The Drowning Mask

By Gregory Ashe

When socialite-turned-detective Irene Lovell finds herself kidnapped by a man she once trusted, she must struggle to free herself. Escape, though, only leads her deeper into the cultic madness and sorcery of the St. Louis underworld. As she works with her friends to stop an unspeakable evil from being awoken, Irene learns that not all of her friends share the same goal. While she seeks to destroy the Drowning Mask, others plan to turn it to their own ends. And others want something even worse: the return of one of the old gods.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gregory Ashe
• Release date: Jan 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370464005

Book preview

Chapter 1

There was darkness, and a steady drip-drip-drip, and chill wet spray on Irene’s cheek. She opened her eyes. More darkness, but broken now by patches of gray, and in the distance, a diffuse copper light. She lay on broken stone. A pebble made inconsiderate advances against her lower back. From all around her, whispers of movement came back from stone.

She was fairly certain of two things: she was in a cave, and her nose was broken.

The air was cold and tasted like damp earth. Irene shivered and sat up. The world rocked on a broken axis. Blood lingered in her mouth. After a moment, the world steadied, and Irene got to her knees. The patches and gray and black went slippery again, but only for a moment this time.

As she got to her feet, arms outspread in an attempt to keep her balance, Irene noticed something else. Something that had, until now, escaped her attention.

She was wearing a bathrobe.

Only a bathrobe.

Irene’s eyes had adjusted enough that she could make out the stains on the cloth. She could trace the outlines of the cavern now—a low ceiling that swept up and to her right, disappearing into darkness, while to the left, the walls sloped into a corner. From behind her came the chill mist that was soaking Irene’s hair and robe, and when she turned, she saw a jet of water of breaking from the rock wall and spraying across the floor. It made a shallow pool, just enough for Irene to drop to back to her knees and drink a handful. She splashed more water on her cheeks. She reconsidered her nose. Not broken, but bruised. The cold helped clear her head.

Harry.

Harry Witte, handsome and charming, had come to her hotel room. He had been wearing something on his face.

A mask, part of her brain said. The Mask of Dagon. Irene pushed that voice to the back.

He had grabbed her. And then—

And then she had woken up here.

She wiped trembling fingers dry on her robe. She was going to have a lot to say to Harry Witte when she found him.

Not least of which was the general discourtesy of leaving her without shoes.

From the darkest corner of the cave came a low rasp. Like wind through a broken pane of glass.

Or like scales rubbing together.

Irene got to her feet. The sound from the corner continued. Slow. Contented.

Watchful.

She picked her way across the broken floor of the cavern. Stone bit at her numb feet. Her big toe caught the edge of a rock. Irene swallowed a yelp. Every sound—her bare feet brushing the ground, the swish of the robe against her legs, her breath in her throat—seemed magnified by the chamber.

Ahead, the ring of rust-colored light remained unchanged, marking where the cavern narrowed to a tunnel and then turned. There was no telling what waited on the other side of that bend. Harry Witte, perhaps, wearing that shining mask that looked like it was made of water or glass or light, or perhaps all three. Irene hoped he was there and, at the same time, hoped he was gone. Fear and hopelessness were settling at the bottom of her stomach, forming a hard, furious ball of desperation. She wanted her coat, and her shoes, and her revolver.

She wanted Cian, too, but as a suffragette and a college-educated woman she wasn’t going to admit that last part to anyone else.

The scrape and rub of scales altered, and Irene risked a glance back. In the darkness at the rear of the cavern, where the spray of water glinted in the light, something moved. Irene saw it for a heartbeat. A massive shape moved in front of the water, its motion fluid and sinuous, and then vanished into another patch of shadow.

She turned and picked up her pace. A stone twisted underfoot, cracking against the wall of the chamber. The sound reverberated, climbing the bones in Irene’s legs, and she went faster. Behind her, she heard a hiss and a furious rasp. This time, she didn’t look back. Fear rolled her forward like a stone down a hill. The ring of light was the only thing that mattered—a circle of half-illuminated stone that offered, if not safety, then at least a fissure in the darkness.

