They did dump him in an alley with a bottle, but Abel didn’t drink it. He went to the train station instead, intending to buy himself a ticket as far as he could afford to go – Chicago, maybe. He was resigned. He couldn’t defeat Cain, but he could avoid becoming a meal.

  Except a couple of comets came at him from both ends of an alley, offering no escape even though he could sense their approach, and grabbed him a block from the depot.

  “Cain doesn’t want you leaving town,” one of them said. “It’s too much trouble to fetch you when we wake up our god.” They roughed him up a little, and then dumped him back in the alley where he’d started.

  This time, he did pick up the bottle, and he kept picking up bottles until Diana found him and showed him a glimmer of light.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Prisoner

  To her surprise, Diana discovered she liked having people in her home. She’d been alone since her father died, and having Ruby and Abel in her kitchen, drinking coffee and eating eggs and toast with her, awakened some forgotten sociable part of her personality. The best part was, Diana could truly be herself with them. She’d become so accustomed to wearing masks – as a loyal Lodge member, of course, but also just as a businesswoman, a fashion expert, an entrepreneur – that being fully herself was like putting down a heavy load.

  The mood should have been heavy, but Ruby was impish and irrepressible, one of those people who thrived on danger and found it exciting. Abel, too, wasn’t the dour figure she’d first met, but a man energized and excited at the prospect of doing something. He sat at the counter beside Ruby, sipping coffee, and said, “I suppose, one way or another, all this business will soon be done.”

  “One way or another?” Ruby said. “You mean, we either get your bit of god-flesh, or we get murdered by Lodge members?”

  “I guess there might be other outcomes,” Abel said, “but those do seem like the main ones.”

  “What do we do with the jar after we get our hands on it, anyway?” Diana asked. “Just… burn it in a trash barrel?”

  “I think fire is worth a try, yes,” Abel said. “It worked for Hercules and the hydra – when he burned the stump after cutting off one of the monster’s heads, it stopped growing new ones.”

  “A fisherman with a classical education?” Ruby said.

  Abel chuckled. “My mother liked to read. She left me with a head full of stories about gods and monsters.” He sighed. “I just wish I’d realized sooner that Asterias was the latter instead of the former.”

  “Yes, your poor judgment is unforgiveable,” Diana said. “Unlike my unimpeachable sense of who to trust.”

  “We all make mistakes.” Ruby gestured with a piece of toast smeared with sunny yellow egg yolk. “The point is not to make the same ones twice.”

  They finished their coffee, and Diana checked the clock over the stove. “I’m going to give the Lodge a call and see what I can find out about Sanford’s plans for the day.” She went down, leaving Abel and Ruby to tease each other – she treated him like an older brother, and he treated her like a bratty younger sister.

  The other end of the line rang and rang, and Diana almost gave up when the perky intern from the day before answered. “Silver Twilight Lodge.”

  “Oh, hello. This is Diana Stanley. I was hoping to meet with Mr Sanford.”

  “Oh, hi Diana. Let me take a look at his schedule… hmm.” Diana heard the faint sound of pages turning. “Today isn’t good.”

  “Oh?” she said. “Does he have meetings at the Lodge?”

  “No, he had me postpone today’s committee meeting. He said he had an errand that was likely to keep him occupied all afternoon, and not to expect him back after lunch. I can try to get you an appointment later this week, but I’ll have to check with him.” She chuckled, like Sanford was her eccentric grandfather instead of one of the most powerful men in the state, and maybe the entire Eastern Seaboard. “You know he isn’t the best at keeping his staff up to date on his comings and goings in advance.”

  “Oh, that’s fine,” Diana said. “I’ll see him at the next regular meeting anyway. It’s nothing that can’t wait.” If she’d really wanted to talk to Sanford, she could have pushed – he had told her to call if she saw anything strange, after all – but she was happy to get the brush-off from a clueless Initiate.

  Diana hung up, then let out a slow breath. Sanford was going to be out all afternoon. They were actually going to do this. Infiltrate the Lodge. Claim Asterias. Save the world. And ideally leave Diana in a position to continue working against the Lodge afterward. Her head spun with dizzy elation. After these past months of gnawing indecision, it felt so good to have a plan. She went back upstairs to share the news.

