Codex Arcana - A Tribute to H.P. Lovecraft

By Mike Mignola

The Book Room Horror, Mass. 1899, 2 men are viewing a library where John Horn has something terrible happen to him, getting mixed with a bad crowd of witches and the like. John has gotten hold of a terrible book which he'd studied for a wk and a couple days, and on the 10th day, enters the church with markings on his skin, and he burns to ash inside, asking for help. So, now the men are here to see how badly the library is haunted.

Every year for 20 yrs Horn has appeared, still carrying the cursed book, which he shows to the man, who doesn't wish to look, but is still drawn in. Doc worries as he falls into the book, where it tries to tempt him to learn of the ancient ways, he resistant. Horn relates how the doc is a student of the occult like he is, showing him how it'd done him well. In the real world, the other man wakes to see the doc lying on the floor next to his chair, he able to help him revive, and the 2 burning the book.

The Devil's Footprints has Dierdre looking for a copy of The Mysteries of the Worm, which has been missing for 20 yrs. Dierdre locates the key to an old woman's house, and the 2 enter, and locate the book in a piano, the old woman then finding them. She demands their names as she wields a dagger, 1 eye scarred. James intro's them as hubbies, and learns Ruscha is a legendary Danish witch, Diedre chanting a protective invocation.

Ruscha is overpowered, and the tentacle gripping her shows tiny mouths and teeth along it, cherishing her tasty blood. Dierdre isn't able to detect where the tentacle came from nor the music accompanying it, then it drops Ruscha. The 2 discuss how terribly this could've come out for them, he urging they leave, since they don't know how long a powerful witch like Ruscha stays dead.

The Keyhole tells of a fella buying a house which isn't even known of by the man who inherited it, so sells it to him, he and his buddy now planning to take a look at it. They discover Carrington's lab and plan to see if his experiment is still operational. The man reads from Carrington's notebook, and q'ing his sanity as they readied to turn on the machine, despite a warning on the final page, but fella is too curious. The man puts on the vid-cam and sees exactly what Carrington describe's switching the dial to see different areas. Before the goggles are taken off him, so the other guy can see, he's cut, and the other man notes the environments looked decimated. It's too late before he figures out the keyhole is actually a door, the tentacles coming through.

3rd 1 is strongest, and there are better Lovecraftian stories out there, these are light.