by Gregory Ashe
The other man was tall and broad-shouldered and had long, matted dark hair. He fired at Patrick, and a puff of stuffing from the chaise floated into the air. Then a bullet caught him in the shoulder and knocked him back against the hotel wall.
Harry got to his feet, still holding his revolver on the other man. “That should be all of them.”
“The Dane?” Cian asked.
“Over here,” Patrick said.
“Watch him,” Harry said with a jerk of his head. Then he picked his way through the furniture. The dark-haired man glared at Harry. He stood with one hand pressed over his shoulder. In his other hand, he still held his pistol. He looked like a mick, and not the good kind, if there were such a thing.
“Who were you supposed to meet here?”
“My sweet ma,” the man said. “I’m going to take my time killing you, once my men get here. I want to know how you found us. How you knew about all of this.”
The sound of a frantic scramble came from behind the chaise. Cian crossed the room, hopped over the chaise, and kicked the pistol out of Patrick’s hand.
Patrick yelped and shook his hand. “God, Cian, I—”
“I said, shut up, Patrick.”
Patrick swallowed.
Cian could almost hear Pearl’s silent disapproval. He put the tip of the Colt at the base of Patrick’s neck and motioned for the other man to stand up. Patrick did so. His eyes kept flicking to the long-haired man.
“That’s Byrne?” Cian asked.
Patrick nodded.
“You told them?” Byrne said, glaring at Patrick. “I knew I should have just cut your damn throat when I had a chance. Look at you, stupid little mick, thinking you’re a big shit. I would have paid you for the damn mask.”
“Aren’t you a mick?” Harry asked. He threw a quick look at Cian. “Shouldn’t he not be using that word like that?”
“There are micks and then there are micks,” Cian said with a shrug. He grinned. “Right, Patrick?”
Harry was still looking at Cian when Byrne began to move. The long-haired man’s arm came up, pistol moving towards Harry. Cian started to cry out, but everything happened too fast. A crack of gunfire ricocheted through the room.
Byrne slid down the wall. A line of blood from the back of his head stained the paper.
“Damn,” Harry said as he lowered his revolver. “Do you really think he has other men here?”
“If he does, they’re dead or running,” Cian said. “The lobby is filled with sauria, and I saw golems on the stairs. We need to get out of here now.”
Pearl spun and stared at the broken wall. At the same time, every hair on Cian’s body stood straight up, as though he had crawled inside a thundercloud. His breath caught. Overhead, the flames in the gas lamps bent sideways. The smell of hot glass mixed with the lingering scent of gunfire.
“Something is coming,” Harry said.
The gas lamps shrank to blue dots, like match tips on the edge of catching. Cian felt a shiver run through Patrick. Then the other man broke like a frightened deer, pushing past Cian and making for the door. Cian brought the Colt across the back of Patrick’s head, and he dropped like a sack of bad potatoes.
But the fear was contagious, riding up Cian’s spine on a white horse.
And then she floated into view, set against a backdrop of blue-white light, like the Virgin Mary in a child’s prayerbook.
“Irene,” Cian breathed.
Framed by the jagged edges of the ruined wall, Irene hung in the air a foot above the ground. Her short hair was disheveled, her eyes shadowed, as though she had been ill for a long time, and the color washed from her face by the sourceless blue-white light. At the sound of her name, Irene’s eyes closed once, but when they opened there was no recognition in them.
“The third party,” Harry said. He holstered his revolver and laughed. “Well played, Marie-Thérèse. Very well played. And all this time, I thought you were on the run. Tell me—what did you offer the girl?”
The corners of Irene’s mouth twitched into a ghost of a smile. “Very little, as it turns out, Henry. Love, and desperation, makes fools of us all.” Her eyes drifted towards Cian, and her smile broadened. “What have you done to Patrick?”
“Nothing permanent, I’m afraid,” Harry answered.
“That’s a pity. He deserves some sort of punishment for his behavior.”
“Come now, Marie-Thérèse, you can’t believe I’ll let you have the mask. What do you hope to gain from this display?”
