystal manuscript!"

Neal had laid the slab of crystal off to the side while he worked on the Shrewsbury document. No longer translucent, it had turned an incandescent red.

"Is it hot? I don't see any smoke but it looks to be on fire."

Neal held his hand a few inches away. "It's not radiating heat, but the script is dissolving." He looked up, horrified. "We can't let that happen!"

"How can we stop it?" Already the threads of text were blurring into the background. In a few seconds not a trace would be left.

"We have to do something. Perhaps if we moved it . . ." He reached for the manuscript.

"Don't touch it," Peter warned, but he was too late. When Neal's hand came into contact, instead of stopping at the surface it sank into the crystal and disappeared.

"Pull your hand out NOW!"

"I'm trying! I can't" Neal used his other arm to brace himself against the table, but the slab appeared cemented to the surface. It didn't budge nor would it release his hand.

Peter stood behind Neal and tried to wrest him free, but to no avail. Within a few seconds Neal's appearance began to change. His body was turning as translucent as the crystal manuscript had been. And not just Neal. Peter's arms were transforming too.

Neal stared at him aghast. "Let go of me! You're turning invisible!"

But before Peter could release his hold, he was flung into blackness, spinning ever faster until it seemed every molecule in his body would be torn apart.

They were back in a wormhole.

Peter tightened his grip on Neal's arm. Oblivion lapped at his thoughts until the darkness overcame him.

WCWCWCWCWCWCWC

Lavinia rose from her desk and strode over to the window. From her office high in the turret of the library she had a commanding view of the path leading up the knoll to the main entrance. Ch'uli jumped on her shoulder to peer out the window with her. Absently, she stroked the chittak's soft silver fur. For the past several hours, Ch'uli and her mate Ch'orri had taken turns at keeping watch.

Phineas had said he'd visit her today, but as usual hadn't provided any specifics. When she chided him about it, he claimed absentmindedness was part of his persona. Was it absolutely essential that he portray someone so inconsiderate?

When Lavinia huffed her frustration, Ch'uli jumped off her shoulder onto the window sill, whipping her tail nervously.

"Don't look at me that way," Lavinia grumbled. "You think it's what I deserve for being so rude to Neal and Peter."

She went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. She'd long ago discovered that tea to calm her nerves before meeting with Phineas was a wise precaution.

Relations had become increasingly tense as Neal rebelled against the wall she'd constructed around herself. His actions made her question their decision to delay informing him and Peter. Had she and Phineas been overly influenced by Neal's initial condition when they arrived on the planet?

She and Phineas knew this moment would come, but she couldn't help wishing they could have waited another ten years. She'd grown to accept that humans mature faster than Meropians but even so . . . If anything happened to Neal, they'd have to abandon Earth as a lost cause.

Ch'uli's excited chitter roused her from her musings.

She returned to the window. A man was walking briskly toward the library entrance. Who else but Phineas would wear a safari outfit on a cold November day? At least he wasn't wearing his pith helmet. When was the last time he'd taken a comb to his hair? It looked like birds were nesting it. Of course, it was Phineas. Perhaps that was the look he was aiming for. The logic of why he'd chosen to adopt the appearance of a caricature from a British TV comedy series escaped her. Didn't their directive instruct them to assimilate themselves inconspicuously into the human population? She heaved a heartfelt sigh which proved oddly comforting.

By the time Phineas knocked at the door, she'd prepared the tea and had set out two mugs for them. "What took you so long? I was beginning to wonder if you'd stopped to chat with Neal and Peter. They're currently in the vault."

"Yes, I know," he said, unceremoniously sprawling into a chair. "I considered it. I'm sure Neal will be delighted to see me. Is he coming to my lecture?"

"How would I know? I'm not his secretary."

Ch'uli, the flirt, was ecstatic at seeing Phineas and immediately leaped onto his shoulder. Ch'orri had also awakened at the noise and scampered down. After a quick greeting he bounded off to the kitchen in search of cookies. Chocolate was unknown on Merope, but both chittaks had quickly become addicted to it. Lavinia kept a cookie jar stocked with Oreos for them. She'd grown so accustomed to seeing Ch'orri's emerald-green face streaked with chocolate crumbs, she barely noticed it.

Evidently, they weren't the only ones who'd developed a craving. Phineas filched one of Ch'orri's cookies for himself and happily dunked it into his sandalwood tea. "Has anything happened since we last talked?" he asked between nibbles.

"No, Arkham has become peaceful once more. Once the wormhole in the crypt was closed, there have been no sightings of zoogs or ghasts. The nightgaunts have disappeared as well."

"Does Peter still ask you about the voice he heard in his head?"

"Fortunately he appears to have given up. It might have been more expedient if you'd gone ahead and identified yourself."

"Time was of the essence, my dear. As it was, they barely got the gateway closed in time." Phineas gave her a sly look. "And what of your suitor? Does Mozzie continue to court you?"

Her groan made Ch'orri drop his Oreo on the floor. "He's persistent, I'll give him that."

