Lovecraft rolling in his grave! Nah, who am I kidding? He’d love knowing that people were referencing him, almost a century after his death.
I did keep control of the focus, which was maintaining a physical form as it sullenly floated in mid-air. It glowed yellow-grey, and somehow had the feel of sticky, half-dried slime attached to it. “Barbara,” I asked as I tried not to smell anything, “can you give me something to put it in?”
“On it, Johnny,” she said as a globe of writhing, multiple-eyed black tentacles swarmed over the focus, enveloping it. The psychic feel of the room immediately lightened. “There! It’s contained. Professor Salvager: what would you say is the academic or historical value of this artifact?”
“Nil, Professor Kennedy,” I said formally after a moment. “Or at least it’s not worth the risk to preserve.”
The globe of worms was now contracting steadily; it met brief resistance, then continued its inexorable shrinking into nothing. I fancied I heard a brief shriek of pain as the globe popped out of existence. “I concur,” said Barbara. “Nasty little thing. How’s the ghost?”
After peering at the spirit for a moment, I said, “Already beginning to drift Away.” Souls don’t really go Up or Down: just… not here. “It doesn’t want to stick around, I’m betting.”