“What exactly do you plan to do, sir? Just shoot him down in the street?”

  “Oh, I’ll stab him, I think,” Sanford mused. “With my sword cane.”

  “You can’t murder a man on the streets of Arkham!” Altman protested. “We should at least take him somewhere more private first. I can see you might not want him in the basements, but there’s always the warden’s shed–”

  “Every moment that serpent lives, he drips his venom!” Sanford shouted, suddenly furious, and it took an effort of will for Altman not to cringe away. “Tillinghast has already taken my warden from me. I won’t give him a moment to take anything else. The Initiates will ensure there are no bystanders nearby, and if anyone should see us, we’ll deal with that later. You can always stand as my witness, and say Tillinghast went mad and attacked me, and I was only defending myself.” He waved an impatient hand. “These are just details, Altman. They aren’t important.” Sanford picked up his cane from where it leaned against the desk and tucked it under his arm. He checked the time on the unusual pocket watch, then grunted and returned it to his vest pocket. “Let us make haste.”

  Altman had promised the Dyer woman he wouldn’t interfere with their plans for Sanford – that, and providing information, was the only price he had to pay for the rewards he was promised – but what did “don’t interfere” mean, exactly? Did driving Sanford across town to murder Gloria’s employer count as interference?

  Well, Altman could hardly refuse. The magus was in a murderous mood, and Altman wasn’t convinced he could best the man if it came to blows. Sanford was older, and less strong in a purely physical sense, but he was also craftier… and now, armed and armored. It was better to go on playing the loyal lackey for now. “I’ll get the car ready, sir.”

  •••

  Before they left the Lodge, Sanford stopped by the warden’s cell. He looked through the metal grate set in the door and found her standing perfectly still in the center of the small, grimy room, her hands clasped in front of her, her eyes fixed on Sanford… or maybe just staring at nothing, with Sanford in her eyeline. “Sarah,” he murmured. “I never expected you, of all people, to turn on me.”

  She didn’t reply. She seemed to be waiting. “What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “What do you expect to happen? Do you think your hounds will save you? I think you’ll find that your oaths to the Lodge will prevent them from–”

  “I am waiting for a change,” Van Shaw said, voice calm and uninflected. “Everything changes, master. The poet said, ‘No life lives forever, and dead men rise up never, and even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.’ Have you forgotten?”

  “I have seen dead men rise up,” Sanford snapped. “And another poet said, ‘With strange aeons, even death may die.’ I think you’ll find I won’t die until it suits me, and while I live, you will regret your betrayal.”

  “I never betrayed the Silver Twilight Lodge,” she said. “I cannot, any more than I could choose to stop my heart from beating. I simply came to believe you were no longer the best choice to rule the Lodge. Because you care only for yourself, Sanford.”

  “I am the Silver Twilight Lodge!” he shouted, shaking the barred window. “The Order was just another milquetoast mystery cult before I made it into something great! What did you think we were doing here?”

  “Discovering great and hidden knowledge, and preserving it,” she said. “And I am confident that work will continue when you are… gone.” A half smile touched her lips, and Sanford drew back, as if scalded.

  “I know I haven’t been… warm with you, warden, but your nature hardly invites warmth, does it? You exist to fulfill your function, like a lock on a door. Should I have brought you little fairy cakes and tea? Given you the occasional holiday?” He scoffed.

  “That would have gone a long way toward cultivating a degree of personal rather than institutional loyalty, yes,” the warden said. “But it’s too late now. Are you off to kill Tillinghast?”

  “He’s the first one I’m going to kill, yes,” Sanford said, voice heavy with menace.

  “Go on, then.” She made a gesture with her fingers, like she was flicking away a fly. “I wish him luck.” The warden turned her back on him and looked at the rear wall of the cell instead. The bloodstains didn’t seem to disturb her at all.