The scrape of scale on stone filled the air. The walls caught the sound and amplified it, until it sounded like a swarm of bees in Irene’s hair. With each step, the ground trembled underfoot, and the sound grew closer. The copper light seemed impossibly distant.

A thump rocked the ground. Irene gritted her teeth and threw herself forward. She scraped her elbow on the wall of the cramped tunnel, her hip slammed into the other wall, and she tumbled around the bend. A crack of shattered stone filled the air, and another enraged hiss came after her. A puff of dust floated into view, carrying with it a dry, musty scent that made every hair on Irene’s neck stand up.

Snakes.

Silence had descended on the tunnel, though, and the dust dissipated in the rusty light. After another minute, when Irene was certain that nothing was pursuing her, she turned to follow the corridor. A strange looking lantern hung from an iron nail driven into the wall. The shutters were cut with strange patterns, so that the lantern threw crooked, prying fingers across Irene. Inside the lantern something burned, but there was no sign of a flame. Instead, a dish of ruddy dust sat at the bottom of the lantern, pouring off heat and the reddish light and the scent of broken pottery.

A man’s voice said, Irene?

Further along the corridor, standing sentinel with a long knife in one hand, was her father. George Lovell was dressed, as always, in a well-tailored suit—dark gray wool with a subtle crosshatch in the cloth—complete with his heavy winter coat and top hat. Pipe-smoke and aftershave lotion met Irene like old friends. His face, though, was the face of a man who had aged overnight. His cheeks were hollow, but his jowls sagged, as though his face were cheap wax left too close to the fire. Fear ran circles in his sunken eyes.

He didn’t move to embrace his daughter. He didn’t seem surprised. He held the knife with all the bravado of a man clinging to the edge of a pit.

Father, Irene said.

She should have said something else. Some witty, cutting recrimination, perhaps. A caustic reprimand for his behavior towards her. Or simply the acknowledgment that, once again, he had failed her.

Because, she realized, he had known. He had known she was here. He had not come here to rescue her.

He had come to make sure she didn’t escape.

She was too tired, too numb, to do anything but stand there.

And besides, she was only wearing a bathrobe.

George Lovell threw a glance over his shoulder and then stretched up on his toes to peer behind Irene. Where— he stopped. Is it—

Irene shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. She could only feel the slightest bit of anger, and it was directed towards herself. Because, for half an instant, when she had first seen her father, she had hoped he had come to help her.

Swallowing like a man with a gun to his temple, George Lovell pocketed the knife and took a step forward. Irene moved backwards.

Her father raised both hands. Irene, we have to get you out of here. Quickly.

Irene started laughing. It was a dry, racking laugh, and her eyes burned, but she didn’t resist as her father approached and took her by the arm. After another long glance in both directions, George Lovell led his daughter down the corridor.

He didn’t bother to ask why she was laughing. He must have known already.

Perhaps he simply didn’t find it as amusing.

Chapter 2

Sam had grown up in St. Louis, which meant he was authorized to hate the city. He hated the hot, muggy summers. He hated the dead-fish stench along the river. He hated the micks and the Huns and all the rest of their lot who had come pouring into a decent American city and made it a lot less decent. On a night like tonight, with his breath steaming like a ship going upriver, he hated the winter too.

For a man who hadn’t reached twenty years, he hated a lot of things.

But what he hated most of all was the strange shit he’d fallen into over the last month.

Crouched at the corner of the First Savings and Loan, Sam massaged his temples with one hand. His head hurt. Bad. As though someone had been using it for baseball practice. At the bridge of his nose, the pain twisted like the tip of a knife. Sam ran a finger above his lips, expecting blood.

Nothing but snot that froze to his finger.

He wiped his finger on his trousers and tried not to think of what Pearl—or, God help him, Irene—would say if she saw him. That was another thing Sam hated. Falling in with a lot of strangers who all thought they could boss him around.

A part of him asked why he had stayed. Sam squashed that part and told it to mind its own business.

