The Symbiot 30th Anniversary, The Nadia Edition: The Symbiot-Series

Credits

The Symbiot: 30th Anniversary, Nadia Edition

© Michel Weatherall 2019

All rights reserved

Book 1: The Symbiot, © Michel Weatherall 2015

Book 2: The Hunt: Symbiosys, © Michel Weatherall 2015

Cover Designed by Michel Weatherall

Technical layout and format by Chris Barnett.

Model: Mary Elin Moore

https://www.instagram.com/maryelinmoore

Hair and Make-up Artist: Fatima Abeduljalil

https://instagram.com/beautytouch_byfatima

beautytouch-byfatima@hotmail.com

Original photograph by Angela Holmyard

https://www.angelaholmyardphotography.com/

Used with permission and courtesy from Angela Holmyard Photography ©2018, all rights reserved.

Photo editing: Michel Weatherall

Creeping Death, written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Kirk Hammett and Cliff Burton. Courtesy of Creeping Death Music © 1984. All rights reserved.

Title font used on final page (xxii Arabian Onenightstand) provided with permission and courtesy of Lecter Johnson

www.dafont.com/doubletwo-studios.d1527

Published by Broken Keys Publishing

brokenkeypublishing@gmail.com

No part of this book may be used or reproduced, scanned, distributed in any printed or electronic form in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

Copies can be obtained by sending an email to brokenkeypublishing@gmail.com

Facebook.com michel-weatherall

Twitter @brokenkeys9

@weatherallmichel

Published March 2019

First Printing

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the writer's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-988253-05-3 (print)

ISBN: 978-0-9948189-1-1 (digital)

Printed and bound in Canada

Other Works by Michel Weatherall

The Symbiot-Series:

The Symbiot (book 1)

The Hunt: Symbiosys (book 2)

Necropolis (Book 3)

The Refuse Chronicles (Book 4)

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The Fractures-Series:

Ngaro's Sojourney (book 1)

Escape Hatch, The Refuse Chronicles, Vol. 2

Invasion: Scion (coming soon!)

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Also by Michel Weatherall:

A Dark Corner of My Soul

Sun & Moon (coming soon!)

Foreword

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In August 2016, walking home from work, I meandered through the Ottawa ByWard Market when my attention was caught by a small statuette depicting what appeared to be a scary-looking octopus. What I learned shortly after was a creative representation of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu was resting on a table surrounded by books under a meet-the-author tent. There to greet me was Michel Weatherall. Little did I know that this moment of curiosity and a quick chat with the author would lead me into a two and a half year adventure.

Indeed, after a short talk, I purchased the three-book special package and started reading through The Symbiot-Series. As I discovered the world of The Symbiot, Michel and I eventually began to discuss his novels. We shared thoughts about plots, opinions about twists, and later, when I reviewed his recent work as a beta-reader, even argued about details! Through the process, we became friends. This is why, it is truly a pleasure and an honour for me to tell you about this book.

In this special 30th anniversary edition, the first and the second novels of The Symbiot-Series are brought together into one book. As I reminisce my reading of The Symbiot, the first book of the series, I can still remember how it begins somewhat innocently with a curious musician and a peculiar partition. This initial build-up around Lorne S. Gibbons’ passion serves as a solid stage to support what quickly turns into a series of events leading Gibbons through time and places as he fights evil and otherworldly creatures. Before I knew it, I was enthralled in a Lovecraftian horror story that I could not put down.

What hooked me to the series was the originality of the first book and Michel’s talent for storytelling. His ability to make this genre his own and describe both creatures and events with movie-worthy visuals, transports us right into the story with the characters and makes The Symbiot accessible to readers who may not be familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos. The moment that I finished The Symbiot, I prided myself for having purchased the three-book deal (at the time, The Symbiot-Series comprised of three books) for I jumped into the second one of the series the very next day.

The Hunt: Symbiosis immediately follows The Symbiot as Gibbons and his wife struggle to escape the horrors he unleashed in the first book. This fast-paced action-packed novel delves even deeper into the darkness where international politics and supernatural collide. As with the first book of the series, The Hunt: Symbiosis features great character development as well as an intricate plot set in the Cthulhu Mythos. I remember flipping through the pages, my heart beating fast, to know what would happen next as if I was, myself, racing to escape the fate of the protagonists...or that of the world.

This is why The Symbiot: The Nadia Edition is such a wonderful way to mark the 30th anniversary of The Symbiot. The book that you are holding is the sum of these wonderfully dark and strange stories. I invite you to sit back and get ready to let your mind travel beyond the usual as Weatherall leads you into his intricate vision of Lovecraftian horrors.

