“Mmm, yes, but no. I am from… another time and another place. My people are capable of transposing our minds with those of others, across the depths of time. It is a talent we use to increase our storehouse of wisdom. We are scholars, you see.”

  Ruby didn’t want to believe. It was easier to think Sanford just had a madwoman locked up in this basement. But after the things she’d seen today, how could she rule anything out, even something this outlandish? “I’m sorry. I wish I could let you go.”

  “That is apparent. You cannot help me. I could help you, perhaps, and I am inclined to do so, if only because you are in opposition to Carl Sanford, and I support anything that undermines him. Is there anything you’d like to know, my failed rescuer, to assist you in your endeavors, whatever those might be?”

  “I wouldn’t mind directions to a back door. I need to get out of here, and I can’t go out the way I came in,” Ruby responded, not expecting much.

  The scholar surprised her. “If you proceed down this corridor in the direction you were going already, and take each left-hand turn as they arrive, you will eventually reach the ruins of an old kitchen. There is little left there now but rust, mice, and broken crockery, but unlike most of this basement, that room is part of the structure of the original Lodge. There is an old dumbwaiter there, and if you ascend the shaft, you will reach a room on the ground floor of the house. The upper dumbwaiter panel is sealed, but a human of your ingenuity can doubtless circumvent such an obstacle. From there, you need only reach the nearest exterior door or window. I can provide a list of the best candidates–”

  “No, thank you! I think I can figure it out from there. If… if there’s a way I can come back, and help you…”

  The scholar shrugged. “While this captivity is tedious, it will not be infinite. All barriers fail eventually. My relationship with time is not the same as yours. An eternity for you is but a moment for me, and I am good at patience. But, again, I appreciate your kindness.”

  Ruby turned to go, then paused. “Could I ask one other thing?”

  “Only one? Proceed.”

  “Have you ever heard of something called Asterias?”

  “Asteria means ‘starry’ in Greek, and Asterias is a genus of sea stars – ah, but for a woman who runs afoul of shoggoths in the course of committing thefts in the headquarters of a secret society dedicated to the occult, such prosaic definitions are of minimal interest.” She hooked her fingertips through the grille in the door. Her fingernails were broken and her hands were grimy. “I take it you refer to the entity known as the Ravening Deep, The Hungry Star, That Which When Divided Multiplies, The Wrong Star, and The Infinite Maw, among other appellations, yes?”

  Ruby swallowed. Some of those names were new to her, and none of them were comforting. “Yes. That’s it. Someone recently found the temple of Asterias, and there was an amulet there, with unusual properties, and… things have gone very strange.”

  “An artifact created by the worshippers of the Ravening Deep retained its magical potency, even after the demise of their so-called god? How fascinating! Hmm, what can I tell you? The origins of Asterias are unknown. Some believe it is a terrestrial aberration of nature, while others think it infiltrated this world from some other plane – my guess is the latter, though in that case, it has altered itself over the centuries to better fit into the local ecology of this planet and its oceans. The Ravening Deep is a changeable entity, you see. Its physical form eventually settled into a shape reminiscent of an enormous starfish, although one equipped with numerous hidden pseudopods, and with a mouth that is vast and ever-hungering. Asterias devoured everything alive in its local area, summoning sea creatures to its maw with a psychic lure, and then reached out farther with its strange mind, catching the attention of intelligent beings. The Ravening Deep realized those were worth more as servants than food: its cultists could bring sacrifices, and so instead of consuming them, Asterias granted them visions and offered them power, giving them some small measure of its own abilities–”

  “Regeneration,” Ruby said. “Strength, and durability, and the power to create copies.”

  “Indeed.” The scholar beamed like Ruby was her favorite student, and she felt a flash of pride, like the first time she’d successfully picked a lock while blindfolded, by feel alone.