Phineas had the temerity to roll his eyes at Ch'orri. "You know she's missing out, don't you?"

"Oh, really?" Lavinia shot him a glare that would dissolved any human into a puddle of mush but had zero effect on the Meropian Lothario. "Have you dallied with humans?"

"Of course. When in Rome . . ." He stopped her before she could berate him for his foolishness. "Don't worry, only harmless flirtations, nothing more." He dusted the cookie crumbs off his lap. "How do you want to handle it? Invite Neal and Peter here for tea?"

"That was my initial thought," she admitted. "But once I invite them, they may wish to bring all the other members of their group. My office will be claustrophobic with so many people crammed inside."

"How many are in the group, this Algolnium Web as Mozzie dubbed them?"

She ticked them off on her fingers. "Besides the three of them, there's Peter's wife Elizabeth, Cyrus Dexter, the head of the chemistry department—"

"Ah yes, Cyrus. His identification of the element algolnium was impressive. The research he and Elizabeth are conducting indicates how much their civilization has advanced. Who else knows?"

"Neal and Peter have confided in one police detective in particular, Diana Briscoe. She's been surprisingly open-minded. It gives me hope that they'll take our warnings seriously."

"Unlike the past? Earthlings have no appreciation of how their nascent civilizations were prevented from crumbling. But the Celaenians are no longer around to be their protectors."

"Our resources are also stretched to the limit."

"Still, we must not give way to gloom and doom." He slapped her, most unnecessarily, on her back. Sometimes Phineas reminded her in the most annoying way possible of Mozzie.

"There is one other who knows—Neal's friend Sara Pabodie."

"Chrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraw!"

Lavinia jumped at Ch'orri's alarm cry, the tea from her cup sloshing onto the table. The chittak had assumed his alarm stance and flattened himself to the surface of the table, his long tail extending straight out behind him. His emerald face had turned almost black. Ch'uli had leaped back on Lavinia's shoulder, adding her chitter to his. Someone had opened a wormhole to Merope.

Phineas pressed a hand to his temple. "The vault!"

Lavinia was already moving to the door. She brushed off Ch'uli. "We must go at once."

"We'll be too late," Phineas warned. "My link to Peter has been severed."

When they arrived at the vault, Ephraim was on the phone. The guard took one look at her and jumped up. "I was trying to contact you, ma'am. Something terrible's happened!"

"Calm yourself," Lavinia ordered. "What did you see?"

"The professors . . . they just . . ." He swallowed, fumbling for words.

Lavinia pushed Ephraim back into his chair. Attempting to question him would be fruitless. He was quickly becoming distraught to the point of incoherence as he ranted about how the men vanished.

There was no time to waste. An information extraction was the only recourse. Pressing two fingers into his left temple, she probed his mind. Ephraim's face went blank as she pieced together his recollections—the crackle of electricity, a brief moment of blinding white light coming from within the chamber. When the light subsided, Ephraim discovered that Neal and Peter had vanished. Patiently she scoured his memory while Phineas updated the record book to show that Neal and Peter had left fifteen minutes ago.

"Did he see anything else?" Phineas asked.

"He doesn't recognize its significance, but he overheard them saying something about the crystal manuscript glowing red. That's when the wormhole opened."

Phineas's face whitened at the mention of the crystal manuscript. The enormity of the catastrophe brushed aside his normal demeanor.

Satisfied that she'd extracted all she could from the guard, Lavinia erased his memory of the event and withdrew her fingers.

"Is anything wrong?" she asked Ephraim, looking at him with concern.

"I don't know what came over me," he mumbled, rubbing his forehead. "I feel a little dizzy."

"I'm not surprised. I found you slumped at your desk. Many of the students have the flu. You may be coming down with it as well."

"Don't worry about me. I feel fine now."

"You should go home and rest," she urged, helping him up. "In any case it was my intention to close the vault. I came downstairs to start an inventory. Until the work is complete, the vault will be unavailable to all users."

"Very good, ma'am. Would you like me to return later this evening to lock up?"

"That won't be necessary. I'll take care of everything." She wished she had the confidence she'd projected onto the guard. Ephraim would be all right. As for Neal and Peter, they were beyond her reach.

Phineas had already gone inside the vault and had begun to examine the objects on the reading table. The vault entrance was protected by a wrought iron gate. The massive outer oak door was seldom used, but Lavinia closed it behind her as she entered the chamber.

The crystal manuscript lay on the table, barely recognizable. Its once translucent surface was now a blackened and shriveled relic. There was no trace of the script it formerly contained.

His face somber, Phineas probed the crystal at length with his fingers before shaking his head. "It's useless now. Our link to Celaeno is gone."

"It may have already been gone for decades. The last time it was used to transport anyone was when the librarian sent Laban and Andrew back from Celaeno."

"But the librarian retained the crystal," Phineas reminded her. "And that may have determined its fate."

