A large, silver-and-black medallion dangled from the end of the chain: a seven-armed starfish, with a mouth of triangle teeth in the center, just like the carving on the wall, but in miniature. The amulet wasn’t gold, unfortunately – it felt like carved stone, and he considered snapping the thing off and tossing it aside, but maybe it had value as an artifact. There were college professors and the like who’d pay for such things, maybe at Miskatonic University up in Arkham. Abel’s home village of Strossport was an easy day trip from there by car.

  He held the amulet up and watched it lazily turn in the eerie light. If he ever made it off this rock, at least he’d have some treasure to show for it. Necklaces were easy to transport, too. Abel dropped the chain over his head, letting the medallion rest against his chest–

  The chamber filled with water, rising around him with impossible speed, and he sucked in a breath as he was submerged. He spun, but there was no exit anymore, just smooth walls on all sides, carved with the sigil of the starfish god in every size from miniature to vast, except they weren’t carvings, they couldn’t be, because their arms were reaching.

  Abel opened his mouth to scream, too terrified even to fear drowning, but then the walls and the starfish vanished, and he saw:

  Chanting multitudes in long, dripping-wet robes, walking on a stony shore beside black water.

  A man rising from a pool of water, gasping, and reaching out his hands toward an identical man, or at least, a mirror image, who pulled him out and embraced him.

  Horrid creatures, like people with the faces of deep-sea fish, swimming through lightless depths, spears clutched in their webbed hands.

  Great gouts and clouds of blood in the water.

  Huge chunks of pebbled flesh floating on the surface of the ocean like rotting whale blubber.

  A distorted view of a dark-paneled room, as if seen through a thick sheet of curved glass, with a gray-haired, dark-eyed man in a neat suit entering through an unseen door and picking up a carved stone object from a shelf, then going back out again.

  Abel moaned, back in his body, or so it seemed, but now he was in a cavern surrounded by heaps of pearls and the soft glow of gold coins, firelight flickering from torches on the walls, with unseen figures in the shadows all around, chanting, and the chant echoed and reverberated and filled the air:

  “RESTORE ME

  AND BE RESTORED”

  He blinked, and found himself suspended in a watery void. Below him stretched a great seven-pointed starfish, and as he watched, its arms grew, and lengthened, and stretched, until they seemed so long that they might wrap around the whole of the world. He couldn’t tell if the starfish had become immense, or if Abel had become very small; his sense of scale and proportion were baffled, and both space itself and his own mind seemed as pliable as saltwater taffy. In the center of that starfish, whose reaching limbs now stretched on all sides to all horizons, a horrible, squirming mouth opened, and the thing inhaled, pulling water into its maw, and pulling Abel down with it.

  •••

  Abel woke again, this time on gritty sand. He winced preemptively, expecting spikes of pain, since that was what happened last time he woke up… but he felt fine. Better than fine. He felt wonderful: no agonies in his body, and no clamor in his mind, as if he’d rested well on a soft bed at the end of a day without worries, instead of on a shore after a shipwreck.

  He sat up on the beach and looked east, toward the ocean and the rising sun. He turned his head to look along the shore, where he saw a familiar pier, and the tiny dots of distant figures going about their morning business. He knew this place. He was just down the beach from the docks in Strossport, where he’d spent most of his days for two decades.

  Abel was home. He had no real memory of the night before, apart from swimming. He’d somehow made his way across countless miles of open ocean in the dark, despite hunger and dehydration and pain. There was no pain now. His arms and legs felt strong, ready for a day of good, honest work.

  He wasn’t confused. He wasn’t frightened. He understood. His luck had turned. He’d been blessed. He’d been chosen. Plans and purpose unfolded within him, stretching out to the horizons of his mind.

  Restore me, a voice whispered in his mind – his suddenly crowded mind. He knew so much, now, new truths bobbing to the surface of his mind with every passing moment. He knew about ancient depths, and forgotten temples, and bloody wars fought in a lightless abyss. He knew about the power, and the priesthood he now held. He knew the thousand names of his god, his savior, the most holy of which were:

  Asterias.

  That Which When Divided, Multiplies.

  The Ravening Deep.

