The Rhesus Chart Read Online Free Page A

Lots of zombies.”
    “Wait, what—” I looked back at the door. Either I had a sudden eyestrain or the wards on it were bulging ominously. I glanced at my smartphone again. The thaum field was strengthening rapidly, and the flux had exceeded a thousand milli-Parsons per minute. “Er, yes. Right away.” I fled in the direction of the front door, leaving Angleton to face the glowing door alone, like an eldritch remix of the little Dutch boy on the dyke.
    There is a formal procedure for evacuating the New Annex: it involves filling out six forms in quadruplicate to obtain the key to a key cupboard containing the key to a cabinet containing a silver hammer (that bit would normally be done in advance, daily, by the Security Officer on Duty), then using the aforementioned hammer to break the glass cover on a brass box containing a bell inscribed with mystic runes—
    I hit the fire alarm. Then I raised my metaphysical fingers to my astral lips and emitted the most deafening mental whistle I’m capable of. Then I began to chant doggerel in Old Enochian:
On Ilka Moor Bah’t ‘At
, or maybe,
Get your shambling undead asses up here on the double
. This saved a breakneck dash down a darkened staircase (not to mention all the SOD form-filling and the hammer stuff), buying me sufficient time to dash across to my own office and rummage around in the assorted crap on top of the filing cabinet for my pigeon’s foot, cigarette lighter, silver paint spray can, packet of sharpies, and pocket camera—all the while carrying on the chant. Thus equipped I dashed back into the open-plan area just in time to see the first of the night watch shamble towards me, arms outstretched in classic Bela Lugosi style.
    “Be so good as to make a new grid, boy,” Angleton murmured, not looking away from the haunted office door. “Make it big; I need an airlock.” I began to spray conductive paint in a big circle behind him, across the beige carpet tiles and continuing on up the walls and as high as I could reach.
    I paused before sketching in the second arc, stopped chanting, and turned to face the night watchmen.
“Acknowledge my authority,”
I ordered them in my halting Old Enochian. Slowly, with creaking joints, the wizened corpses in their blue uniforms went to their knees. Eight mummified faces turned to blindly inspect me. I could feel their attention, eager for flesh and life but bound to obey.
“I am your lawful knight-commander,”
I added.
“Under oath by way of my liege.”
They followed my gaze to Angleton, and cringed, suitably terrified.
“A hostile intruder lies past yonder portal. Attend.”
    I went back to sketching in the new, larger grid around Angleton and the door. I could feel his concentration focussed on the wards around the office, intent and precise as that of any surgeon. “Nearly done,” I murmured, sketching glyphs rapidly: Elder Sign, Horned Skull, NAND Gate. “What do you want me to do?”
    “Move two zombies in here, boy.” (Angleton predates political correctness.) “Then activate the grid as soon as I’m clear of it.”
    I waved the first two night watch shamblers forward, then ducked to connect the grid terminals to a clunky-looking wireless transponder controlled by my smartphone. “Ready when you are, boss.”
    Angleton stepped back sharply. “Now, boy,” he said. I poked at the touchscreen and opened my inner eye. The new grid shimmered pale blue around a smaller violet doorway, fronting the roiling darkness around Andy’s office—I could see the thing right through the walls and floor.
“Thou,”
Angleton said sharply, in Old Enochian,
“it is thine honor upon my word to open the door. And
thou
shalt step through the portal and be my ears and eyes and tongue for that which lies within—”
    I twitched slightly. Was Angleton really going to use a zombie as a webcam? I’ve gotten used to dealing with the metabolically challenged over the past year, but even so, that was a level of intimacy I