Nancy Laflamme

Preface

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The Symbiot was a novel that very nearly wasn’t.

I wrote this novel on a typewriter between 1987-1989. After losing the manuscript in a desk drawer for close to 8 years, I digitalized the text. As time went by, I transferred the manuscript through nine different home computers and numerous word processors to find out much later that not all word processors are created equally – many edits and corrections were lost.

In November 2007, I published the entire novel for free on a website where it would remain for the better part of another 7 years.

On March 2018, I decided to formally publish The Symbiot, however, much to my chagrin, I could no longer find its original files. (In all likelihood lost within an old abandoned computer over the decades.)

And so, I was left with the herculean task to copy-and-paste (including formatting code!) and edit, re-edit and re-edit again the only copy of the novel left: the one that had been published on the now-down website.

Plagued with subsequent formatting issues, unresolved edits and cover-art copyrights issues,  The Symbiot, progressively, found its way through 7 print editions.

I have often had an overwhelming desire to revisit The Symbiot. Written by a young man of 20, it is effectively the writing of a different person. Ultimately I opted to leave it stand as is. But catch me on a different day and I might change my mind!

For the first time in print, The Symbiot: 30th Anniversary, The Nadia Edition, includes the second book in The Symbiot-Series, The Hunt: Symbiosys.

The latter was plagued with its own flavour of problems, from copyright permissions issues, to never being quite satisfied with the cover artwork - the first two editions (‘red cover’) were a sad compromise. Abandoning and changing its cover art in its 3rd and 4th printing, incorporating the yellow and black theme of the entire series’ artwork. But again, I had never been happy with these, feeling it had a much too ‘homemade’ feel to it.

I am therefore honoured and delighted to have the incredible Ottawa model Mary Elin Moore to grace the cover of this 30th anniversary edition.

I had met Ms. Moore as a judge of 2018’s Mr. and Ms. Multiculture Canada beauty pageant where she won Ms. Photogenic and 1st runner up of Ms. Multicultural Canada.

The moment I saw her, I knew that she was the spit image of Nadia de LaFountaine, the main antagonist of The Symbiot. From this was born the idea of this 30th anniversary, Nadia Edition!

I now invite to you sit back and enter the strange and terrifying world of The Symbiot.

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Michel Weatherall

The Symbiot

by Michel Weatherall

Dedication

Dedicated to influential women in my life:

Isabelle Weatherall,

Jackie Weatherall,

Jenny Hodgson,

and Francine Hodgson.

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See the world through new eyes.

Everything is within reach.

Chapter I: The Horror of Mackenzie Street: The Testimony of Lorne S. Gibbons

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Sept. 29, 1987

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I just finished smashing my grand piano to pieces.

As I sit here and write this narrative, I watch all of a lifetime of musical study and remnants of my piano burn in the fireplace.

You should note that parts of this narrative have been deliberately left out or obscured. Facts regarding certain places, names, and locations I simply refuse to release. It’s terrible enough that I sought out and stumbled across this horror, let alone give directions to those foolish enough to attempt my act of arrogant stupidity.

Before I continue, allow me tell you about myself: I live in Montreal and my name is Lorne S. Gibbons. My wife’s name is Marie and we’ve been married for a little over five years now.

Music is, or was my passion. I am a very accomplished pianist. My knowledge and theory is contendable with some of the best professional musicians. It was always the fear of ridicule and failure that dissuaded me from entering that line of work. Thus I became a musician by hobby.

I could read any musical score at a glance. I learned to play virtually any piece on piano by ear or score. The mechanics of the instrument became second nature. It became inbred. I began to study more complex and ingenious composers’ work: Haydn, Wagner, Schonberg, Palestrina, Stravinsky, Monteverdi, Brahms, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart... I learned and mastered their styles and techniques. I broke down their patterns, rhythms, and scales. Do not be mislead however. I could never create nor compose any semblance of even their simplest pieces, but I could understand them and play them forwards and back!

As horrible as it is to say, I became bored with the Masters. Their compositions are pure genius in their own rights but they all shared one simple, frustratingly common kinship: The eight-note octave. The three clefs. The rhythmic subdivisions of equal halves and halves of halves and quarters of halves and so forth. Tones and semi-tones, whole and half steps, black and white keys. The system was always the same.

I did experiment with the Great Stave of eleven, not five, lines. However, this is still not foreign to contemporary musical theory. It is alien and bizarre in appearance due to its redundancy. In short, the Great Stave is all three clefs - treble, alto, and bass - combined to display pitch zones and clef integration diagrammatically. It is not used due to the confusion it creates in combining all three clefs (Seven clefs if you count soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor, and baritone.)

