Disclaimers: I don't own Starsky and Hutch, or any characters from the series. I don't own Carl Kolchak or any character from that series. Neither do I own anything from the Cthulhu Mythos, however, thanks to the generosity of H. P. Lovecraft and those who followed in his footsteps, the Mythos has always been considered a joint sandbox where anyone may play. There is a special guest crossover cameo in the epilogue (if you don't get who it is, the author's notes will explain) and I don't own him either.
Things you should know about Starsky and Hutch before reading this story: This takes place about a year after the ending of the series. I assume everyone knows S&H were police detectives. In the last episode of the series, Starsky is seriously wounded in a murder attempt. His heart stopped for three minutes but he was revived. This story makes mention of a story I wrote concerning those three minutes called The Other Side, but you do not have to read it to understand this one. Starsky and Hutch have been lovers for somewhat less than a year at the point of this story.
What you need to know about Kolchak before reading this story: Kolchak is a reporter for a news service, based in Chicago. During the series, each week he was confronted by a different paranormal danger that he had to defeat in order to save the world, or at least the city. No one ever believed him. This story takes place about five years after the series but not much has changed, except that things have been suspiciously quiet for awhile...
Things you need to know about the Cthulhu Mythos to read this story: Nothing really, it's pretty much explained internally. I should warn readers that this is my personal variant on the Mythos, and is considerably less bleak than the standard.
A special note on the use of Voodoo in this story: Both S&H and Kolchak had episodes that featured voodoo, and Lovecraft included it in at least one Mythos story. I have tried to make these three different versions mesh, and not be totally incompatible with what I know of the reality of Voodoo, but don't expect textbook fidelity.
Acknowledgements: Special thanks to my husband and my older brother for reading and giving advice, to hooloovoo-too for a helpful suggestion, and cosmicbob for an opinion on Kolchak's car.
There are more detailed author's notes available as a linked document. There is also a link to a picture of the artifact mentioned in chapter twelve.