  “The cult grew, multiplying itself, and its members fed the Deep. The Deep grew, as well, expanding to ever greater size, spreading across hundreds of meters of the sea floor. The matter of duplication following amputation is especially interesting. The Deep bestowed that gift upon its followers, but Asterias itself never duplicated in the same way. The cult spoke of ‘The Great Division’, however, a prophesied day when Asterias would grow large enough to spawn its own sibling, which the cult would then transport to a fresh territory. From there, the two Ravening Deeps would grow, and in time, each would split again, and those four would grow, and then split, and on, and on… A colleague of mine with a special interest in your planet once calculated that, if left unchecked, the spawn of Asterias would fill the oceans in under three centuries. Once they consumed all the life in the sea, their mutable nature would allow them to make the necessary adaptations to spread onto land, and after that… Well.”

  Ruby stared at her. But that meant… “The Ravening Deep would have covered the entire planet?”

  A nod. “Given time. And not much time, once a sufficient threshold of copies was reached – that is the nature of exponential growth. My colleague theorized that Asterias is the last survivor of its kind, a refugee from one other world – a world that was completely consumed by the Ravening Deep’s kin.” The scholar shrugged. “Of course, the Ravening Deep never got that far. There are far older denizens of the oceans, among them Mother Hydra, Dagon, and the Deep Ones. Those entities are used to thinking on much longer timescales than humans do, and they recognized the threat posed by Asterias and its cult. They waged a brutal war on the Ravening Deep, with many losses on both sides, but in time they breached the temple, tore the great star to pieces, and incinerated its fragments in undersea volcanic vents.”

  Would that it were so! It was a strange thrill, to know something this knower-of-all-things did not. “They didn’t incinerate all of it.”

  The scholar widened her eyes. “Explain.”

  “A piece of the Ravening Deep’s body washed up on the shore. That fragment ended up in a jar, in a storage room, here in the Lodge. That’s what the restored cult is looking for – what I was trying to steal before they could get it. They want to use the fragment to–”

  “To bring Asterias back to life – or, rather, back to strength, since so long as even a fragment of its body lives, the entity itself still clings to life. Yes. I see.” The prisoner pressed her face close to the grille. “Listen to me, human – you must destroy the piece that remains. The Ravening Deep must not be revived. It has doubtless learned from its mistakes – if allowed to return to the temple, it will grow in hiding this time, protected by its cultists, until it is ready to divide, and then this world’s doom will be assured. You must stop that from coming to pass.”

  “I know.” Ruby wished she didn’t. Things had seemed dire enough before! Maybe she should have fled Arkham when she had the chance… though then she wouldn’t be here to help avert the end of the world, would she? “I understand now. The fate of the entire human race is at stake–”

  “I don’t care about humans,” the scholar said. “My people have plans for this world, plans that have nothing to do with humans, and if the Ravening Deep is allowed to spread, my people will suffer too.”

  “I… forgot you weren’t human,” Ruby said. “Briefly. Thank you for reminding me.”

  The scholar closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “Sometimes I forget I’m not human myself.” She sounded sad. “Go, thief. Fight for the survival of your people, then. Destroy the Ravening Deep before it can consume your world.”

  Ruby usually liked to get in the last word, to end any interaction with a pithy remark or witty bon mot, but in this case, all she could do was nod, and rush off down the hallway.

  She followed the scholar’s directions and found herself in a dusty mess of a kitchen, home only to mouse droppings and a dead iron stove and broken crockery – but the dumbwaiter shaft was there, even if no dumbwaiter was in evidence. Ruby had escaped from houses by working her way up chimneys before, and this was no more difficult than that, though she crushed several fat spiders with her knees and back as she made her ascent through the dark, shuddering with revulsion along the way.

  She finally spied a square outline of shining light and knew she’d reached the ground floor. Working herself around she got one heel pressed against the panel, and pushed, her calf muscles straining and her spine screaming. She thought she was going to push herself backward through the dumbwaiter shaft before the panel gave way, but then one corner tore loose, and a few short stomps popped the panel the rest of the way out.