I transcribed certain pieces onto the Great Stave for its visual appearance but this could only impress my most musically ignorant associates. Eventually I studied certain Arabic musics. Generally it was the same with the exception of a further division of tones and semi-tones. While our system holds two semi-tones to a whole tone - black and white keys - certain Arabic theory hold four ‘quad-tones’ to one whole tone. These ‘quad-tones’ do not appear on pianos. If they did they’d be a key between the black and white keys.

Search and research as I might, I could find nothing new. I spent years frustrated and bitter that I could not learn more. I could find no one that could show me knowledge beyond our current spectrum of musical theory. I refused to believe that out of all the millennia of our race’s existence that not one single individual hadn’t explored and discovered a revolutionary theory beyond contemporary understanding! It was simply impossible! I refused to believe it.

Why are the ‘visual sciences’ preferable over the ‘audio sciences’? When man first shone light through a prism he discovered the visual spectrum, but he didn’t stop there did he? No. He looked further, beyond the seven colours and their infinite shades in between. He searched and discovered gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet rays, infrared rays, and even radio waves. What if man was simply content with the visual spectrum? Where would we be now? Imagine a world without radio waves. Man would have been an idiot to have called it quits at the visual light spectrum.

But enough said about the ‘visual sciences’. What about the ‘audio sciences’? Mankind discovers rhythm and pitch and calls it music. He analyzes it. Do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do; He calls this an octave and says it repeats itself attaining one octave higher that the last. He learns to write sounds and music and rhythm on paper and... what? Calls it quits! He says that’s it. That’s all there is! Although I freely admit that I cannot imagine exactly what could be beyond our current knowledge in music, nor where or how it could fit within our structure, I do however believe it exists. Someone must look further and discover it. It was this that I was longing for. It was someone with a truly incomprehensible genius that I sought after.

Eventually I heard of Erich Zann. I had hoped to research his work but found very little trace of him. I began a painstakingly long (indeed, years!) search and study into what little information there was available on Erich Zann. For all my troubles I was not well rewarded. I found this of the man:

He was German, played the viol and was mute. ‘Great!’ I thought ‘Not only does he speak a language that I don’t but he doesn’t speak at all!’ I decided that during my further studies in hopes of finding Mr. Zann’s current residence that I would learn to speak the German language. I purchased a cheap and cheesy copy of You Too Can Speak German handbook. I got as far as Ich heisse..., and ja, nein, wo ist, wo sind, and my crowning achievement Warten sie auf mich bei der shranke. (Wait for me at the gate).

It was at that time that I received my first correspondence from the German Embassy, much to my disappointment. Not only did Erich Zann speak a foreign language and was mute, but he was also quite dead. Although his body was never found and he was listed as missing, I believe him to be dead. He would be past his one-hundred-and-twenties if he were still alive. But, however to my good fortune (so I thought) he had a son, Otto, who was a violinist and a granddaughter, Nadia. Otto Zann, his son, was now an old man of ninety-one years living in an old age home (‘asylum’ was what the letter said but I attributed it to a mistaken translation) in Heidelberg, Germany. His daughter, Erich Zann’s granddaughter, Nadia de LaFountaine (apparently she adopted her mother’s maiden name for unknown reasons) was alive and residing in Oxford, England. Her address was 301 Apt. N, Mackenzie Street. The fifty-six year old was still an active member of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra.

I wrote letters to her explaining my love of music and of my disenchantment and lack of inspiration in the Western World. I eventually asked for her tutelage.

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When I received her letters she was enthusiastic and more than happy to share her knowledge and experience and not at all suspicious. She never asked why me? But then again, all musicians have their egos.

When I asked her what instrument she played, wouldn’t you know it, she played the viola. But music is music, or so I thought. This was when my plans suffered august termination. With bills to be paid and a mortgage to boot, I could not raise enough money for an extended trip to England, let alone getting any reasonable length of time off from work.

Time went by and I gave up on going to visit Nadia de LaFountaine in England until the advent of Marie and my fifth wedding anniversary. Apparently, Marie had mentioned to her parents of my desire to go to England (bless her loving little soul - where ever it may now be). Her parents had offered, for our anniversary present, for the four of us, Marie, myself, Henri, and Veronica, to go to England for a full month. Arrangements had already been made for a temporary replacement for me at work as well. (Her parents are quite well off.)

Well, you can imagine my surprise and joy. My wife and I accepted and I immediately wrote to Nadia of our arrival. My goals and ambitions were finally within arms reach. Now hopefully Nadia had some knowledge of her grandfather’s theories and could teach me in the style and technique of what I’ve grown to call Zannianism. Now I call it madness.