The pain in his head redoubled, his eyes filled with tears, and Sam found his gaze locked on the Majestic. After a moment, the pain began to ebb. It felt like having a vise loosen, inch by inch, until suddenly he could think clearly.

For half an instant, Sam wondered why he was squatting in the snow, in the middle of the night.

And then he saw Cian come out of the Majestic, a grin plastered across his face, walking like a man who’d just kicked down Saint Peter’s gates. The mick was built like a red-headed ox and had roughed up Sam a time or two, but for all that, Sam had to admit that he liked Cian. Now, watching Cian descend the Majestic’s steps, Sam gave the other man a silent congratulations for finally bedding Irene.

Sam was still watching when the second man came up and put a gun to Cian’s back.

The second man forced Cian forward, through the pools of lamplight, never slackening his pace. Sam hesitated at the corner of the building. With the headache gone, it was easier to think. And easier to admit that, all things considered, maybe he didn’t hate his new life as much as he’d thought.

He crept forward, keeping to the face of the First Savings and Loan, using the pilasters along the wall to keep out of sight. His feet were half-frozen in his shoes, and his breath still tickled the air with white feathers, but all of Sam’s attention was on Cian.

Because, God take Samuel David Turner for a shit-brained fool, Cian was as close to a friend as Sam had. And Cian looked like he was neck-deep in trouble.

As Sam reached the street in front of the Majestic, he paused. The man with the gun said something to Cian, and Cian stiffened, as though he’d been struck. After another moment, though, Cian climbed into the back of a truck, and the man with the gun shut and locked the doors.

Sam stuck his tongue in the gap left by his missing tooth.

Something wasn’t right. Mick or no mick, Cian Shea had guts and wasn’t the type to let himself get pushed around so easily. So why had Cian reacted that way? What had the other man said? Sam crept across the street, avoiding the potholes and semi-frozen pools by habit, and circled to the back of the truck. The man with the gun climbed into the driver’s seat, and the truck rumbled to life.

On the side of the door, the paint scratched and faded, was the seal of the United States Army.

Sam spat into the snow. Damn Cian Shea for getting him into this.

The truck inched forward, and Sam sprinted along the curb. As the truck pulled into the street, Sam launched himself forward. He caught the handle of the truck’s rear door, planted one foot on the bumper, and tried to swallow a grin as the truck picked up speed.

Some things were just too damn fun not to enjoy.

Chapter 3

Irene stood at the threshold to her bedroom and watched as her father dug a battered valise from the closet and laid it on the bed. He moved with frantic energy that, on a man of his size and build, looked comical rather than panicked, as though he’d been plucked from the middle of a vaudeville act and hadn’t noticed. Irene kept her arms at her sides, the way she might have done in a museum, or in the home of a stranger. Her fingertips were still cold, and a tremor had worked its way into her big toe.

From somewhere else in the house came an unending moan. It sounded like the wind across miles of empty plains.

Irene knew it wasn’t the wind. The night had been still and calm.

Paris first, George Lovell said, tipping an armful of dresses into the valise. And then you’ll have to keep moving. For a year at least. Moscow. Perhaps farther.

Father, Irene said. The word emerged like cold molasses.

Never mind the money, Irene. I’ll send plenty with you and I’ll find ways to get you more. You can’t see your uncle in Paris; don’t even let him know you’re there. I’ll speak to your mother. He paused, wiping huge drops of sweat from his forehead with a length of tulle skirt. Then he dumped the skirt into the valise and returned to the closet.

Father, I’m not going anywhere.

George Lovell emerged from the closet, shoes trembling on the tips of his fingers. What do you mean, Irene? You almost died tonight. That—that man, Irene. He did not intend for you to wake. He paused, and the light of the gas lamps chiseled dark spaces under his eyes and deep in his cheeks. One shoe fell unnoticed. Do you think all of this is a game, Irene? When there was still a chance of obtaining the mask, I had hoped— Another shoe dropped and clattered against its mate.

Irene rested one hand on her dressing table. The wood felt firm. Real. The madness of the last weeks felt, for a moment, distant. Being chased by giant spiders, by golems, by magicians and bootleggers and the cultic worshippers known as the Children—all of that felt as though it might have been a dream.