  Ruby worked her way out of the small opening, tearing her dress on a sharp corner in the process. She looked around the unadorned room, probably a place for servants to prep dishes for dinner, back when this was a grand house, and not a vile pit of secrets. There were no windows in the room, so she went through the nearest door, into a dining room, and then she knew where she was from her long-ago memorization of the Lodge’s main layout.

  Ruby sprinted through several rooms, and didn’t slow down, even when she raced past the astonished blonde assistant, and through the anteroom, to the front door–

  Which was locked, from the inside, with a key, which was not in evidence. She cursed, fumbled for her lockpicks, and made short work of the lock. She wrenched open the front door… and looked down into the snarling faces of two waiting dogs. She looked past them, and there was Abel, still in his rags, shaking the bars of the gate and shouting, but the dogs were not about to be distracted this time.

  Ruby took a step backward. If she could get upstairs and climb out a window, make her way onto the roof and into one of the ancient trees, she might be able to find a branch that got close to the fence and–

  A rough hand grabbed her by the back of the neck in an iron grip and jerked her backward, shaking her like a terrier would a rat.

  “Ruby Standish,” the warden hissed in her ear, wrenching one of Ruby’s arms up behind her back. “The master will be so glad he didn’t miss you.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Hospitality of Cain

  Carl Sanford’s driver, Brother Altman, pulled up in front of the Independence Hotel. Altman was just as reliable as the late Brother Cluny, and while he appeared less physically intimidating, he could be lethally quick. His preferred weapon was the kukri, a large, curved knife he’d become fond of during certain excursions in South Asia, and there was doubtless at least one such blade tucked away in his well-cut suit jacket even now.

  Sanford didn’t expect any bladework to be necessary today – this was a business meeting, one that had been scheduled for weeks – but after his experience with the Berglunds, he was inclined to be cautious. Strange things were afoot, and there might be connections hidden from his sight.

  Altman opened the door for Sanford, who sprang out, ready for anything. He didn’t like supernatural disruptions in his city, especially when he didn’t know the cause, but he had to admit, the presence of hidden adversaries did get the blood pumping. He’d been the master of so many things for so long that a hint of real danger was invigorating. The tussle at the Berglund house had reminded Sanford of his youthful forays into the occult, before he’d had quite so many devotees, proxies, and employees to take the bulk of his risks for him. He felt combative and energized. He would take that energy into today’s negotiation, and drive a nice, hard bargain.

  “Your hair is getting a bit long, Altman.” Sanford had his hair cut weekly, by a barber who came to the Lodge.

  “If I cut it short, you can see where my ear’s missing on that side, and people stare at that more than the long hair,” Altman replied.

  “Fair enough,” Sanford said. “Though the missing ear would make you look more dangerous, which is all to the good.”

  “If I looked as dangerous as I actually am, people would run screaming.” Altman grinned, and Sanford favored him with a small smile in return. He usually discouraged such informality with his underlings, but Altman had been with Sanford in some dark places – a certain cave in Kashmir came to mind – and had earned the right.

  “This should be fairly straightforward.” Sanford strolled into the overly ornate lobby of the hotel. All that marble and gilt was so ostentatious, but it couldn’t distract from the small cracks in the walls and the faint whiff of mold. It couldn’t distract Sanford, anyway; maybe the dazzle worked on others, but he was not easily swayed by surface elements. “I’m meeting a gentleman who goes by the unlikely name of Mr Marius, though my sources tell me he’s actually a former fisherman named Abel Davenport.”

  “A fisherman? Trying to pass himself off as an adept of the occult?” Altman said.

  “I assumed so, at first, but in his letters and the one phone call we shared, this Marius demonstrated a deep knowledge of esoterica related to the sea – if you’ll forgive my wordplay. He claims to possess an amulet sacred to the cult of a certain marine deity.”

