“As you wish, master,” Diana said.

  Abel was impressed. She was trying to pretend she’d only joined Ruby and Abel because of the dire threat of Cain’s cult, and not because she was looking for any opportunity at all to damage the Lodge.

  Sanford paused by the storage room on the left, glancing inside. Abel looked in, too. It was full of shelves, built into the wall and freestanding, crammed with the refuse of what looked like a dozen attics and church rummage sales.

  “All this time, there was a piece of an elder thing here, under my nose.” Sanford clucked his tongue. “I must revise our inventory protocols. I assume you have the jar, Diana? The warden assured me she’d checked Ruby and found nothing of interest but lockpicks, but of course, she believed your story that the thief had overpowered you and escaped. She didn’t suspect you of collusion. I would have scarcely suspected you myself.” He favored the three of them with a charming smile. “Of course, I would have checked your bag anyway.”

  “I do have it,” Diana said.

  “I’ll take a look once we’re in the vault. If you’d all avert your eyes now, please.”

  Ruby snorted. “I know how to open it.”

  “You knew how to open it,” he said. “And I’d very much like to know who told you that much. It’s a short list of possibilities, and I considered punishing them all to be sure of hurting your source, but all of them are too valuable to waste that way. Only Knights and above come down here, as I said. Alas, the kind of interrogations that get definite answers don’t leave much of use behind afterward.”

  They all turned away, drifting together into a huddle. Ruby and Diana kept looking through the open doorway on the right, which did seem unnaturally dark, and emitted a pungent, strangely chemical odor. “The shoggoth’s room?” Abel asked.

  “Den,” Diana said. “Lair.” She shuddered. “Just looking at that creature… I felt the tethers on my mind loosen.”

  “Try having it chase you through this haunted basement,” Ruby said.

  “All right,” Sanford said. “Come inside.” They turned to find the vault door standing open, revealing a lushly carpeted space within, gleaming and glinting with wealth. He ushered them in. “Hands where I can see them, please, Ruby.”

  Once they were all inside the spacious vault, he shut the door, securing a heavy lever with a clunk and spinning a combination dial on the inside. Once they were sealed inside, he walked around them and pressed a section of polished wood wall. A panel swung open, revealing a rack of suit coats and trousers. Sanford removed his tattered and torn jacket, put on a new one, and made a contented sound. “There. That’s better.” A small bar cart stood against the wall, and he poured himself a glass of brandy. The vault held only a single chair, facing an object on the wall covered with black cloth – a painting or mirror, Abel supposed. He looked at the strange objects surrounding them, but couldn’t muster much curiosity. He’d had quite enough involvement with magical artifacts, and nothing here tempted or interested him.

  Sanford turned the chair around to face them instead and sat down. “Do make yourselves comfortable.”

  Ruby leaned against the vault door, as far from Sanford as she could get, and crossed her arms. Diana sat on the floor at Sanford’s feet, beside a pedestal that held an onyx egg as big as a melon. Abel opted to join Ruby by the door.

  “So what’s all this about saving the world?” Sanford said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  In the Mirror and Out of the Vault

  Diana craned her head to look at Ruby, who nodded in reply to Sanford’s question, but turned to address Abel instead of speaking to the old man. “I already told Diana, but I should fill you in, too. I talked to a… very knowledgeable woman Sanford has locked up down here, his personal Oracle at Delphi, I suppose. She told me that if Asterias is restored to life, it will feed and eventually split in two, making a copy of itself. Then those two will split, and then those four, and so on, making more and more hungry monsters until they eat everything under the sea and out of it.”

  Abel frowned. “Surely that’s not something that can happen quickly?”