  •••

  Abel said he had to run an errand, and Ruby and Diana talked out details while he was gone. One difficulty was making it look plausible that Diana had taken Ruby prisoner. Diana could hardly carry her bound and gagged up the walk. “I suppose you could walk me in at knifepoint,” Ruby said. “Though us shuffling along with a knife to my throat might draw attention on French Hill.”

  “I have my father’s shotgun, but that’s not subtle, either,” Diana said. “Realistically, if I actually caught you, I’d call the Lodge for help taking you in, but that would be counterproductive.”

  “That’s one word for it,” Ruby said. “I–”

  Abel came clomping back up the stairs, and dropped the key Diana had loaned him on the counter. He held something bundled up in sailcloth. “Here,” he said. “This should help make for a more convincing ruse.” He unwound the cloth and revealed a strange-looking pistol with a long barrel, a metal box attached in front of the trigger, and a rounded hilt.

  “Some kind of German gun?” Ruby said.

  “Mauser C96,” Abel said. “The pawnbroker called it a ‘broomhandle’, I guess because of the grip. This model holds six rounds, in this magazine.” He tapped the metal box. “It’s loaded.”

  “Where did you get that?” Diana asked. She wasn’t unfamiliar with firearms, since they’d had some on the farm, but it was still disturbing to have one in her house.

  “I’ve had it for a while,” Abel said. “After Cain chased me off, I took the last cash in my pockets and picked up a gun. I planned to kill him, to end all this, but I couldn’t get close. He had too many comets looking out for him. I stashed the gun in an old shack by the river, and fortunately it was still there. It couldn’t kill Cain, but it can help you play the part of Ruby’s captor, if you like.”

  “May I?” Diana held out her hand, and Abel gave her the pistol. After looking it overt, Diana grunted. “The ammunition loads in from the top, I see, and the safety is here… it’s a semi-automatic?”

  Abel grinned. “It is. Just pull the trigger as many times as you need. You know your way around guns?”

  “My father had a shotgun and hunting rifles, but he showed me how to use pistols, too – just revolvers, though. This is something else. I think I get the idea. How much ammunition do you have?”

  “Just what’s in the magazine now, six shots. I figured if I didn’t get Cain in six tries I wasn’t going to get him at all.”

  “Just as well. I don’t intend to fire it.” Diana looked up. “Ruby, would it be all right if I stuck this between your shoulder blades and walked you into the Lodge?”

  “Just keep the safety on,” Ruby said.

  “We could unload it, to be safe,” she began, but Ruby shook her head.

  “We don’t know what’s going to happen in the Lodge,” she said. “We might as well take every edge we can get.”

  •••

  Early afternoon arrived, and they commenced their plan. Ruby and Diana walked the first few blocks side-by-side, but when they got closer to French Hill, Diana held up the pistol, pointed at Ruby’s back, with a scarf draped over the weapon and her wrist to hide it from casual glances. “This is awkward,” Diana said as they walked up the hill.

  “Try being me. I’ve got an itch right between my shoulder blades. If we had a car, you could have put me in the trunk and driven right up the Lodge’s front door. Or maybe a back entrance. They have to take deliveries, right?” Ruby was babbling. Diana realized that, despite all the young woman’s bravado and general air of nonchalant confidence, she was nervous, too.

  “This will work,” Diana said, as much to reassure herself as Ruby.

  “Of course it will. I haven’t blown a job yet.”

  They reached the Lodge, and Diana pressed the gun into Ruby’s back, because this needed to look right. “Are you ready?” she murmured.

  “I am. I just hope Abel is.” Ruby straightened her shoulders. “Okay. I’m putting on my most annoyed and put-upon face. Let’s go.”

  “Open the gate,” Diana said loudly. “Come on, in you go.”

  Ruby pushed the gate open, and Diana nudged her with the pistol, urging her to take a step onto the path. A pair of black dogs, almost the size of small ponies, stepped out of the long grass on either side of the walkway. They bared their long yellow teeth, but they didn’t growl or bark or make any sound at all – that was more unnerving than snarls would have been.