She nodded absently. When Zophar returned to Celaeno ten years later, he'd found the librarian vanished, the library in ruins, its precious contents destroyed, and the crystal manuscript gone. Everyone presumed only the Ymar could have been guilty of such a despicable act of wanton destruction. It had taken Zophar eleven long years of searching before he found the manuscript on an outlying planet which had also suffered the ravages of the Ymar. Sometime between 1929 and 1951, the crystal manuscript must have become contaminated. When Zophar secured it inside vault, he had no idea how dangerous it was.

"All these years we've stored it as a priceless artifact in the Shrewsbury cabinet," Lavinia said, voicing her dismay aloud. "We never suspected we'd invited Azathoth into our midst."

"What role did it play in Thaddeus's abduction? Did Azathoth use it to ensnare him too?"

"I fear that was the case," she acknowledged. "When I gave Thaddeus algolnium, I placed him in the Ymar's crosshairs." She'd often blamed herself for not having taken better care of Neal when he was a child. Had she been the cause of what befell Thaddeus, too? Were all their efforts to go for naught?

"It's my fault as much as yours. You mustn't blame yourself." Phineas's attempt to comfort her was appreciated but futile. She'd failed Neal. Failed Peter.

The table was covered with work materials. Neal's notes in his flowing script were easy to recognize. There was a sheet of paper covered in one of Laban's coded languages. It must have been what Neal was working on when the disaster occurred. Had Neal deciphered it? Lavinia longed to know what it said.

She placed both Neal and Peter's materials in the Shrewsbury cabinet. The crystal manuscript she'd take upstairs. Its power was gone, its contents destroyed. Once Phineas returned, they'd have to decide on a permanent solution.

"The chittaks are positive that the wormhole terminated in Merope," Phineas said. "I'll depart immediately. I may not be able to establish a link with Neal, but I can still access Peter's thoughts. Once I'm on the planet, I should be able to find them."

If they're still alive . . . Lavinia didn't voice her fear aloud. There was no need to. Phineas was fully aware of the dangers on the planet. "You can use the astrolabe in my office for the trip."

She'd need to prepare medications. Sornoth may have already captured them. If so, keeping them alive could be a major challenge. She wished she could go along. Phineas was not as skilled in medicine as she was. But the wormhole opened by the astrolabe would accommodate only one of them, and Phineas alone had the skill to access Peter's mind.

Her task would be nearly as daunting. What would she say to Elizabeth and Mozzie? Perhaps she could delay speaking with them till the morning. By then, Phineas might have already returned with Neal and Peter, safe and well. If she professed ignorance, wouldn't that be kinder than telling them what actually occurred?

She and Phineas left the vault together. Lavinia paused for a moment to scan the chamber one last time before locking the door. Nothing was out of place. The crystal manuscript was in her bag. They'd maintain the illusion till tomorrow, and then?

Lavinia stopped herself from useless speculation. Phineas would return with them both. Failure was simply not an option.

Notes: Thanks for reading and welcome back to Arkham! If this is your first visit, you may wish to check out the resources on the Arkham Files page of our blog. I hope you'll join me for the next chapter when Neal and Peter emerge from the wormhole on a distant planet.

Arkham Files is a mix of original and borrowed elements, and that's the subject of my blog post this week. Laban Shrewsbury is a case in point. He's the main character in a series of short stories written by August Derleth called "The Trail of Cthulhu." I've modified his biography extensively for Arkham Files. The title of the post is "Arkham Files: A Hybrid Blend."

Neal's studies at Oxford were a year after J.R.R. Tolkien's death. I pinned the photos he referenced, including the Ent tree, to the Cinereous Skies board on the Caffrey Conversation Pinterest site. You'll also find pins of the cast members, locations, and chittaks. Fanfiction doesn't allow links in notes, but you can find links to both the blog and Pinterest site in my profile.

FBI Agent Diana Berrigan began writing Arkham Files fics as part of a strategy to capture a cybercriminal nicknamed Azathoth. Most of her characters are drawn from the world of White Collar and retain their same given names. Events and characters in Arkham Files are sometimes referenced in the Caffrey Conversation stories and have an impact on plot development.

Penna Nomen created the Caffrey Conversation AU and is the chief muse for our series. Penna recently posted a new chapter in her collection of Caffrey Vignettes. The story is called "Treasure Hunt" and is a delightful trip back to January 2004 when Byron's request for the FBI's help sends Peter and Neal on a treasure hunt on Peter's birthday.

In Arkham, it's mid-November, but in our timeline it's the holiday season. If you're looking for a December holiday story, we have several options in Caffrey Conversation: Choirboy Caffrey (early December 2003), By the Book (New Year's 2004), An Evening with Genji (mid-December 2004 and an early New York Christmas), Caffrey Aloha (Christmas 2004 and New Year's in Hawaii), and A Caffrey Christmas Carol (December 2005). There's a chronological list of all our stories as well as short summaries on our blog.

Disclaimers: The worlds of White Collar and the Cthulhu Mythos as envisaged by H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, and others are not mine, alas.