Sanford smiled. He might have been discussing a garden party. “We will descend into the lower chamber, and kill everyone we see.” He guided the Silver Key alongside the smaller of the cult’s crafts, then picked up a pistol. “The tommy gun would have been useful for a fight up here, if the comets had been waiting to drive us away, but I’d rather not take a machine gun into an undersea temple.”

  “You’re leaving your sword-stick?” Diana asked. It was hard not to view the weapon as a sort of lucky charm, since it had dispatched multiple comets and a ghoul as well. She was reluctant to give up any advantage available. They were going into a dark place populated by unknown terrors, and the only thing that kept her from hyperventilating with fright was the fact that she’d seen how competent and cool her companions could be under fire.

  “The sword would be unwieldy in confined quarters, which we’re about to find ourselves in. I have a dagger, if close work becomes necessary.” Sanford rose and stepped to the edge of the Silver Key.

  “Don’t we need to tie up your boat?” Ruby said. “Or do you usually have people to do that for you?”

  “This vessel won’t go anywhere without my leave,” Sanford said. “You must understand, I don’t have the same little worries that other people do.” He used the smaller craft as a stepping stone to reach the flattish ledge on the island, and waited there impatiently.

  Diana was about to follow when Ruby touched her arm, then swept her into a hug – awkwardly, as they were both holding weaponry. “Hey,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “I don’t know,” Diana admitted. “Sanford is a sorcerer, and you’re a cat burglar. Both of you are good at things like this. But I’m just a shopkeeper who has bad dreams.”

  Ruby leaned away from her, looked at her for a moment, then laughed in disbelief. “Are you serious? Diana. You tricked our way into the Lodge. You faced down a shoggoth. Before any of that, you decided to take on Sanford and his cult yourself, without allies, without help, without any idea where to begin. You’re so much more than just a shopkeeper. You astonish me.”

  Tears welled in Diana’s eyes. Had anyone ever believed in her the way Ruby did? “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I need that fearless, dedicated Diana now.” Ruby clutched her close. “How does that speech go? We few, we happy few, we band of – well, sisters, this time, if two can make a band.” She stepped back. “You dragged me into all this, and I don’t even hate you for it. It’s been good to work with someone, and toward something important, for once.”

  Diana was touched. “I’m glad you stuck with us. I’ll watch your back, and you’ll watch mine, and we will win through. We have to.”

  “We’d better go before Sanford kills them all without us.” Ruby followed Sanford, and Diana came after, picking her way with care. Apart from the odd fishing trip in a rowboat, she didn’t have much experience with watercraft, and after this week, she was in no hurry to change that. Finally all three of them stood on the rocky island, looking at the tide pool in its center, bereft of life.

  Ruby said, “Where’s the door?”

  Sanford gestured to the tower of rock. “We have to climb. It looks simple enough – though someone found it more difficult, judging by the smears of blood.”

  “I bet it’s Abel’s,” Diana said. “He wouldn’t have gone up that tower willingly.”

  “Could be,” Sanford allowed. “I’ll go up first, Ruby, and then you can come halfway, and Diana can hand the shotgun up to you, and then to me–”

  Someone hauled himself over the ledge, dripping sea water and gasping, startling all of them, even Sanford, to back up a step. Ruby even plunged one boot into the tidepool. A man none of them recognized sprawled, sputtering and coughing, facedown on the rock.

  “That fool broke my knee,” he growled, eyes squeezed shut. “I could hardly swim, the pain is terrible, and I thought I was going to drown, but praise the Deep, water cannot kill me now–” He tilted his head and opened one eye and stared up at them, then froze.

  Sanford knelt and his hand lashed down and back up again, sprouting a dagger somewhere in the process. The man gurgled from a hole in his neck. “Still vulnerable to death by dagger, it seems.” Sanford placed a foot against the comet’s side and shoved, rolling the cultist back into the sea. “I suppose the fool who broke his knee was Abel,” Sanford said. Diana stared at the blood on the rocks, stunned by the sudden ferocity of the violence. “I didn’t have the chance to get the measure of Mr Davenport, but it seems he has a bit of steel in him. Good.” He wiped his dagger on the leg of his trousers and tucked it away. “Shall we?”

  Several difficult minutes of climbing later, Diana pulled herself over a ledge and into a small tunnel, which led into a large chamber. Too large. “Remarkable,” Sanford murmured. “Even in death, the power of Asterias persisted in these profane geometries, twisting space to suit its needs.”