  “Is this Esoteric Order of Dagon business, then?” Altman said.

  Sanford made a sour face. He’d tussled with the Dagonites before. Those people had pledged themselves to foul things beneath the waves, for no reason other than tradition, as far as he could tell. Sanford couldn’t understand that sort of sentimentality. If you were going to work with dangerous inhuman forces, you should at least win some material gain out of it. “I don’t think so, but our Marius has been a bit vague on the specifics. He says the amulet has miraculous properties, including the ability to heal almost any injury – ‘any wound short of the mortal’, he said. I’ve been promised a demonstration, which should be interesting. That’s why I agreed to meet at the hotel. If someone is getting a leg chopped off to prove the power of this bauble, I’d rather it not happen in my office.”

  “Marius wants to sell this amulet to you?” Altman said.

  “Not exactly.” They boarded the elevator, and Sanford told the operator which floor they wanted. They rode up in silence – Lodge business was not spoken of in front of outsiders – and stepped off at their destination. Sanford checked his pocket watch and saw they were a few minutes early. He gestured toward a pair of chairs tucked into an alcove near the elevators, and sat down beside Altman. “Marius proposes what he calls a ‘joint expedition’ to the site where he discovered this amulet. What that means, I think, is that I should provide the money, and he will provide the coordinates, and we will share whatever we find.”

  “It seems an optimistic scenario on his part,” Altman observed.

  “Indeed. Apparently he found some sort of temple in the Atlantic, which is plausible enough – we know there are whole prehuman cities in that ocean, but they are all far too deep to be reached. Marius’s temple is supposedly accessible from the surface, and though it extends below the waves, there are areas of the structure that hold breathable air, and others that could theoretically be reached by diving suit.”

  “Might be worth a look,” Altman allowed.

  “If this amulet of Marius’s does everything he claims, then, yes, it just might. Of course, once I know the location of this temple…” Sanford shrugged, and Altman chuckled.

  After checking his watch again, Sanford rose, and they walked down the hallway. Davenport was in the “Imperial Suite”, one of the large corner accommodations the hotel kept for its most well-heeled guests.

  “He must have caught some valuable fish to afford rooms like this,” Altman observed, and Sanford smiled.

  “I gather he found some other baubles in his temple, gold chains and the like, and sold them to improve his lifestyle. He should have sold them to fund his own expedition, but it may be to our benefit that he did not.” Sanford knocked.

  The door opened, and a man smiled out at them. He wore a white linen shirt, open at the throat, a silver chain around his neck. More oddly, he wore black leather gloves. His black trousers were pressed, but his feet were bare. There was something strange about his feet, and after a moment Sanford realized what it was – there was a membrane of webbing between his first and second toes. Was he a Dagonite, then? The only unusual features on his long face were deep age lines – he didn’t have the bulging eyes associated with the Dagonites, but perhaps he was from a cadet branch of their twisted family tree.

  “Carl Sanford and… associate, I presume?” The man’s voice was rough. He sounded every inch the fisherman.

  “This is Mr Altman, my personal secretary,” Sanford said. “You are Mr Marius?”

  The man gave an odd little bow. “I am. Do come in.”

  Sanford stepped inside, Altman at his back, and inventoried the room with a glance. A man in a bowler hat sat on a sofa, a wood axe laid across his knees, and through the open door to the bathroom, Sanford glimpsed a woman kneeling beside a row of salt boxes, dumping one of them into the bathtub. “What interesting company you keep,” Sanford said.

  “Care to hand me that axe, my friend?” Altman said. “Shaft first, if you would.”

  The man in the bowler looked at Marius, who laughed, and said, “Of course – that’s just for the demonstration, but if you’d be more comfortable holding onto the axe until then, I have no objection.”

  The man reversed the axe, held it a trifle awkwardly by the head, and offered the handle to Altman, who plucked it away and then leaned the axe against the wall behind him, beside the door.