Maximilian held up his hands. “Think back. I was your therapist, remember? Your parents sent you to me because you were suffering delusions. There was no Professor Nobody, no plague. You killed them with homemade anthrax. I was there. I saw it. Then you took us; my wife, my son…

“We’re not your ‘companions,’ J.P., we’re hostages, prisoners. And we want you to let us go. It’s over, J.P. I’ve been trying to help you see that for weeks now, trying to get you to turn yourself in. But I’m giving up on that. You can keep searching for Professor Nobody if you want to. I won’t stop you. But I’m asking you to let us go. Maybe you’ll do better trying to find him on your own…”

*

I don’t remember restoring my companions or leaving the Observatory. The next thing I recall is slumping down upon the curb and staring down at the trash heaped there; old wadded newspaper that scuttled from the slightest breeze, and mashed beer cans. Someone had twisted some plastic drinking straws into a rudimentary effigy of a human figure. I stared at its knotted limbs for a little while, wondering if this was the final you had mentioned.

Was this your litmus test to distinguish the true macabrists from the dabblers?

Even if I was wrong in my theory, it was still the only logical next step in the process of the search for you, Professor.

I gathered my ritual implements and returned to the Observatory in the wee hours. Just as I had done with the schoolhouse after you’d abandoned it, or with the white powder I unleashed around the town: I blasphemed in order to send you a Calling.

Maximilian and the others were chained to the wall, slumbering on the Observatory floor, looking like well-fed slugs in their sleeping bags. The chains that bound them looked like spun silver under my lantern light.

As the signal pyre blazed, I stood and watched it through the jaundiced lenses of my plague doctor mask. I saw one of the figures inside trying ineptly to escape, to break their bonds while the flames scurried up their limbs in waves. They resembled fire-tarantulas, scuttling up and down the walls, leaving vastation in their wake.

I had hoped this arachnid light would have guided you, like a plague-ship being navigated safely to shore.

A little while ago, I indulged in a tour of the leavings, and inside I found a marvellous treat: one of the skulls had its jaws welded into a perpetual shriek, and the gold in its teeth shone like beetles’ backs.

But as exquisite as this horror was, I am still left wanting.

*