Irene’s lips curled up, baring lovely white teeth and turning her smile into a snarl. “Had you faced me before, Henry, we might have been more evenly matched. But now,” she gestured down at her body, “like this, I am restored to my former strength. Leave now, Henry, and for old time’s sake I will give you a day or two to start running.”
Harry crossed his arms and studied Irene—or Marie-Thérèse. Something had changed in Harry’s face. Cian’s stomach flopped like a sick dog.
“You can’t be serious,” Cian said, his gaze moving from Harry to Marie-Thérèse and then back again. “Look what she’s done to Irene. You have to stop her. You have to help Irene.”
When Harry answered, his voice was low. “Cian, what Irene did—she had to do it willingly. She made a deal with Marie-Thérèse.”
Marie-Thérèse, or Irene, laughed and drifted into the room. Pearl moved backward with calm, careful steps. Her hand dipped into her clutch. Marie-Thérèse ignored her.
“Henry’s right,” Marie-Thérèse said to Cian. “He’s quite well-versed in this type of thing. He knows more than most about the weeping lore. Do you know how much he knows? Have you ever wondered?”
“Enough, Marie-Thérèse,” Harry said.
“Henry, have you been keeping secrets from your friends?” Marie-Thérèse made a tsking noise. “Would you rather that I told them? Henry Witte is—”
Harry threw one hand forward and shouted a word that Cian couldn’t hear. It sounded like a massive wave striking land. An invisible force hit Marie-Thérèse and hurled her back through the ruined wall. She struck the far wall. Plaster crumbled. For a moment, the lights overhead began to warm.
And then Marie-Thérèse laughed. She shrugged her way free of the slabs of plaster. The gaslights dwindled to blue specks. She floated forward, trailing crumbs of dust. The backdrop of blue-white light hardened until it looked like the slabs of ice floating on the Mississippi. At the threshold to the room, Marie-Thérèse paused. A look of confusion trailed across Irene’s features for a moment.
Harry held his hand out. He was speaking, and sweat dripped down his face. Cian’s ears felt like they were full of water, as though he’d swum to the bottom of a lake and the pressure was building.
Then, with a pop, the feeling vanished. Marie-Thérèse glided into the room. Cian raised the Colt and then paused.
Because she was still Irene. Somewhere in there was Irene, the girl with dark eyes. The girl who had cut past five years of Cian’s self-pity and self-doubt.
Marie-Thérèse flipped one hand out and called out a word. Harry was flung into the air and pinned against the wall. The gas lamps trembled.
And then Harry began to scream.
Pearl pulled her hand from her clutch. She held a small derringer. She aimed it at Irene. There was no hesitation in her face. She might as well have been Annie Oakley and Artemis and Diane rolled into one.
“No,” Cian said. His throat was raw, as though he’d been screaming. He stumbled forward, putting himself between Pearl and Marie-Thérèse.
No. That wasn’t true.
He put himself between Pearl and Irene. He set his back to Pearl and stared into Irene’s dark eyes. Marie-Thérèse didn’t acknowledge him. She stared at Harry. Harry’s scream had risen to new pitch. The sound scraped Cian’s bones like an icepick.
His eyes stung. That seemed stupid. Stupid as shit.
“Move,” Pearl said. “Move, Cian!”
Cian shook his head.
“Irene,” Cian said. “I know you can hear me. Irene, you have to stop her. You can’t let her do this.”
Marie-Thérèse’s eyes snapped to Cian. Amusement twisted her features.
Run, Cian’s gut said. Run. Run the way he ran in France. Run, and leave Irene, and leave Harry, and live another day.
Run.
Corinne’s face pressed against the stone.
The wet, split-melon sound of Dunn’s head.
And that night, a wet, French night, his breath fogging Corinne’s window. She had screamed for help and he had run.
And never stopped running.
Right then, the ground was firm under Cian’s feet, as though the earth had stopped spinning. He stared at Irene. Not at Marie-Thérèse. Not at the thing that hid behind Irene’s face. He stared at Irene, all the way at the back, where she hid behind barbed comments and clever jabs. The brave, bold, smart, beautiful woman, with whom he had fallen completely in love.