  Abel’s clothes were in tatters, and one of his boots was missing. The cuts and scrapes on his hands and arms were gone, though, and he knew no bruises would surface on his body. That was the gift of his god. He took off the boot, removed the lace, and then tenderly lifted the gold necklace off his neck. The necklace didn’t matter: it was merely a resource. The medallion was all he needed, the source of his revelation, a gift from his god, a holy relic. He removed the medallion from the heavy chain and strung it on the bootlace, then put it back around his neck, under his shirt, against his skin.

  He rose, gold chain in hand. He would nod and smile at any acquaintances he passed – they were used to seeing him damp and shabby, and no one would notice his interior transformation. He would go to the pawnbroker – who was well acquainted with Abel, especially in recent months – and drive the hardest bargain he could. He would make the broker throw in a sharp knife as part of the deal. He would rent a room, one near the water… one with a big bathtub.

  And then, in blood and salt, Abel would begin his ministry, and gather his congregation.

  Chapter Two

  The Huntress

  Six months later.

  Diana sat in the small office in the back of her clothing shop, going over the books, and trying not to think of those other books – the ones in the Seeker’s library at the Silver Twilight Lodge. The ones in languages she couldn’t read, but with letters that somehow squirmed in her mind’s eye anyway.

  Diana had only been running her business for two years, since selling the family farm and moving to Arkham in 1924. She’d used the money from her father’s estate to buy a dusty old place called Emmie’s Boutique, and transformed it into the most successful women’s shop in town.

  She’d always been interested in fashion, and the way the right clothes could change the way the world looked at you – and the way you looked at yourself. She’d renamed the shop Huntress Fashions in honor of her mythological namesake, and cultivated a wealthy clientele. She’d been savvy about building her reputation, joining the Chamber of Commerce, the Women’s League, and the Historical Society, and using them as opportunities to make connections. The people she met, and the good impression she made with her impeccable sense of style, led to success after success.

  The only downside was that she had to dodge well-meaning people who wanted to set her up with their sons or cousins or nephews. She politely told them she had to focus on building her business, and once she was more established, she would have time to think about such things. In truth, she didn’t know if she ever would think of them; she felt complete in herself, and took pride in her self-reliance. When she did think of sharing her life with someone, she didn’t usually think about men, and while her ambitions were many, they didn’t include motherhood. Maybe that would change, but for now, she had a plan, and she was going to follow it, and she was not going to fail.

  Or anyway, she’d had a plan. Now she had doubts, questions, and bad dreams.

  Things had started to turn for her when local luminary Carl Sanford invited her to join the Silver Twilight Lodge. Diana’s father had been a lifelong Mason, and she’d assumed the Lodge was a fraternal order like that, albeit one open to women members. The only other order she’d heard of that allowed women to join was the International Organization of Good Templars, and Diana enjoyed an occasional drink too much to join a temperance group.

  The Silver Twilight Lodge wasn’t devoted to temperance, though – back then she wasn’t sure what it was devoted to, and when she asked, she got vague answers about heritage, and history, and “ancient lore”, the same sort of things her father’s Mason brothers talked about when they had too many drinks. So when Sanford asked her to join last year, she’d said yes with enthusiasm. The Lodge was an important and exclusive part of Arkham society, and as a member she’d meet rich women who wanted the latest fashions, and their rich husbands who needed to buy them gifts (and gifts for their mistresses, too). Her business would grow, and she would build a secure future, one free from the constant uncertainty her father had suffered at the farm.

  Or so she’d assumed. Instead, after a few months at the Lodge, she’d been given more responsibilities, and seen incredible, terrible things. The nature of reality had shifted beneath her, and everything she thought she understood about life and reality was thrown into question. Horrors she’d never imagined teemed at the edges of her understanding.

  The question was: what would she do about it?

  Diana rose from the desk and stretched, groaning as her aching back unkinked. How long had she been sitting there? She’d closed up shop at five, and a glimpse at the windows showed it was fully dark now – the days were getting shorter as autumn crept on. She’d always had a gift for disappearing into numbers and projections and possibilities – she’d done the books for her father’s farm from the time she was thirteen. She liked numbers. They always added up the same way, and if they didn’t, it was because you’d made a mistake, not because suddenly two plus two equaled five. Diana had always prided herself on being a hardheaded New Englander who only believed in those things she could see with her own eyes.