But it hadn’t been a dream. Those things had been real. Cian Shea had been real, and his kisses had been real.

Harry Witte had been real. He had shown up at her hotel room, his face shining like a man breaking the surface of still waters, and he had kidnapped her.

He had tried to kill her. After she had fought for him, helped him, trusted him.

Irene picked up a tube of lipstick and removed the cap. She caught her father looking at her and raised one eyebrow.

I’m not going to change in front of you, Father.

He vanished from the room faster than champagne from a debutante’s glass.

Irene let the robe fall to the floor. The stand mirror showed the fading bruises across her back and thighs and arms—bruises given to her by her father. He might have all sorts of explanations—his fear was the most obvious one—but none of them made any difference to Irene. Nor did it matter that he had helped her flee that awful cavern and return home.

Whatever George Lovell did, he did for himself. She had learned that the hard way.

Irene found a clean chemise and bloomers. She chose a dress of good, thick wool—midnight blue with slashes of white at the throat. She put on a touch of lipstick and brushed her hair. When she’d finished, she felt semi-human again, although she still wanted a bath and a brandy. Perhaps not in that order.

After retrieving a heavy wool coat from the closet, Irene chose a pair of stockings and a pair of shoes and made her way out of the room. George Lovell stood a few paces down the hall, studying a statuette of a nameless Greek nymph, a pipe clenched between his teeth. The smell of the smoke warmed Irene down to her toes. She tried not to like that smell. Tried not to think of all the memories tied up in that smell.

Like falling asleep in Father’s arms.

He looked up when she stepped into the hall. Fine, he said. Just fine. Let me grab your bag and we’ll go to the station right now.

The moaning hadn’t stopped. If anything, it had picked up in intensity. The wind had become a tempest.

I already told you, Father. I’m not going anywhere.

His face turned a dark red. He tore the pipe from his mouth.

I know Harry tried to kill me, Father, Irene said. And I know the types of nightmares you and your friends can conjure up. It didn’t stop us from retrieving the mask the first time. It won’t stop us from doing it again. I don’t know why you helped me tonight. Plans within plans, I’m sure. Some gambit to advance your standing with the Children, perhaps. Frankly, I don’t care. Irene paused and smiled. She felt like she’d swallowed an icicle. You’ve made a mistake, Father. Goodbye.

She started to walk around him. Her father grabbed her arm. His eyes were watery and weak, and his breath came in bursts, like a punctured tire. You don’t understand, he said. You’ve never understood.

I understand enough, Irene said. She pulled free and continued down the hall.

At the door to her mother’s room, Irene paused. The sound was louder here. It wasn’t a moan, now, but a ragged, breathy cry. Irene tapped on the door and, after a moment, pushed it open. The room was paneled with dark woods and capped with a frosty blue paper trim. A canopied bed floated in the middle of the room like a white cloud, and behind the hanging, Irene’s mother was a motionless, dark form. Irene’s skin crawled, and she glimpsed something out of the corner of her eye. When she turned to see it, though, there was nothing but the wardrobe with a limp lavender sleeve caught in its doors.

Irene raised the lamps and stepped into the room. The light helped—it made the room feel more normal, in spite of the sounds coming from her mother. Irene crossed the room on tiptoe and parted the hangings around the bed.

Mary Elizabeth Lovell was a slender woman—a harsher judge than Irene might have said that she was bony. She had angular features that might have been beautiful in youth but now made her look severe. She lay in bed, eyes closed, as still as a dead woman. Her mouth hung open, and a thread of drool trailed from her chin. With each breath, Irene’s mother loosed a whimper. Under closed lids, her eyes moved frantically.

Mother, Irene said, taking her hand. Wake up, Mother. It’s just a dream.

Leave her be, Irene, George Lovell said from the doorway.

Wake up, Mother. Please wake up. Irene shook her shoulder.

Mary Elizabeth Lovell’s eyes snapped open. She stared at Irene for one long moment, and Irene was certain that her mother wasn’t seeing her. And then her mother began to scream.

