"In the Vaults Beneath"

by Brian Lumley
originally published The Caller of the Black, Arkham House, 1971

Simon Guest and Arthur Jeffries hook up with Prof. Gordon Walmsley, an archaeologist embracing some radical ideas based on Sir Amerry Wendy-Smith's writings.  They follow Walmsley to a dig site in some remote (and not identified) part of England.  Their digging leads them to a city of the Elder Things.  After several misadventures, including starting up a kind of gyroscopic machine (cuz, why not?)they discover what Walmsley believes to be "living Shoggoth tissue" sealed away.  They head out, carting off a bunch of artifacts for study.

The artifacts include several items of written material, a tiny, hollowed-out figurine of an Elder Thing, and a roll of metallic "cloth".  Much theorizing is done and study related, while Walmsley starts to muse about getting rich on their finds.

Walmsley comes to believe that the site is an outpost of the Elder Things, that some of them still alive, and that they will soon "reclaim" it - destroying everything, as they did the city found by the Miskatonic Expedition (cf. "At the Mountains of Madness").  They must get back to the site ASAP!

Guest and Jeffries are supposed to meet Walmsley in the morning.  That particular day, Guest wakes up late and notices the Elder Thing figurine "vibrating".  He puts it on the end of his finger (cuz, why not?), and suddenly, the figurine vanishes - along with most of his finger!  After calling for an ambulance, he and Jeffries make their way down to Walmsley's office.  Bad stuff. You see, it seems the gyroscopic machine was a teleportation device that teleported back to the Elder Things anything taken from their outpost - and anything in contact with them - such as Guest's finger.  And Walmsley, it seems, was about to model for his apprentices a suit he had made of the mystery cloth.  He was wearing it at just the moment the Elder Things "reclaimed" their outpost....

Umm, yeah, okay...

I have to think Lumley kinda had his tongue in his cheek when he wrote this one...