  “Perhaps not,” Sanford said. “But even if it’s slow at first, it will rapidly accelerate.” He tapped a forefinger thoughtfully on his chin. “There is a story about a king of India who enjoyed chatrang, a sort of early version of chess, played on the same board of sixty-four squares. He would challenge visitors to a game, inevitably defeating them, until one day a traveling wise man visited. He was renowned as an expert in the game, but was reluctant to play, so the king offered him his choice of rewards, should he win. The wise man said he wanted only a little rice, but since they were playing on the game board anyway, why not use that to measure out the rice? If he won, the king would put a single grain of rice on the first square, then double it for the second, and double that on the third, and so on. The king readily agreed.” Sanford cocked his head. “Well? Did none of you learn arithmetic?”

  “My mother read me this story,” Abel remembered. “The king lost the game. He called for a sack of rice. Then he put one grain on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth, and so on… by the twentieth square, they’d reached a million grains of rice, and were not even halfway done.”

  “To finish would require enough rice to cover the entire territory of India, in a layer three feet deep,” Sanford said. “That’s where we’d get, with your Asterias – so many monsters that some of them would be dividing every day. They’d overrun the world sooner than you might think.”

  “Three centuries, the scholar said,” Ruby supplied. “Before the world is covered in the spawn of Asterias.”

  Abel closed his eyes for a moment. “No wonder the Ravening Deep didn’t show me that in my vision. I would hardly have agreed to restore it to life, if I’d known it would end all life as a consequence.”

  “I didn’t see those details in my visions, either,” Sanford said. “Just instructions, and directions, and promises of glory.”

  “You saw a vision of Asterias, master?” Diana made her voice captivated and fawning. If there was ever a time to ingratiate herself with the old man…

  “Indeed. None of you had the basic courtesy to ask why I look so battered, so I’ll tell you: Cain lured me to his rooms under false pretenses. He intended to cut off a piece of me and make a copy, to lead the cult here. He put the amulet on me, to start the process, and I saw… a great many things.” He did not elaborate.

  Just like him to hold onto his secrets, even when their best hope was pooling their knowledge. Diana hated him, but just now, she also needed him. “How did you escape him?” she asked.

  Sanford chuckled. “I am the leader of the Silver Twilight Lodge. Cain was born, what, a few months ago? As if he could best me. Though I admit, it was more difficult for me to escape than I’d have liked. The cult has been patient so far, gathering power, trying to infiltrate the Lodge, gathering enough information to trick me into a meeting… but when Cain thought I was captured, he let hubris get the best of him, and told me his plans.”

  “That’s why they’re rushing here,” Abel said. “To stop you from moving the sample of Asterias, or destroying it.”

  “Master,” Diana said, opting to play the loyal Seeker as hard as she could. He might still believe it, after all, or at least, be open to believing it. “Perhaps it would be best to destroy the specimen now?”

  Sanford looked down at her. “You betrayed me, Diana.”

  “I was afraid, master,” she said, truthfully enough; the truth was always best, if the lie of her life would allow it. “Abel told me about the god, and about the cult, and then I met Ruby – the Berglunds had her held captive, and she agreed to help us get the jar. I was just trying to do the right thing.”

  Sanford seemed unconvinced. “Why didn’t you come to me, child, and tell me about the threat?”

  “I… I couldn’t be sure you were still really you…”

  He snorted. “Nonsense. If the cult had turned me, they would have run off with their bit of god-flesh already. No, Seeker, you had your own ambitions, and saw an opportunity to further them, though I’m not sure exactly what your plans were. Well, I knew you had fire in you – that’s how you became a Seeker in only two years, after all. I just thought I could use that fire to fuel my own goals. Hmm.” He waved a hand. “Your future in the Lodge is a debate for another time. For now, show me this god.”

  Diana didn’t argue or protest or claim loyalty. She thought the best way to make Sanford believe she was still his meek subject was to act like one, so she reached into her bag and withdrew the jar. It was full of murky fluid, and a bobbing purplish-black lump of flesh smaller than Diana’s fist. She held the jar out to Sanford, who plucked it from her grasp and held it up to the light.

  “It doesn’t seem to be alive. Funny if this is all for nothing – oh.” Sanford turned the jar toward them. The purple lump was pressed against the side of the glass, and three eyes, smaller than a human’s but not by much, stared out at them. The eyes had purple irises, and vertical slit pupils, and they shifted back and forth, as if memorizing all their faces. Ruby gasped, and Abel moaned, and Sanford said, “Very interesting.”

