Published by arrangement with the Delta Green Partnership. The intellectual property known as Delta Green is a trademark and copyright owned by the Delta Green Partnership, who has licensed its use here. The contents of this document are © Augustine Stuart, excepting those elements that are components of the Delta Green intellectual property.

“What the hell, Uncle Akeley.” I stepped towards the woman who was gagged and tied to the chair.

“Don’t,” Akeley said, blocking my path.

“There’s a woman tied up in your basement—“

“She’s why I called you here.” He put his hands on my shoulders. “She’s Delta Green.”

The name sent a shiver down my spine.

I’d heard about Delta Green. When Innsmouth had been raided in 1928, those federal agents who had survived the raid had been changed forever. They’d seen things that they couldn’t unsee.

And so they’d formed an agency to ‘deal with’ creatures like myself and my uncle— a ruthless agency called Delta Green.

They killed on sight. They didn’t ask questions. If an agent knew you were from Innsmouth— the old Innsmouth— they killed you.

That’s who Akeley hid from. That’s why my relatives shuddered at the fact that I painted my house bright colors instead of laying low like the rest of them. The Esoteric Order of Dagon had many enemies. And Delta Green was foremost among them.

So when he said those words, I hesitated, and took a moment to study the woman.

She didn’t look like a killer. She was barely older than me— maybe twenty, twenty-one.

“She can’t be an agent,” I said, shaking my head. “She’s not old enough.” Delta Green agents had training. Real training. The kind that took decades.

“Well, she was with an agent,” Akeley said. “Killed him, I did.”

I shuddered. “How—“ No. I didn’t want to know. “How do you know he was an agent?”

“Came storming in here, threatened me with a gun, told me he was Delta Green, and proceeded to try to shoot me without even asking if I was a deep one.”

I snorted. It wasn’t not hard to see that Akeley wasn’t quite right. If you’re looking for the Innsmouth look— the bulging eyes, the flattened nose, the flaccid, pale skin— Akeley met every sign.

I knew that I did, too. But I tried not to think about that. I wasn’t proud of my heritage, not like my family was.

I cautiously approached the woman. The agent. I knelt down in front of her, examining her.

She was gorgeous. I realized that that shouldn’t be what I was noticing, but— I’d never seen anyone like her outside of books, before. She didn’t have the Innsmouth look— the sunken, too-large eyes, or the puffed out lips, or the folds on her neck that marked the beginnings of gills. She was human, and she glowed with her humanity.

“What are you going to do with her?” I asked, standing.

“Church is tomorrow,” Akeley replied cryptically. “We’ll have ourselves a fine time, Dagon be pleased.”

I hesitated. “Sacrifice, then?”

I saw the woman squirm away from me at the words.

Akeley shook his head, laughing, revealing his gap-toothed mouth that was as full of decay as everything else in the town.

“We need new blood, Evie,” he said. “When your parents went below, we lost our last breeding pair. If we want to build Innsmouth up again, we need people like her. People who just happen to wander in— little blessings from Dagon.” He shook his head, laughing.

My lip curled back in disgust.

“Yeah, I think I’ll give her to your cousin Howard,” Akeley said, nodding to himself. “Get a few little ones out of her over the next few years, and then we give her to the sea.”

“So why did you call me here?” I asked, changing the subject away from the distasteful matter.

“I want you to watch her,” he said.

I frowned. “Why me?”

“Why not you? You’re one of us,” he said. “And I don’t want to watch her, and feed her, and make sure she’s clean and what not—“ He shook his head in disdain. “Too much work. But you’re young. You can handle it.”

“Why can’t Howard keep her, if she’s going to be his—“ Wife? Toy?

He gave me a look.

“Howard’s a little slow,” he said meaningfully. “Nothing against the boy— he’s a good kid, loyal and all— but she’d be able to escape from him as soon as he turned his back.”

“Right.” I took a deep breath, ready to turn Akeley down. I didn’t want to be involved in these ghastly proceedings. Yes, our family needed new blood. Innsmouth needed new blood. And this was how they thought they could get it. But I didn’t want to have any part in it.

But then I looked back at the woman, and I saw a plea in her eyes.

So without quite knowing why, I nodded.

“I’ll take her.”