Free Ghouls of the Miskatonic (The Dark Waters Trilogy) by Graham McNeill Page B

class. Oliver returned to the blackboard and wiped away his writing with a tatty duster. A nervous cough sounded behind him and he turned to see Amanda Sharpe standing at his desk. Her eyes were downcast and she looked as nervous as a freshman during hell week.
    “Miss Sharpe, can I help you with something?” asked Oliver when she didn’t say anything.
    “Maybe, I don’t know,” she said. “I feel a bit foolish, but…”
    Oliver gathered his books and papers, stuffing them into his briefcase as he waited for her to continue.
    “I’m sure you can’t possibly feel more foolish than I for admitting to losing an entire Polynesian tribe,” said Oliver with a crooked smile.
    She returned his smile, and Oliver saw the shadows under her eyes, which he had taken to be makeup, were in fact the hollows of disturbed sleep.
    “I suppose not, but I don’t really know where to begin.”
    “The beginning is, I find, the best place, Miss Sharpe.”
    “Of course,” she said. “It’s just that it’s so unbelievable that I don’t know if I should. You’ll laugh and think I’m nothing but a silly girl.”
    “Why don’t you just tell me what is on your mind and I promise I’ll think nothing less of you, my dear. So tell me, what is it that’s bothering you?”
    Oliver saw her screw up her courage, suddenly understanding how difficult this confession was for her. What could be so bad that she felt so nervous speaking of it?
    “The sunken city you talked about? The one the Yopasi believed the sea devil lived in?”
    “Yes,” said Oliver. “They called it the ‘crypt of the star-fallen.’ What of it?”
    “I think I’ve seen it,” said Amanda.
    * * *
    The East River Shipyard was bathed in light from strings of electric lights hung like Christmas decorations. Arc lights on tall steel towers illuminated the rear quarter of the DCV Matilda Rose as sheets of rain fell, blown in from the Atlantic by a squalling western wind. Under the shelter of a corrugated iron awning, Charles Warren stood with his fists bunched and a thick vein pulsing at his temple.
    The news he had received from Arkham was not good. With the theft of the Travelers’ device, the Matilda Rose was simply millions of tons of scrap metal. He looked at the workers hammering, welding, and painting on the deck of his ship, and imagined them all burning alive, like the Germans they’d killed at Belleau Wood. He watched a gang of painters working on the hull from a suspended plank, hundreds of feet above the quayside, and willed the rope to break.
    To watch these men plunge to their deaths might quell his rising fury, but he doubted it.
    Dressed in an expensive suit from Brooks Brothers, Charles Warren looked, at first glance, like any number of Wall Street brokers, but one look at his pugnacious face, thunderous brow, and fist-fighter’s hands made it clear that he was not a man to be taken lightly. He turned away from the gleaming ship and made his way back into his office. The walls were covered with plans and blueprints, pinned invoices, and letters. A pair of drawing boards heaped with T-squares, protractors, and slide-rules sat unused at the back of the office, and his heavy pinewood desk was similarly chaotic.
    A pretty young woman sat in the corner, behind a smaller desk and a dented typewriter. He didn’t know her name, but it didn’t pay to learn their names. She looked nervous, some innate womanly instinct warning her that he was a dangerous man. She hadn’t been working for him long, barely a week, and had yet to feel the full force of his anger. She would, though. That was inevitable. The last girl’s body had been dumped quietly in the Hudson, and the scabs were still visible on Charles’s knuckles.
    “Any news?” he demanded, his gruff tone precisely conveying how bad it would be if her answer were not to his liking.
    “No, sir,” she said, swallowing hard. “No one’s called. I’m sorry.”
    He laughed at her pathetic attempt to