  Diana felt only a deep, primal horror. This thing should not be. If it had come from this world, it was an abomination; if it hailed from elsewhere, it was an invader. “We should destroy it now, master,” Diana said. “Fire might work–”

  “Fire doesn’t work in here,” Sanford said. “There are too many valuables, including delicate papyri. I have protective spells in place – I couldn’t even light a pipe in here.” He set the jar on a shelf. “There’s no need to be rash, anyway. I gather there’s a whole ritual required to restore the god. You have to take this sad remnant to a temple in the sea, yes? Then Asterias is harmless in this jar. We’ll just have to keep it out of the cult’s hands… and kill this Cain… and take the amulet… and lock everything away.” Sanford shrugged. “This is a problem, yes, but not an insurmountable one. Hardly worth all the skullduggery you lot have engaged in.” He put the jar on a shelf, those alien eyes still darting around. After a moment, he turned the jar so the eyes faced the wall instead. “A bit unsettling, isn’t it? I wonder why it woke up now.”

  “Because I am here,” Abel said, with simple certainty. “And because its followers are close. Very close. They’re coming up the hill now.”

  “Let’s see how the warden gets on with them.” Sanford tugged the silk cloth from the hanging on the wall, revealing an ornate mirror three feet high and two feet wide, with a frame designed to look like twisted tentacles. The edges of the mirror were smudged with uneven darkness, but the center was still clear but, oddly, reflected nothing, just showed a silver expanse.

  Diana gave a little shiver. They were in the presence of the uncanny, and Sanford was so matter-of-fact about it all. What must it be like, to spend so long immersed in the unseen world that you could become inured to it? She thought it was sad.

  “This is a charming little artifact,” Sanford said. “It requires some attunement to use, but I’ve had it for a long time. It can see through other mirrors, you see, if they’re prepared properly, and I’ve linked it to mirrors throughout the Lodge… and elsewhere, of course, where I think eyes might be useful.”

  He waved a hand across the face of the mirror, and the silver rippled like a pool of mercury with a stone dropped into the middle. Sanford stepped aside so they could all get a clearer view. Then the silver solidified and softened into a view of the front path and the iron gates. “There’s a mirror on the porch?” Diana asked. Even knowing the Lodge contained items of great magic, it was astonishing to see one in action, and wonder supplanted her fear.

  “Every window can be a mirror, when the light is right.”

  “This is amazing,” Ruby said. “Better than a moving picture show – it’s in color. And real.”

  “Thinking of stealing it?” Sanford said. “Selling it for enough to retire?”

  “I don’t know. This one I might keep for myself.”

  Sanford swirled his drink and took a sip. “Here come the cultists now. Comets, you called them? How poetic.”

  Diana had expected a mob, dozens of figures ready to storm the gates, but it was only a few people – two of them looked like Abel, though one was bearded and another wore a hat pulled low on his face. The third was an unknown woman. “There’s Cain,” Abel said, pointing to the one with the hat.

  “I wondered if he’d come himself,” Sanford said. “Leading from the front? Foolish bravado.”

  “He wants to be the first to see his god,” Abel said.

  “Gods,” Sanford scoffed. “They’re always more trouble than they’re worth.”

  More people drifted in to join Cain, some dressed in the rough garb of dock workers, others in clothes Diana might have sold in her shop. Once eight of them had gathered, Cain yanked at the gate. It didn’t move, and Sanford chuckled. “When the warden locks the gate, it stays locked.”

  A few other comets grabbed at the gate, too, pulling on the bars, and then wrenched it free, throwing it aside into the street. “No sound though,” Ruby muttered. “This would be better with sound. I have to imagine the clang.”

  Sanford sniffed. “Property damage. So crass. So physical.”