George Lovell crossed the room, latched onto Irene’s arm, and dragged her towards the door.

See what you’ve done? he said. Your mother is ill, Irene. She doesn’t need you bothering her. And she certainly doesn’t need you adding to her strain by acting like an obstinate child. At the door, he shoved Irene into the hall and blocked the doorway. You’ve made your bed, Irene, with Witte and the rest of his troop. Now you can lie in it.

What have you done to Mother?

Your mother suffers from nothing you can cure. Goodnight, Irene.

What have you done to her?

I said goodnight, Irene.

Irene studied her father a moment longer. He didn’t budge from the doorway. From within the bedroom, Mary Elizabeth’s screams continued, bouncing off the wood-paneled walls in a steady, high-pitched note.

Irene pulled on her coat and marched towards the front door.

Chapter 4

As Sam clung to the back of the truck, the vehicle took another corner and skidded across a patch of ice. His fingers were blue with cold, and he cursed Cian Shea for getting him into this mess. The truck continued along the street, and when it passed the next streetlamp, Sam peered at the truck door’s lock.

Dark as the devil’s ass.

He cursed and pulled his picks from one pocket. Then he set to work undoing the lock.

The truck bounced along the ice, and Sam kept up a steady stream of swearing as he tried to open the lock. The lock couldn’t be that complicated. In fact, it should have been damned simple to open.

And it would have been, too, if Sam hadn’t been flopping along on the back of a truck with his hands turning into blocks of ice.

But when the truck turned at the next street, and the momentum threatened to tear Sam from the truck, Sam realized he was grinning.

It was, after all, damned good fun.

What he needed was half a minute with the truck stopped. That would be enough time to open the doors and haul Shea’s mick ass out of the truck. But even a city the size of St. Louis grew quiet after midnight, and the frosted streets were empty.

Until they rounded the next corner. Light and heat poured from a massive stone building on the left, and dozens of people—men and women—filled the street. At first, the blaze of warmth and the number of people made Sam think that they’d stumbled across the remains of an exuberant Christmas party.

Then he heard the screams.

Fire blazed in the windows of the stone building, and the people in the street fought with each other. Many wore simple, nondescript clothes. Others wore white coats or uniforms. A massive man with a frizz of black hair stomped through the snow, giggling like a little girl and holding ratty blanket in one hand. He leaned back and shouted something at the sky, but the chaos made the words impossible to make out.

Mad. They were all mad.

The truck slowed and then, out of necessity, stopped. There was no other option—the street was full of people fighting, and a few men had begun to form a bucket brigade to fight the fire. Sam slid the picks into the lock and, after a few seconds, gave them a twist.

The door popped open.

Cian Shea, his red hair looking like it had been born from a copper tornado, blinked at him.

Sam? he asked.

Sam grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the truck. Run, he said.

Cian threw a look back at the truck and hesitate.

Run, or I’ll kick your mick ass all the way to Harry’s, Sam said.

This time, Cian started moving. His hand were cuffed behind his back, but he set a good pace, and Sam stayed at his side. As they reached the next intersection, a new voice joined the shouts. Sam glanced back and saw that the man with the gun had climbed out of the truck and was coming after them. He raised the gun and fired.

The gunshot rang in the darkness. Sam whistled and grabbed Cian’s arm.

Faster, he said. Much faster.

They ran.

As they did, Sam cast one last glance back. He saw the man with the gun stumble to a halt, take aim, and then lower his gun without firing.

And then, in the light of the growing fires, Sam saw the name carved into the face of the burning stone building.

St. Margaret’s Asylum.

Chapter 5

Pearl Morecott climbed the icy steps, keeping one hand on the rail, and squinted against the morning light. She wore, as she had for her entire life, a sensible dress, sensible shoes, and a sensible winter coat. At the top of the stairs, she tapped snow from her shoes against the cement before continuing down the hall.

Sensible was a good word to describe Pearl. She knew that. Most days, she liked that. She was, if she were honest with herself, sensible about almost everything.