  Sanford bit back the retorts that occurred to him. He was wasting time here. Altman was waiting upstairs with the car. He’d deal with the warden later. Perhaps death was too kind. He could exile her through one of the many doors in the basement, the ones that led to other places, and let her attachment to the Lodge slowly sap her will and weaken her, until the denizens of those realms could best her. Yes. That was tempting.

  He turned and strode down the hallway, cane clicking on the weathered hardwood floors. Forget the warden. She was a symptom, not a cause. Tillinghast was the problem. He was the tumor, the canker, the source of all this decay. Once the shopkeeper was cut out of Arkham, the rot would stop spreading, and Sanford would be able to repair the damage done.

  He found Altman in the Bentley, idling on the curb in front of the Lodge, and slipped into the backseat. They drove on toward the Merchant District… but Altman pulled over to the side when a fire truck rumbled past, and Sanford spat a curse, leaning forward. “Follow that truck, damn you!” he said.

  Altman obeyed, and soon Sanford spied a glow in the evening sky. “It’s burning already? That damnable firebug was supposed to give Ruby time to get the grail first and burn the shop later! What sort of idiot did you hire, Altman?”

  “The best idiot available, sir,” Altman said. “Gas-Can McGann is a professional. I don’t know what happened.”

  They got as close to the fire as they could. The city had put up barriers in the street a block away, and a disheveled city policeman held up his hands when the Bentley approached. Altman parked, and Sanford climbed out of the car and stomped toward the barrier.

  The officer blathered something at him, but Sanford ignored him, craning his neck to see the damage. The building that had once held Huntress Fashions was still mostly intact, and only smoldering now, the pumper truck sending gouts of water in through the broken display window up front and the smaller windows on the upper floor. The fire hadn’t spread to the rest of the Merchant District, which was a mercy. They were so close to the river that everyone worried about flooding, so losing the shops to a conflagration would have been a cruel irony.

  “Was anyone hurt?” Sanford demanded. “Did the shopkeeper make it out?”

  “What shopkeeper?” The policeman was a rangy young Irish man, glaring and pugnacious. “The building’s been empty for months, and there’s nothing to burn inside but dust. We figure a tramp broke in to get out of the weather and dropped a cigarette on a bundle of rags or something.”

  “No, that’s not… there was a new shop there, just today.”

  The policeman looked at him like he was dotty and patted him on the arm. “It’s all right, gramps. You must be thinking of some other shop. I heard from the boys with the hoses, and they said there’s nobody and nothin’ in the place. Don’t worry so much. We got a report about the fire fast, and it didn’t spread. No real harm done, as long as you don’t own the building, but maybe you do, huh, driving a car like that? But there’s always insurance.”

  Sanford scowled. Had Tillinghast outfoxed him again? “Was there… did you see a girl? Anywhere around here?” Ruby hadn’t been caught in the fire, apparently, which was a mercy.

  The cop shook his head and smirked. “Looking for a girl, huh? This ain’t the right place for that. Why don’t you head over to Hibb’s Roadhouse?”

  Sanford turned and stalked back to the car, where Altman stood leaning against the fender, watching the smoke rise in gray curls against a black sky. “We should find the Initiates. They must have seen what happened.”

  Altman nodded, and they set out walking around the block, through alleyways, and finally up a lowered fire escape ladder to the roof of a building diagonal from Tillinghast’s burning shop. That’s where the Initiates had set up their observation post, with clear lines of sight on every exit, and even a partial view into the upper windows of the shop.

  There were two figures standing at the low wall that bordered the rooftop, watching the fire, and Sanford felt a surge of irritation. They should have called, curse them. The Initiates on duty now were named Marlowe and Darrow, or Darling and Marley, or something like that – one was a penniless public defender, and one was the idle child of wealthy parents, though Sanford couldn’t remember which. It hardly mattered. Your position and power in the world outside the Lodge was irrelevant to your rank inside it – there were Guardians of the Black Stone who scrubbed toilets for a living, and Initiates who ran banks, and within the Lodge, the former could order the latter around at will.

  No one could order Sanford around, inside the Lodge or outside it, but he was an exception in so many ways.