  Cain didn’t keep the lead – he sent his comets down the path first as even more comets strolled in from various directions to join them, pouring through the gap and onto the Lodge grounds.

  “And now the hounds,” Sanford murmured. Black dogs appeared on the path, six of them, stepping forward in formation like trained soldiers, hackles up and tails low.

  “I thought there were only two?” Diana said.

  “That’s because two are usually enough.” Sanford leaned forward and watched as the dogs leapt.

  The comets fought, and though the dogs were vicious, the animals were outnumbered, with at least two comets for every one. The cultists were undeterred by bites and scratches, either impervious to pain or so desperate to reach their god that they were able to fight through it. They carried the thrashing dogs off into the long grass, out of the mirror’s view. Four more cultists marched down the now-cleared steps, with Cain somewhere behind them.

  “And now comes the warden,” Sanford said.

  Van Shaw appeared, and she was carrying a shotgun. She didn’t pause to banter, just put the stock to her shoulder and fired. One of the cultists flew backward, hit square in the chest, and then another spun and fell, struck in the shoulder. Van Shaw then drew a pistol and shot the third, a blossom of blood appearing in her throat. Diana gasped. It was horrible, the blood so bright and vivid, but the silence and flatness of the image making it eerie.

  The fourth cultist was able to slap Van Shaw’s arm away, and then two more surged forward. She swung with her now-empty shotgun, cracking one across the jaw with the stock. Another reached for her, grabbing her arm, and she kicked him away. She looked back, toward the door, and there was real distress on her face, mingled with fury.

  The warden was as ferocious as her hounds, but Cain still had reinforcements joining him. Three of the cultists managed to drag Van Shaw away, off to the side… and then Cain was walking forward, as if directly toward them. He was smiling, the lines on his face so dark they looked drawn on with charcoal.

  The blonde Initiate stepped onto the porch, and Diana said, “No!”

  “If she lives, I suppose I’ll have to promote her,” Sanford said. “She’s Brother Altman’s sister-in-law’s daughter. I didn’t think she was so brave. She wouldn’t be, if she knew what that creature had done to her uncle.”

  Diana had met Altman a few times, and found him off-putting – the smile on his face never did much to dispel the distance in his eyes. “Wait – Cain killed Altman?”

  “Just like he’s about to kill Rebecca, it appears,” Sanford said.

  Rebecca. Diana had never learned the girl’s name.

  As Cain approached the mirror, his face unfolded. “No, no, no thank you,” Ruby said. Abel grunted as if he’d been punched in the stomach. Diana could only stare. She’d thought the shoggoth was bad, but at least the shoggoth didn’t look human at first. The fleshy petals of Cain’s face folded back, exposing a horrible round mouth full of teeth that seemed to scintillate, the maw surrounded by little squirming tendrils like worms. Rebecca turned to run away, her expression of terror visible in the mirror, and then Cain seized her by the hair and jerked her head back. He spun her around to face him, then lowered his horrible face to hers.

  Diana looked away. From the corner of her eye, she could see that Sanford watched with interest.

  “Why don’t the neighbors come running?” Ruby said. “Surely they must have heard the gunshots? Why isn’t anyone helping?”

  “The Lodge discourages outside attention,” Sanford said. “All sorts of horrible things have happened on that lawn, unnoticed by those who live on the street, though never before this variety of horrible, I’ll grant you.”

  “That’s the way the Ravening Deep feeds,” Abel said. “I’ve seen it, in my visions, but the god’s mouth is so much larger. It can swallow a person whole. They go down slowly, though, inch by inch. The lucky ones go down headfirst, and die quicker.”

  Diana returned her attention to the mirror. It was better to know, even if the knowledge was horrible. Cain let the young woman fall, her head a ruin, then stepped over her, into the Lodge, and out of view.

  “Hmm,” Sanford said. “Right. Only a matter of time now, I’d say.”

  “You think they’ll find their way down here?” Diana was keenly aware of their position, in a locked room at the end of a hall. If the comets came down here… She felt like a mouse listening to the approach of a cat.