Except when it came to her choice in men.

And that was why she had come to Harry Witte’s apartment at half past seven in the morning, with the sun just beginning to raise his head. Last night had been Christmas dinner—a dinner that had been more festive than anything Pearl had known and yet, at the same time, strained. They had stopped the Children from acquiring the Mask of Dagon. At a cost, though. Harry and Cian had both been injured. Irene had been possessed by an ancient spirit. And Freddy was still furious that they had suspected him of working with the Children in the first place. Pearl didn’t blame him, but she suspected that the old Hun wouldn’t let the matter go easily. She’d need to do something nice for Freddy, something show him how much they appreciated him. Something to show how sorry they felt.

Pearl straightened her hat and coat as she came to Harry’s door. Not that it made much difference. Harry wouldn’t look twice at her. It wouldn’t matter if she wore the simple, brown wool dress that she had on today or one of those beautiful silk pieces that Irene wore so casually. That just wasn’t the way things were going to work between Pearl and Harry. She had accepted that.

But she still straightened her hat and coat. And she still put on a smile when she knocked.

Because, well, maybe.

There was no answer. Harry didn’t come to the door with his perfect face and perfect smile. He didn’t usher her into the apartment and offer her a cup of tea. The door remained closed, the bottom lined with snowy lint.

Pearl knocked again.

After a pair of minutes, she blew on her hands. Harry had told her to come at half past seven. Here she was. She’d dragged herself out of bed, washed her face, dressed. She’d crossed half the city, climbed those frozen steps, and, in general, sacrificed what could have been a rather enjoyable morning.

All because Harry Witte had crooked a finger and she had come running.

Another knock. This time harder, rattling the door. In the silence of the morning, the sound was violent.

The door on the other side of the hall opened. Warm air wrapped around Pearl’s stockings. A middle-aged man in a dressing gown glared at Pearl. He smoothed his mustache, looked up and down the hall, and stared at Pearl again.

I’m sorry, Pearl said.

With a grunt, the man shut the door.

Pearl buried her hands in her pockets and started back down the hallway. Back towards the frozen steps, and then to trudge through the snow-packed streets, back to her house in Dutchtown. The sun had raised his head another inch, still contemplating the day, uncertain if it were worth getting up. It was a rare clear day for St. Louis, aside from the wool gathered along the horizon. From the apartment buildings around Pearl, smoke climbed uneven steps towards the sky—white with a promise of blue.

Pearl?

Pearl’s gaze moved to the stairs. Sam stood there, his sandy hair in disarray, a smudge of grease along one cheek, looking like an overgrown boy in need of a mother. And, at the same time, like the kind of boy Pearl might have fallen for twenty years before and had her heart broken a dozen times in a row.

The way she had with Harry Witte. Or, God rest his soul, Tommy Morecott.

Next to Sam, looking like a bear that had kissed a fire, was Cian Shea. His red hair had been combed by thunder and lightning, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He was big and solid and, until Irene got him riled up, quiet and reliable. He offered a smile. He looked like a man who was weary and had no rest in sight.

Sam, Cian, Irene said. What are you doing here?

Running, Sam said, pushing Cian past her. Where’s Harry?

I don’t know, Pearl said. She followed them back to Harry’s door. He wasn’t answering.

Well, he better wake up, Sam said. He hammered on the door. I found Mr. Shea starting on a journey. Sam knocked again, more loudly, and added, He didn’t even say goodbye, Pearl. Can you imagine? Not even to me, his bosom buddy.

No flicker of a smile on Cian’s face. If anything, he looked more tired. It’s a long story, he said. I’ll explain it later.

Not a single thank you, Sam muttered. I risk my ass, dragged behind that truck, liable to fall and snap my neck. Not a word of thanks.

As Sam raised his hand to knock again, the door behind them opened, and the middle-aged man in the dressing gown stared out at all three of them.

Good morning, Pearl said. Sorry again.

You realize it’s not yet eight, the man said.