  He stormed across the roof, slamming his cane down with every step, and they turned to face him–

  It wasn’t Darrow and Marley. Or rather, it was one of them, the rich boy with the unhealthy pallor, but the other was Ruby. And she was holding a bulky leather bag in her arms.

  There was a handkerchief wrapped around one hand, as if she’d hurt herself. Had she been injured while escaping from the burning building?

  “Sanford!” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. We just sent Dartmouth to call the Lodge and tell you about – well, everything.”

  “I am here now, so you may tell me directly.” He spoke with great dignity, trying not to stare at the bundle in Ruby’s arms. He shouldn’t jump to conclusions. It could be anything. But it could also be the object of his ardent desires.

  She sighed. “It was unexpected, Sanford. I broke in like we planned, didn’t have any trouble there, and I found the grail, right where you said it would be. I nicked it and stuffed it in my bag, but before I could snatch up anything else, I heard movement upstairs. I knew Tillinghast was still there – well, I thought so, anyway – and it sounded like he was coming downstairs. I thought he’d heard me and figured I’d better scamper. I made it out the back, and off down the block, and the next thing I knew, the building was on fire. I don’t know if your arsonist was extra eager to get started or what, but I shook a leg before the fire brigade showed up. Then I made my way up here, met with the boys, and, well, you’re pretty much caught up.” She shrugged.

  She had it. She had the Grail of Dreams, right there, against her chest? Sanford wanted it… but not as badly as he wanted something else. Not quite as badly.

  “Where is Tillinghast, then?” Sanford seized Marley or what have you by the lapels and shook him. “You were supposed to be watching, but he is gone, and the shop is empty!”

  The young man’s eyes were as wide as serving platters and his mouth hung open, slack. “We did watch, Mr Sanford, I mean, master! We even saw him, or somebody anyway, through the windows upstairs, moving around every once in a while! He was in there, and he didn’t come out the front or the back door.”

  “He must have gone somewhere, you worthless–”

  “Tunnels, probably,” Altman said mildly.

  Sanford let the boy go and turned on his bodyguard. “What did you say?”

  The thug shrugged. “There are tunnels all over Arkham, aren’t there? French Hill is more tunnels than dirt underneath, as I understand it. Even over here in the Merchant District, there have to be, what, old smugglers’ tunnels from colonial times, and soldiers’ tunnels from the Revolutionary War days, and the bootleggers are always digging new ones, aren’t they? Tillinghast probably slipped in and out of the shop through a tunnel in the cellar, and moved his stock in and out that way, too. He could have come out by the river, or in the basement of a neighboring building, and loaded all his goods on a truck without our bright boys on the rooftop seeing a thing.”

  Sanford frowned. “That is possible,” he allowed. And more comforting than the idea that Tillinghast could move his shop, and himself, around by magic. Such things could be done, but meddling with occult portals and eldritch passageways was a dangerous business. Things lurked in the dark between places, and magic doors didn’t always open where you wanted them to. Traversing such paths could twist your mind, as well, which was why Sanford preferred to take mundane journeys by car or train or ship. “I don’t suppose we’ll be able to get inside the building to confirm your theory anytime soon.”

  Altman shrugged. “Maybe Tillinghast escaped that way, and maybe he did it some other way, but what does it matter? The point is, Tillinghast is loose, again, and he probably suspects you’re the one who tried to burn him out. I’m a little worried about how he’s going to react to that. The Lodge is vulnerable right now, especially with the warden locked up…”

  “Wait, why is the warden locked up?” Ruby interrupted.

  Sanford cut them both off with a slash of his hand. “All right. We’ll return to the Lodge, and make sure everything is secure. Then we’ll figure out our next steps. Perhaps you’ll have to go out to abduct the Dyer woman again, Altman, and actually succeed this time, hmmm?”

  “I am at your service, as always,” Altman said.

  “Ruby, you can ride with me. Initiate, go home. You did a serviceable job.” The foolish boy beamed at that. Any attention at all from the magus was better than praise from anyone else, Sanford knew.