  The problem was, she’d seen things that no reasonable person could believe.

  She trudged up the back stairs to her small apartment above the shop. She was saving up to buy a house, maybe one of the cute Victorians with cupolas and widow’s walks. That had been the plan, anyway. But how could she stay in Arkham now, knowing about the rot at its heart, presided over by charming Carl Sanford? Maybe it wasn’t just Arkham. Maybe the whole world was like this: a thin patina of normality covering up the filth and horror underneath. She couldn’t take responsibility for the whole world, though. She could only take responsibility for her own life… and the things she’d done.

  Or the things she hadn’t stopped others from doing. Those things followed her into dreams.

  Diana sat in the threadbare armchair that was the only piece of furniture she’d brought from the farm. The upholstery still smelled faintly of her father’s pipe smoke, and though the seat was shaped to his body from long years of occupation, it suited her well enough, and was gradually shaping itself to fit her, too.

  She liked the space she’d made for herself in Arkham. The shop below was chic, sleek, and elegant, all draped silks and shining mirrors, with dresses arranged on mannequins as smooth and pale as ancient marble statues. But upstairs, her living area was cluttered and cozy, with patterned rugs and overstuffed bookshelves and end tables showing off her antique-shop finds, all lit by lamps with tasseled shades.

  She poured herself a glass of sherry – one of her wealthy customers had amassed a vast private cellar in the years before Prohibition, and her client brought over the occasional bottle in exchange for getting first look at the new designs from Paris. Diana sipped, and sighed, and settled back in the lamplight, gazing at the dark window that overlooked the rear of the shop.

  Until two months ago, on the night of the ritual below French Hill, she’d felt so comfortable here. That was all she’d wanted. To find a place where she was beholden only to herself, and could make a life to suit her. She’d managed it, too, until Carl Sanford decided she was ready to advance in the Order.

  She twisted her mouth, half rueful smile, half frown. It was her own fault. She’d been so eager. She could have stayed on the fringes of the Lodge, enjoying the private dining room and bar, mingling with the other new members and hangers-on. But she’d never lacked for ambition, and once she knew there were levels she could progress through in the Order, greater ranks she could attain, she was seized with a fervor to rise through those ranks.

  She thought that joining the higher levels would give her access to more rarefied company, more powerful people, and more opportunities to improve her position. And while that was true, she could admit now that she’d also wanted to rise for her own sake. Some was good, after all, but more was always better. On the farm, she’d worn patched dresses and secondhand shoes, they’d often eaten no better than the pigs, and life had been a constant struggle of mending and making-do. She’d dreamed of a better life, and the Lodge seemed to promise that. A new world, where she could excel, and be seen, and respected, and appreciated.

  She’d heard the names of the various ranks of the Order whispered: Initiate, Seeker, Brother of the Dark, Knight of the Stars, Keeper of the Red Stone, Guardian of the Black Stone, and many more with titles an Initiate as lowly as Diana was not permitted to know. Some said there were sixty-one distinct ranks, with the highest being held only by Carl Sanford himself.

  Diana had expressed her desire to rise and learn the sacred mysteries after just a few months in the order, and though Carl Sanford had seemed amused by her enthusiasm, he had given her certain texts to read, later quizzing her on the information.

  Her mind was always adept at patterns and organization, and she’d easily retained the names of ancient gods and places and relics from across the world. She’d assumed it was all just set-dressing and play-acting, pretense at a storied lineage to make the members feel important, like the Masons with their secret handshakes and claims to ancient knowledge. She’d memorized stories about wars among incomprehensible entities, which she assumed were complex allegories, like the symbolic stories in the alchemy books she also studied. Sanford taught her phrases she was ordered to remember though she could not understand them, drawn from extinct languages whose origins were unknown to her: Akkadian, and Aklo, and Bactrian, and Senzar. At first, her ceaseless intellectual curiosity was what drove her, but in time she began to believe there might be real secrets here. Sanford, after all, was a wildly successful man who seemed to understand the world on a level Diana could only guess at, and she wanted that understanding for herself.