Sorry, Sam said. I didn’t realize that. I’m glad Harry has a walking clock for a neighbor. Tell me, are you free for consultation all day? I might be wondering what time it is in a few hours and—

Pearl pinched Sam’s arm, and he cut off with a yelp. We’re very sorry, Pearl said. She pulled a ring of keys from her clutch. I just found my keys. We won’t be any more bother.

Still glaring at them—and at Sam in particular—the man shut the door.

What was that for? Sam said, holding up his arm. And since when do you have keys to Harry’s place?

Pearl turned the key in the lock and let them into Harry’s apartment. Since forever. And you were being rude. Now get inside.

Sam started to say something, but Cian poked him in the back, and Sam stumbled into the apartment.

What happened, Cian? Pearl said. She turned around to shut the door. Start at the very beginning, I—

Pearl paused. Irene Lovell stood in the doorway, her dark hair in disarray, bruises covering her face and neck. She trembled like the last leaf of autumn.

Harry, she said, and the word sounded like the beginning of a question, or perhaps the end of a long sentence.

And then she collapsed.

Chapter 6

Lay her on the sofa, Pearl said to Cian as he carried Irene into the apartment. Do you know what’s wrong with her?

Cian’s face could have started a fire, but he held Irene as though she were made of glass. He laid her on the sofa, straightened her coat and dress, and cupped her cheek as he studied her bruises.

Someone did this to her, Cian said. Someone beat her. He curled his hands at his side.

I’ve had worse, Sam said, emerging from the kitchen with a slice of ham in hand. He moved over to Irene. She’ll be fine.

Cian looked up, and Sam retreated a pace.

What I meant to say, Sam said, was, it doesn’t look too bad. See how it’s just the one mark. Right down her face, across her nose. Maybe she fell and hit her head.

She didn’t fall, Cian said.

I’m only saying—

Enough, Pearl said. She went to the bathroom and soaked a cloth in cold water. When she returned, Sam was perched on the edge of the armchair, still nibbling on his snack. The smell of ham filled the air. Cian hadn’t moved from Irene’s side. Pearl sat on the sofa next to Irene and laid the cold cloth across Irene’s brow. Irene sighed and stirred.

Pearl saw Cian’s hands clench again. The gesture—and the feeling behind it—wrenched something open inside Pearl.

She had forgotten what it was like, being in love and being able to show it.

Irene’s eyes opened. She looked at Cian, and then up at Pearl, and then took in the rest of the room.

How dreadfully embarrassing, she said, trying to sit up.

Stay where you are, Pearl said. You hit your head.

Irene bit her lip but lay down again.

What happened? Cian said.

Pearl reached down to smooth away a wet strand of Irene’s hair. She was in the middle of the movement when Irene said, It was Harry.

Pearl froze. Then she forced herself to complete the gesture. What do you mean?

I’m sorry Pearl, Irene said. Truly. But it was him. He came to my room. He hit me. He took me somewhere—a cave, I’m not sure where—and left me for dead. Irene paused and swallowed. Her eyes were bright with tears. He was wearing something. I think it was the mask.

That can’t be. Pearl stood up and crossed to the other side of the room. Harry wouldn’t—he couldn’t.

I knew it, Sam said through a mouthful of ham. I damn well knew it.

Before Pearl realized she was moving, she turned and slapped Sam. Not hard, but the sound filled the living room. Pearl pulled back. Every inch of her felt numb, except for her stinging hand.

I’m sorry, she said.

Sam rubbed his cheek and resumed chewing.

I’m so sorry, Pearl said again, but Irene, this doesn’t make sense.

Cian turned to face her. The rest of the room seemed slippery, but Pearl noticed that Cian was holding Irene’s hand. In some ways, Pearl, it does make sense. Think about it. He used magic, he tortured Sam, he was desperate to find the mask.

But we destroyed the mask!

We destroyed a mask, Cian said. Something he brought out and showed us. You told me that over the last few months, someone kept getting to the cultic artifacts before you. What if it wasn’t someone else at all? What if that’s what Harry told you? Cian paused. Freddy was the perfect one to keep around, because if you ever became suspicious, Freddy was the one that everyone would suspect.

"And we