For a moment, a look of total shock filled Marie-Thérèse’s features. And then Marie-Thérèse was gone, and Cian was looking into Irene’s eyes.
The sound of Pearl’s shot broke the world in half. Half on instinct, Cian moved right. The round struck Cian in the back and knocked him forward. He hit the carpet on his knees and fell forward. The fibers tickled his chin. His back felt like a mule had practiced clogging on it.
Through blurred vision, it took him a moment to realize the blue-white light was gone. The gas lamps spread amber warmth through the room.
And then Irene’s voice.
“Cian, you’re bleeding all over the rug.”
One moment, Irene had been trapped behind thick glass. The world had shrunk to pinpoint figures. And then, the next moment, Cian’s sea-green eyes had stared right at her, and the glass was no thicker than cobwebs.
Irene felt her feet hit the carpet. The gas lamps fluttered overhead. Her head throbbed—not painful, but like a drum skin. The furniture in the room had been overturned. Blood covered the walls. The scent of death was in the air, blood and fear. Harry lay against the far wall, his eyes closed, his breathing ragged. Pearl held a derringer and stared at Irene as though seeing a ghost.
Cian lay on the floor. A bullet hole marked the back of his jacket. Red stained his shirt. Irene’s heart climbed into her mouth.
In what was perhaps not her finest moment, she said the first thing that came to mind.
“Cian, you’re bleeding all over the rug.”
She dropped to her knees. Cian groaned, and Irene lifted his head. His eyes were bright with pain. Pain and relief and a transparent vulnerability that dragged Irene out to sea. She didn’t care. She didn’t care at all.
“What in the world do you care about the damn rug?” he said. “I’ve been shot and all you can think about is the rug?”
“It’s not that bad,” Irene said, inspecting the wound. “It’s the fatty part of the shoulder. I think I can see it—”
“Not that bad?” Cian said. “What do you—”
Irene hooked her nail around the bullet.
Cian roared and tried to pull away.
“God, woman, leave it be!”
With a sniff of disapproval, Irene wiped her hands on Cian’s ruined jacket. And then, all at once, she started crying.
Cian struggled to get up, cradling his right arm. Through her tears, Irene tried to help him. Cian mumbled something, patting her arm, and then the sobs tore through Irene with full force. She let herself fall against his shoulder—the uninjured one.
She was a suffragette. She was an independent woman. She most certainly did not need a man to comfort her.
But right then, Cian’s muscular arm around her felt very nice.
After a few minutes, she pulled back, wiped her eyes, and dug through her clutch for a handkerchief. She blew her nose and said, “Cian, are you all right?”
“What do you mean am I all right? Are you all right?”
She dropped the handkerchief back in the clutch, stepped back, and said, “Of course I’m all right. Don’t be silly.” She paused and studied him. “That jacket is hopeless, you know.”
The confusion in his eyes, as he got to his feet, was worth almost everything.
Irene’s amusement faded, though, when she turned around. Pearl knelt by Harry, who still lay at the base of the wall, his face slack and his eyes closed. The discarded derringer sat on the carpet, its single shot expended. When Pearl looked up, her eyes were red.
“I’m so sorry, Cian.”
He shook his head.
Pearl nodded and turned her attention back to Harry.
“Will he be all right?” Irene asked. “I didn’t—Pearl, I couldn’t have known.”
Pearl didn’t answer.
“I swear, Marie-Thérèse didn’t tell me,” Irene said. If I—”
Cian’s hand closed over hers. Irene swallowed the rest of the words. She felt like she’d spent the day chewing poison oak.
“Pearl?” Cian said. “We need to go.”
“Yes,” Pearl said. She nodded and stood. “You won’t be able to carry him, of course. Not like that. Let me think. A sled, perhaps. Even a blanket. We’ll have to drag him.”
They set to work, digging through the ruined furniture. Irene found a thick quilt in an attached bedroom, which she carried back to Pearl. When she returned, Cian held a familiar box under his arm. He had flipped over the coffee table and now, with a few well-placed kicks, snapped off the legs. When Pearl lifted one of Harry’s arms, though, he gave a groan and his eyes slid open.
“Good God,” Harry said. “What did she hit me with? An elephant?”