  Finally, after Sanford deemed her sufficiently suffused with esoteric knowledge, she was invited to a ceremony in a room of the lodge building she’d never seen before, one with red curtains on the walls and a red-and-white marble floor. She wore a dark hooded robe, and she was nervous, but did her best to keep her head high and hide her trembling. This was the first step on a long road to the top, to the inside, that theoretical place where people like Sanford dwelled, free from want and worry, directing their own destinies, and the destinies of others. The place she wanted to be.

  Diana knelt on the stones, sipped something murky (wine, she thought, but thickened) from a stone cup, and murmured an oath in Aklo. The air seemed charged, as if a thunderstorm were approaching, and her senses were strangely heightened. She could feel the hard marble beneath her knees, the cool air on her face, and every hair standing up on her arms. She was on the edge of something.

  Sanford, also robed and surrounded by other members of the Lodge, said, “Do you pledge to faithfully pursue hidden knowledge, to aid your brothers and sisters in the Order, and to make ours that which has been forbidden?”

  “I will,” she murmured.

  Sanford touched her on each shoulder with a gnarled cane of black wood. “I now pronounce you Seeker.”

  Then the lights came up, and the hoods came down, and everyone congratulated her and clapped her on the back. She wasn’t at the top, but she was no longer on the bottom, either; she had her foot in the door.

  The new rank of Seeker gave her access to new parts of the Lodge, including the Seeker’s library, where those of her rank with a more scholarly bent were translating books Sanford or his agents had acquired. She’d idly flipped through them from time to time, finding most incomprehensible and the readable ones dull, until she’d opened a tome with a blank cover of greasy black leather and found her eyes assaulted by sigils in crusty red ink that still squirmed in her vision when she closed her eyes some nights. She’d avoided the library after that.

  Her new rank came not just with privileges but with responsibilities. Sanford or his trusted Lodge members often gave her tasks, and she spent months going on errands she did not understand, accompanying higher-ranking Lodge members and serving as a set of watchful eyes and useful hands. She was not permitted to ask questions on those errands, and so many of the things they did were baffling.

  Once she’d sat in the stern of a rowboat while a bald man with a scarred face worked the oars and took them to the center of a perfectly circular pond in the Massachusetts countryside, where she was instructed to empty a small velvet pouch of what looked alarmingly like finger bones and teeth over the side. The fragments sank without causing any ripples, and they’d rowed silently back to shore and departed without incident.

  A month later, she’d joined two women in black hooded robes in a grove of thorny trees, who handed her a shovel with a silver blade. Diana dug a hole in the dirt until her shoulders screamed from the effort while they smoked cigarettes and shared a flask and chuckled, speaking in a language Diana didn’t recognize. She’d finally struck a white root, as thick as her arm but slick and wormlike, and the women told her to climb out of the pit. They’d gone into the hole themselves then, carrying a stone jug, and poured what she hoped was wine but suspected was diluted blood all over the root. After they made her refill the hole, they all left, the women chatting with her amiably about how her shop was doing, as if none of it had happened.

  She’d been sent to a burned farmhouse in western Massachusetts with a hawk-nosed man who wore a bandana on his head like a storybook pirate. They’d sorted through the rubble until they found a hatch that led to a cellar, and he’d descended. She waited above for half an hour, and then ruby light shone through the ash-streaked floorboards, and a droning sound that made her teeth ache emerged from below, before abruptly cutting off. The man emerged, sweaty and covered in dust and cobwebs, carrying a bulbous earthenware jar tucked under one arm. His bandana had slipped awry, and Diana stared at the hint of intricate red lines tattooed on his scalp until he snarled at her to get the car started and sent her scurrying away. By the time he joined her, he’d adjusted the bandana, and hidden the jar away in a valise, and said only that their excursion had been successful, and the master would be pleased. Looking back, Diana was appalled at her own naivete. She’d found those missions exciting, and sometimes scary, but even the latter had tantalized her with the promise of secret knowledge. Now she wondered what dark designs she’d played a part in.