  There was no guard present in the upper chamber, either, but a rifle leaned against the altar, testament to the presence of violent people. The three of them spent a moment looking around in wonder at the luminous growths on the walls, the chipped effigy of Asterias carved on the wall, the altar with its briny font, and the almost perfectly circular hole in the chamber floor. A narrow stairway spiraled down, with no guardrail to protect those descending from a long tumble if they should lose their footing. When Diana listened hard, she thought she heard snatches of rhythmic voices – chanting?

  “I have a fair bit of dynamite on the boat,” Sanford said, with the air of one making dinner-party conversation.

  Diana frowned. “Really?”

  “Several sticks,” Ruby said. “I saw them, tucked in with the guns and ammunition. Neat little cylinders, just like in the movies.”

  “I didn’t notice those,” Diana said. “You explained why you had guns, Sanford, but why on earth did you need dynamite?” When she thought of Sanford, she thought of manipulation and finesse, not blowing things up.

  “That trouble I mentioned, on the island in the river. There are standing stones there. I thought it might be necessary to remove a few of the stones – or at least alter their specific spatial relationships. Fortunately, we were able to address the problem with less violence. Here, though we could simply toss a few sticks down this shaft, flee to the boat, and collapse the temple on top of the cultists. Problem solved, don’t you think? And without a bullet wasted.”

  “Abel is down there,” Diana said. “We have to save him.”

  Sanford shrugged. “Very well. It’s possible the cultists and some piece of Asterias would survive the cave-in anyway, so I suppose it’s for the best. You should go down first, I think, Ruby.”

  Ruby nodded, and Diana said, “Why?”

  “I have the shotgun,” Ruby said. “A gun like that, it’s better to have up front.”

  “And I refuse to stand in front of Miss Standish while she holds any gun,” Sanford said. “I don’t trust her to hold her fire if I’m standing between her and her target.”

  Ruby rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to kill you, Sanford. We’re working together now. You have to trust the people in your crew.”

  “Trust?” he said. “I’ve heard that word before. I believe it was… yes, in the nursery, where I learned the moon was made of green cheese, and Father Christmas brings gifts to good little children, and the monster under the bed isn’t real, and other pretty lies.”

  “We have to trust one another,” Diana said, so firmly that Sanford’s eyebrows shot up. “If we don’t stand together, Cain will pick us off separately.”

  After a moment, he nodded. “I apologize again. I am not used to collaborating. To partners. But… very well. Trust. At least until all this is finished. I’ll take the middle, then, as a show of faith that Diana won’t shoot me in the back.”

  “I won’t, Carl,” she said. At least until all this is finished. Sanford was helping them save the world now, but it was hardly altruism, just a different flavor of self-interest. She meant what she said, though: they had to work together for the moment. That was Abel’s only hope; it was the world’s only hope.

  Ruby went down the stairs, moving silently, shotgun at the ready. If she was nervous about slipping and falling, she didn’t show it. Sanford went next, just as light on his feet. They were different people, but they were both at home dancing on the edge of the abyss. All Diana had ever wanted was peace and comfort, safety and security… but the world demanded more, and she would meet the challenge.

  She straightened her spine, steeled herself, and followed her allies down, into the dark.

  They descended in silence for long minutes, the air growing cool and damp. They had to be far below the surface of the waves, now, and the walls began to shimmer with condensation, the stone steps growing slick and treacherous. Sanford was just a dark shape ahead of her, and Ruby was entirely out of sight. Diana kept one hand on the wall and followed the regularity of the spiral down, down, down – And finally detected a hint of light, flickering and irregular, and a whiff of smoke. Torches? She almost bumped into Sanford, who whispered, “We’re at the bottom. Careful now. Spread out.”

  He was leading again, but she let it pass, because it was good advice. Her eyes adjusted to the gloom. They’d reached a new chamber, connected to a wide passageway lit by a torch in a stone niche on the wall. That passage led in turn to a rough archway that doubtless gave access to the ritual chamber. Lights flickered beyond, and a droning chant rumbled–

  Interrupted by Abel bellowing, at full volume and off-key: “And when we came to Greenland where the bitter winds did blow, we tacked about all in the north among the frost and snow! Our fingertips were frozen off, and likewise our toenails!”

  “Is he singing?” Ruby whispered as Diana stifled a laugh. It was the same tune he’d been singing the night she found him.

  “An old whaling song, I believe,” Sanford said.

  “Will someone shut him up!” Cain’s voice shouted, which only made Abel sing louder. There was a loud slap, and the singing cut off. “Begin again!” Cain demanded. “And if he starts caterwauling again, just ignore him. Don’t let him distract you from the rites!”

  “Didn’t see any of this in your visions, did you?” Abel bellowed.

