Those of the Air

Those of the Air is a short story by American author and literary critic Darrell Schweitzer in collaboration with artist and author Jason Van Hollander which is set in H. P. Lovecraft's fictional Cthulhu Mythos.
==Synopsis==
The story takes place on the day an estranged son returns to his family ten years after leaving. As he reminisces about his childhood, it is revealed that the family are descended from the Whateleys of Dunwich, and that the curse of that lineage has followed then down the years along with a copy of the Necronomicon. It is further revealed that since a young age, the boy's older brother has been kept locked in the attic, as he has been slowly mutating into a creature resembling the Dunwich Horror. 
The story concludes with the father giving himself as a living blood sacrifice to the transformed son, before the entities known as Those of the Air come to take him away.
==Characters==
*Jerry, the youngest child who became disgusted with his family and left for ten years, only returning when his brother's time to ascend came about. He finished the story as a guardian of a copy of the Necronomicon written in an unspecified language which he could not speak.
*Jeffrey, the older sibling, who was mutated beyond recognition - he was possessed of foot-long tusks and additional limbs amongst other things - by the family curse. Jerry described him as being a playful, happy soul, despite his misfortune.
*Pappa, the children's father, and former guardian of the family curse and the Necronomicon.
==Behind the Mythos==
Those of the Air was first published in the Mythos anthology Cthulhu's Heirs (Chaosium, 1994), and was subsequently included in the Wildside Press eBook collection The Cthulhu Mythos Megapack in 2012.
Category:Darrell Schweitzer works
Category:Jason Van Hollander works
Category:Expanded Mythos Works