  “Going to feed me to the dogs, then?” Ruby said, a tremble in her voice that Diana took to be genuine.

  “You know me,” Diana said to the dogs. “I have Lodge business.”

  The front door opened, and Sarah Van Shaw emerged, chewing on a chicken leg. She sauntered down the steps and along the path, stopping between the dogs. “Diana.” She dropped the chicken bone and the dog on her left snapped it out of the air and made it disappear.

  You aren’t supposed to feed chicken bones to dogs, they could choke, Diana thought inanely. “Sarah,” she said instead.

  “Who’s your friend?” the warden asked.

  “No friend of mine, or of yours,” Diana said. “This is Ruby Standish.”

  Van Shaw raised an eyebrow, then peered at the younger woman. She grunted. “So it is. Didn’t recognize her with the hair and all. Not quite as much the fancy girl as she looks in the photos the master found.”

  “I didn’t think this was a formal occasion,” Ruby said, then winced as Diana jabbed her in the back.

  “Now how did you come to keep company with Ruby Standish?” Van Shaw asked.

  “Is this really the time and place to discuss this, warden? I’ve got a gun on her, but she’s not the most well-behaved prisoner. Can we continue our discussion inside? We should tell the master–”

  “He’s across town, dealing with some damn fool nonsense,” Van Shaw said. “But I take your point. We’d better get her inside, find a nice cozy room where she can wait. A room without any valuables in it.”

  “I thought, perhaps… downstairs?” Diana said. “No one will hear her there, and it’s tricky to get out again.”

  Van Shaw grunted again. “That’s right, you’re a Seeker now, so you’ve been past the first threshold. Aye, that’s a good enough idea. Don’t want any of the Initiates stumbling on her in the main house.” She stepped aside, and the dogs vanished back into the grass. “Step lively, young miss.” She grinned nastily. “I’ll take that pistol and escort her the rest of the way.”

  Diana scowled. “I’m the one who caught her, and I want to be the one to hand her over to the master.”

  “Fair enough. I’m not sending you home. But I’m the warden here, and I’ll be the one–”

  “Dump the bosses off your backs!” a man bellowed from the front gate, followed by a cataclysmic rattle. Van Shaw’s head snapped around, and Diana and Ruby looked, too.

  A man in shabby clothes, with a hat jammed down on his head, was banging a metal pole against the fence by the gate. “You’re a bunch of rich scum, stealing bread from the mouth of the working man!”

  “You’ve got some kind of Wobbly at the gates,” Ruby said, and then shouted, “Up with the working man! No gods, no masters!”

  Van Shaw slapped Ruby sharply across the face, then hissed. “Shut up, thief.”

  “Thass right!” the man bellowed. The dogs appeared on the other side of the fence from him, and now they were snarling, but couldn’t get at him through the bars. “We’re coming for you! We’ll tear it all down!” He kept banging the fence and jeered and taunted the dogs.

  “I think your dogs are about to get their heads caved in with a pipe,” Ruby said. “It seems a shame. They’re such lovable pups.”

  Van Shaw cursed, then jabbed a finger at Ruby and spoke to Diana. “Get her inside, take her downstairs, put her in the storage room on the left, right past the first threshold. Lock the door and wait for me outside.” She hurried off across the lawn, shouting, “Get out of here, you Wobbly scum, or I’ll open the gate and set the dogs on you!”

  “You treat us all like dogs!” he bellowed back. “Sitting in your fancy house lording it over us! I oughta burn the place down, starting with you!”

  Diana and Ruby hurried up the walk. “He’s convincing, isn’t he?” Ruby asked, voice sparkling with mirth. “It’s almost as if he’s speaking from the heart, and not just playing a role. Maybe if he survives all this he can become a labor organizer.”

  “As long as he keeps Van Shaw distracted, we might all live to change our careers,” Diana said. There was more shouting, and more banging, and then an almost musical tinkle as Abel ran along the fence, dragging his metal pole along the bars, shouting profanities. “I don’t think the warden will hurt him, as long as he doesn’t step onto Lodge property. Not every policeman in Arkham is beholden to the Order, and attacking him in broad daylight on the street would lead to trouble and fuss.”