I had asked her about Erich Zann’s music and my desire to learn it. Between receiving my final letter and my actual arrival she had found some old weathered moth-eaten notebooks of Erich Zann’s in the German language and did a good deal of reading. When I arrived in Oxford she was more than ready to explore this new and undiscovered universe of musical theory with me.

* * *

When we arrived, Nadia met us at the airport. For a woman of fifty-six she appeared quite younger. Her eyes were green and sharp and crisp as a winter breeze. They reflected great intelligence and enormous understanding. The wrinkles at their corners and the slightly drooping bags under them told of endless nights of study and of a patience of an artist. Her expression was that of passion incarnate. Her mouth, once full lipped in youth, was now pursed and dignified. Her lips had a gentle and sensuous curve to them, yet with the distinct solidity of a disciplinarian when needed. There was a slight twist on the ends of her mouth that, if one looked hard enough, gave her the look of a wanton.

She was old, it was obvious, but her youth, her love of life, her passion if you wish, shone through and made her radiantly beautiful. Her hair was auburn streaked through with gray. She wore it in a long French braid down her back. It had the appearance of silk and shimmered with red hi-lights in the sun. When she turned her head her hair would be tossed playfully to and fro across her back. I could imagine the braid falling loose and cascading over her face and shoulders.

But most of all I remember her scent. Haunting it was, especially for a woman her age. She smelled of rose-petals, which isn’t particularly odd, but there was an omnipresent scent of something else. It was never overpowering and barely perceptible. It was the faint scent of warm moist sexuality. It was inviting, yet darkly sensual - seductive. It gave Nadia an air of duality. Outwardly she appeared prim and proper yet beneath this phantasm lurked an exotic and sultry woman.

I couldn’t help but notice the movements of her hips and legs beneath the ankle-length gown she wore. The smooth curves of her hips swaying sensually as she walked, but more noticeable was the way her inner thighs seemed to grind. All of these points coped with her age, and my age, made me feel decadent and shameful. I had envisioned her as a teacher, a Master, my tutor. We had nothing in common other than music and we weren’t on any sort of equal levels. But there was always a silent unspoken understanding of a sexual desire between us, making us equal on one level only. This was greatly arousing and disturbing to me at the same time.

* * *

After the airport we took a taxi to our hotel, registered, and settled in. Nadia invited us to her flat for dinner.

Nadia’s flat was on the fourth, and upper-most floor of the building. She had apartment N, the corner unit, which provided windowed views down both intersecting streets. The flat was more of a small warehouse or studio apartment. It was one spacious, high-ceiling room with wood-finished concrete support columns every ten. The flat had its own plumbing and its own crude electrical wiring. Her stove was gas-powered and of such an old model as to need matches to ignite the flame.

In the studio apartment’s southwest corner, the corner facing the intersection and flanked by the two windowed walls, stood an antique upright piano. This area of the apartment had a small area rug, a pair of stools, shelves with various books and staved musical sheets, an old couch, a papasan, and a viola case on the piano’s top.

The southeast end of the flat was rugged with a large redwood dining table which could accommodate up to eight people with ease.

Just a little off centre of the eastern wall the floor became tiled and there her kitchen and pantry stood.

To the northwestern corner was Nadia’s bedroom, if you could call it that. A large hinged multifaceted partition hid most of it from view. However, the foot of her bed and an open-door shrank made of oak (teak, my father-in-law corrected) revealed a wardrobe of silks and satins; white lace lingerie with an assortment of silk stockings, and charmeuses.

In the centre of the flat was yet another area rug and what would have been the common, or living room if it were an actual room. It had a chesterfield, a loveseat, and a chair surrounding a coffee table of an oriental, glass-topped basso-rilievo design.

Nadia de LaFountaine was a philharmonic but obviously made good her passions. It showed in her furnishings.

My mother-in-law, Veronica, being some ten odd years Nadia’s junior offered to help prepare the meal and was on one occasion scolded by Nadia with Don’t let the gas run dear, light it quickly! when she started the stove-burners.

We ate, sat in the living ‘room’ and conversed over tea. Nadia told me she had translated her grandfather’s German musical-theory notes and wanted to set a date for us to begin.

Tomorrow would do fine. I would be dropped off here while the rest of my family toured England’s pubs, taverns and nightlife.

* * *

The sky was perfectly clear and every star conceivable shone! Nadia and I sat side by side at the piano in the dark watching the night sky. It was summer and particularly hot and humid. Although her apartment had air conditioning, it was off and the windows open for a better view of the constellations. She pointed out