“Hurry!” the demon commanded. Franks’ coffin was dropped in the middle of the painted designs. Some of the cultists lost their wits and ran away, their sanity unable to cope with the ancient monstrosity rising up around the boat. There was a new smell in the air, the overpowering stink of rotting fish. “Do not test the great leviathan’s patience!”

Franks closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Both of his heartbeats were slow and deliberate. Someone was unnecessarily working a crowbar into the seams, unaware that Franks had already tugged the lid off earlier to climb inside.

They opened the crate. “That’s our virgin sacrifice?” Two men were looking down at him, both wearing impractical ceremonial robes. Far behind them a wall of spines and tentacles was rising from the ocean. “I thought we were getting a chick, not some big ugly dude.”

“What the—”

Reaching out, Franks grabbed the first cultist by the throat and squeezed, smashing his windpipe flat. Franks caught the other by the hair, and slammed his face through the edge of the crate. That one dropped his crowbar right in Franks’ lap.

Another cultist was standing nearby, with an ornate, jewel-studded dagger. It was the sort of flashy thing that assholes like this loved to sacrifice virgins with. The man turned around, wearing a look of predatory eagerness. That expression turned to shock when he saw Franks getting out of the crate. This was not the tied-up, semiconscious mortal he’d been expecting. This was a slab of hate bundled together with muscle. The cultist dropped the blade and raised his hands to surrender, but it didn’t matter, as Franks embedded the crowbar into his forehead hard enough to make brain matter come out the cultist’s ears.

“An intruder! Seize him!” The demon gave the imperious command, but then it recognized who it was and shrieked in fear. Just about everything from the other side knew his reputation. “Oh shit! It’s Franks! Run!”

He recognized the demon’s type. The physical body was a pathetic alchemical creation, stitched together out of animal parts and old cadavers and held together with magic barely fit to animate a zombie. A body like that was only capable of holding the weakest of the host in the mortal world. Franks sneered. He’d gotten shot in the stomach for this? Stupid imp. He’d been hoping for a good fight at least.

“Help us, O Great Sleeper of the Deep,” the demon begged as the ancient squid god’s bellows shook the sea. “Please save us from Franks.” It seemed the demon was actually more afraid of Franks than he was worried about placating the Elder Thing they’d just woken from its thousand years of slumber.

Good call.