  He went down the fire escape, more slowly than he’d gone up it, and the others followed. Ruby managed the descent just fine with the bag slung over her shoulder. He desperately wanted to snatch it from her, tear it open, and look upon the bounty inside, but that would be undignified. There was time for all that once they made it back to the Lodge.

  Besides, there was something delicious about the anticipation. Tonight hadn’t gone entirely as planned, with setbacks and disappointments aplenty, but at least he’d gotten his hands on one prize.

  When they made it back to the Bentley, the barriers were gone, and the cop was, too. The fire department had put sawhorses around the half-burned building, but there was nothing else in terms of security. Sanford was seized with an urge to go inside, find the basement, look for Tillinghast’s secret tunnels… but Altman the pragmatist was right. There was no real reason to do so.

  Plus, Sanford was a little afraid he wouldn’t find any tunnels, and then he’d have to accept that Tillinghast’s mastery of the occult surpassed his own. Sanford couldn’t have spirited away an entire shop and himself in the blink of a magical eye, after all. Tillinghast, his superior? That was a thought that could not be borne. Sanford was the best there was, or ever had been. Simon Magus was a minor talent, John Dee was a dabbler, Agathodaemon was an amateur, Paracelsus a putterer. They all paled next to what Sanford had achieved in the realm of the mystic arts. He would not be dethroned by some… some shopkeeper.

  He slid into the back of the Bentley with Ruby, who still clutched the bag close to her. As Altman drove them back to the Lodge, he leaned over and murmured, “Is it the real thing? You’re sure? Not another replica?”

  “This one is different.” Ruby swallowed. “I can’t really describe how, but the fake grail was just a big cup, and this one… it’s something else. Something more. It’s like it takes up more space than it should, or it’s bigger than it looks. It sort of thrums, only without making a sound…” She sighed, clearly exasperated with the limitations of language, an experience that Sanford found all too familiar. He’d seen the real grail himself, noted how it seemed to distort the light around it, and how its presence seemed greater than mere physicality would suggest. Ruby was describing the same qualities. “I don’t know what the cup does, but this is the cup that does it.” She hesitated, then said, “What does the Grail of Dreams do? Why are you so keen to have it, anyway?”

  Sanford’s instinct was to brush her off – knowledge was most valuable when it was hoarded, after all – but she’d served him well, proven her loyalty, and was the only person tonight who hadn’t disappointed him, and that list included himself. “The literature is unclear, the translations a bit suspect as usual, but overall… the grail makes dreams come true. The line I remember best is, ‘The world of your dreams will be realized, and you will dwell there forevermore.’ Now, it’s possible that it means literal dreams, and not figurative ones, which could be dangerous.”

  Ruby shuddered. “I dream about my teeth falling out and people chasing me with torches through a swamp. I don’t need to dwell in those, thanks.”

  “Indeed not. But I have schooled my mind over the years and am an adept lucid dreamer.”

  “What kind of dreamer?”

  “Lucid. I am aware of the dream when I am dreaming. I don’t believe it’s real, as so many do when they slumber. No, when I dream, I do so consciously, and thus, I am capable of shaping the dreamworld to suit my own desires. It’s quite entertaining. We are as gods, in our dreams, you know. I can teach you a few techniques, if you’d like to learn. It’s just about building the right habits. My skills should give me an advantage if the grail really does interact with the holder’s literal dreamscape.”

  “What are you planning to dream about, then?” Ruby said.

  “Oh, I have so many dreams.” Sanford smiled. In truth, he intended to do a great deal of research before he tried to use the grail at all, and he would start small with careful experiments. He’d known too many occultists who’d dabbled in the unknown and died, or been mutilated, or vanished, or almost vanished, leaving only a pair of smoking boots and a set of false teeth behind. Those fates were not for him.

  They got to the Lodge and went inside, Sanford leading the way to his office. He pointed to his desk, and Ruby put the bag down on it. Then she drew back to stand with Altman by the door.