Pearl looked a like a woman lost at sea who had sighted land. Her smile, disbelieving at first, grew and grew. Irene wiped at her eyes and slapped Cian’s arm when she saw him grinning at her.
“Harry, we need to leave,” Pearl said. “We have the mask, but we have to go now.”
With a lopsided smile, Harry stroked the edge of Pearl’s face. Then he pushed himself to his feet. Then he swore.
Irene turned to see a man standing in the opening that had been knocked in the wall. He was tall and handsome in a patrician sort of way: a high forehead, dark, swept-back hair, and cheekbones to cut glass. He looked just short of middle-age, and his face might have come off the statue of some forgotten Roman emperor. Cold, hard, and dead.
He smiled, and Irene’s skin crawled.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Bullshit,” Cian said. He held the Colt awkwardly in his left hand.
The man raised an eyebrow, and his smile widened. “We haven’t been introduced. My name is Evander Lisle. That box belongs to me.”
“Bullshit,” Cian repeated.
Irene rolled her eyes.
“Your father was supposed to deliver it to me,” Evander said to Irene. “We had a deal. I carried out my part. Your father failed to fulfill his end.”
“My father—” Irene began.
“The box,” Evander said. “Now.”
“Go to hell,” Harry said.
Evander stepped into the room. He carried a sleek black walking stick, which he lifted and pointed in their direction. “I’d heard better about you, Harry Witte. Look at you—beaten by a dead woman, barely able to stand, and fumbling in the dark with things beyond your comprehension. Let me assure you, Harry, you’re no match for me.”
“Too many people have been telling me that lately,” Harry said. “Shoot him, Cian.”
“Gladly.” Cian raised the gun and fired.
Instead of striking Evander, though, the bullet struck an invisible barrier. With a flash of light, the shell spun off to the side and buried itself in the wall. A deep note, like a rung bell, lingered in the air.
“Before you try that again,” Evander said, “let me offer you a reason to be more prudent.” He grinned and stepped to one side, like a performer revealing the main act.
The dust in the hall had settled,
and the gas lamps burned brightly now, and the only sound was a set of shuffling steps. Irene rubbed her arms, wishing she had her coat and her revolver, feeling chills from head to toe. A moment later, a man rounded the corner of the hall and came into view.
Sam.
The boy’s sandy hair was mussed, and his face was drained of color. His eyes were wide. The eyes of a trapped animal. Each step seemed labored as he dragged his feet across the rug. In one shaking hand, he held a knife to his own throat.
“What did you do to this one, Harry?” Evander asked. “You left him cracked like an egg. All I had to do was pull—” Evander made a motion with one hand, and Sam went up onto his toes. A muffled scream came from between clenched teeth. “—and he was mine. A poor choice for a rear guard, Harry. A very poor choice.”
Irene looked from Sam to Harry. Harry was pale but composed. Cian flicked a glance at Harry, though, and on Cian’s face, Irene saw something that dug iron claws into her stomach. Cian knew something.
He knew Evander was telling the truth. Harry had done something to Sam.
“Now,” Evander said. “The box.”
Cian took a step forward.
“No,” Harry said. His voice cracked. “No. Cian, don’t give it to him.”
“Harry, he’s got Sam.”
“Who the fuck cares about Sam?” Harry’s voice rose. “You give him that mask and he’ll drag Dagon from the sea kicking and screaming.”
Evander’s eyes widened, and then he threw back his head and started laughing. He laughed for almost a full minute, one hand over his stomach, and when he stopped he pressed his fingers to his lips.
“God’s blood, Harry,” Evander said with another chuckle. “You don’t think I’m mad, do you? Let Dagon and the rest of the endormie stay where they are, dead and dreaming. If that’s all you care about, set your mind at ease. I will not raise Dagon.”
“You don’t want to wake him?” Irene asked. “Then what has this all been about? What do you care about the mask?”
Evander smiled again. “The mask is for my own use. It is, after all, still an object of power. But all this,” he paused and gestured at the corpses littering the room, “your father and the Dane and Seamus. All this is about exactly what you’d expect from thugs and gangsters.”