  The front door was open, and Ruby stepped inside. “I never saw this part of the house before. I came in through the back.”

  “We’ll do a sightseeing tour later. Or not.” Diana propelled her through the anteroom, into the Lodge proper.

  The blonde Initiate at the long table looked at them in alarm. “What’s all that noise out there?”

  “Trouble with some vagrant,” Diana said. “You should see if the warden needs any help.”

  “Oh dear, oh dear.” She wrung her hands together. “Who’s this?”

  “Lodge business,” Diana said.

  “I have an appointment with the master later,” Ruby said airily.

  “I don’t remember making any appointment,” she said. “Maybe you should wait–”

  Diana said, “I am a Seeker, Initiate,” her voice sharp as a cleaver’s edge. “My business is not yours, and you will speak of this woman’s presence to no one, inside the Order or out.”

  The blonde’s eyes flared with anger, but then she bowed her head. “Of course, Seeker. I hear and obey.”

  Diana and Ruby continued deeper into the house, down a corridor lined with portraits of stern-faced men with elaborate facial hair, then through a hidden door disguised as a wall panel into a rather less glamorous portion of the residence, where the servants once lived. The walls here were bare plaster, and the boards bare wood, though strange sigils were daubed here and there in paint, mostly red, but occasionally bright yellow. The yellow ones were hard to look at, seeming to squirm at the edges of perception.

  Diana lowered the pistol, and watched Ruby’s shoulders relax. It must be unnerving to have a gun pressed against you, even if you knew the wielder had no intention of firing. “Are you all right?” Diana said. “It looked like she hit you hard.”

  “It felt like she loosened my teeth at first, but I’m all right. Let’s go. I know the way from here.” Ruby moved ahead, turning down narrow corridors until she reached a door that seemed to lead into a dusty linen closet lined with empty shelves. Ruby lifted one of the shelves in the middle, activating a hidden mechanism with a click. The wall on the left side of the pantry opened on silent hinges. Ruby pushed that panel open, revealing a short flight of stone steps.

  They hurried down into the dimness, the secret panel closing up behind them. The only light was a line of brightness below the door at the bottom of the steps. Ruby opened it, revealing a stone hallway lit by a single bare electric bulb. That corridor extended for only a few feet before the passage turned left.

  Diana remembered the first time she’d been shown the hidden places below the Lodge. She’d been so excited. What a fool she’d been. “The first threshold,” Diana murmured, looking down at the dark line on the floor revealed by the opening of the door.

  “Why do they call it that?” Ruby asked.

  “There are many levels below the house. Past the first threshold there are rooms that Seekers like myself are permitted to visit. There are other thresholds that only more advanced members of the order can pass, and there are… rumors about them. That if you pass over some of them, you leave this world and enter another. The first threshold is also called the Threshold of Salt.”

  She pointed. “You can see, there are salt crystals, among other things, mixed with the stone. Supposedly it’s a magical barrier. The master – Sanford, I mean, being here in the Lodge makes it seem natural to call him that – says it keeps certain ‘experiments’ from escaping. There’s also the Threshold of Silver, and the Yellow Threshold, and others I’m not even advanced enough to know about yet, though I’ve heard rumors.”

  “You tempt me to go exploring,” Ruby said. “I didn’t know about all those levels. What kind of treasures do you think the old man keeps locked up even deeper? But we should focus. We won’t have long before the warden comes looking for us.” She set off down the corridor like she’d been here a thousand times, and Diana followed after, trying to shake off her own sense of reverence. They’d promoted her to Seeker down here. This was the sanctum, or rather, a series of sanctums, and there were floors and rooms she’d never been permitted to see, that she’d once dreamed of entering. Now she knew those tantalizing closed doors likely hid rooms full of horrors.

  They moved past the storage room where Ruby was supposed to be locked up, and took a few moments to stage a scene – knocked over a wooden chair, dropped Diana’s scarf in the middle of the floor, and scuffed up the dust on the floor so it looked like there’d been a struggle. Then they proceeded past a series of locked doors, encountering no cultists along the way.