  “Good old Abel,” Ruby said, and lifted her shotgun. “Let’s get this done.” Before Diana could object, she marched off toward the arch, and Sanford flowed after her, like a quicksilver shadow. Was he actually harder to see than he had been a moment ago? More magic? She couldn’t quite focus on him.

  Diana came last, gun up, telling herself she was ready. She stepped through the arch and…

  Oh, Lord. The stone room; the figures in robes; the torches on the walls. It was different, but all too familiar. For a moment, she was back there, in the summoning chamber beneath the Lodge, a blade in her hand, and the past was more real than the present.

  Then Abel cried out again, and she snapped back to reality, and there was no knife in her hand; there was a gun. She looked around the chamber and counted targets. There were seven cultists arrayed in a semicircle, facing away from them: Cain in the center, with three on either side. They were dressed in hooded garments, but not the black silks and velvets favored by the higher levels of the Order of the Silver Twilight – these robes were made of sailcloth and canvas and netting.

  Ruby wasted no time. She walked up to the chanting line of cultists and fired at short range, catching two of them in the backs with the blast. One went spinning into the wall, and the other dropped into the wide pool in the center of the cavern. The gunshot was so loud in the confined space that it physically staggered Diana.

  Then she saw a man kneeling on the stones with a bag over his head, a cultist standing beside him, holding an axe. It was Cornelius Berglund – one of the Berglunds, anyway – and Diana shouted “No!” as he lifted his axe high, about to split Abel’s head like a log.

  She raised her pistol and fired, missing his chest but catching him in the right shoulder, making him drop the axe and bellow. Abel flung himself to one side, trying to roll away, the bag over his head slipping partway off in the process. One of his blue eyes gazed at her with wonder.

  Berglund lurched toward the axe, reaching with his good arm. Diana forced herself to stop, set herself, and lift the pistol in the two-handed grip her father had taught her so long ago, plinking away at bottles and cans in the back field. Back then, she could hit what she aimed at more often than not, at least when she set her mind to it. She took a breath, let it out, and squeezed the trigger.

  The top of the comet’s head came off, and he fell into the wall. A cool, calm part of Diana’s mind thought, A little high, but good enough. Then she rushed to Abel, ignoring the shouting behind her. She had a pocketknife in her bag, and she flipped it open and sawed through the ropes. “You came,” Abel said, shaking out of the ropes.

  She smiled, even as mayhem unfolded at her back. “We couldn’t very well let the world end, could we?”

  “I suppose not.” He stood, glanced past her at the chaos, and then picked up Berglund’s axe. “I want to get a few licks in before Ruby finishes them off.”

  Diana rose and looked at the fray. Two cultists were coming their way, armed with long knives, and Abel went to fend them off with wild swings of the axe. Ruby was backing away from one cultist while reloading her pistol – with her blood-streaked face, in the flickering torchlight, she looked like a warrior queen.

  Sanford, predictably, had gone for the glory. He stepped over the body of a dead cultist and advanced on Cain. The magus was still blurry and hard to focus on in the low light. The priest stood before the pool, a long knife in each hand, his face unfolded and hideous, mouthparts pulsating. “Your blood will feed my god,” Cain said. “You think you can kill me with a gun? Your flesh will quicken–”

  Sanford shot the priest in the center of his hideous face, and Cain fell backward, into the pool.

  Diana cheered, and then focused on her own problems, notably the cultists spreading out to try to flank them. One was a woman, her pretty face twisted in a snarl, and Diana thought, I sold you a cloche hat two months ago, didn’t I? and then shot her in the chest. Abel sank his axe into the neck of another, and while he tried to wrench it loose, Diana finished the job with another shot to the comet’s chest.

  She looked around, breathing hard, streaked with sweat, thrumming with fear and exhilaration. Were all the comets dead? Ruby had dispatched the one closing in on her by the wall. Diana quickly counted the corpses she could see, and added one for Cain in the water. That was seven, and there were only seven–

  No, there were seven chanting by the pool – plus Berglund, watching over Abel. There was still one cultist unaccounted for.

  Diana turned in time to see the last cultist rush from the deepest shadows in the cavern, where he’d been waiting for his moment. It was Altman’s comet, and he held a strangely curved blade in his hand. He rushed straight for Sanford, ready to plunge the knife into his back–

  Altman jerked back, struck by gunfire in the chest. Sanford spun around, narrowed his eyes, and drew his own gun, but didn’t have time to fire before Ruby aimed her pistol a second time, putting a hole in the center of Altman’s face and sending him to the cavern floor. The thief walked across the chamber and stood beside Sanford, who looked at her for a moment, and then gave a slow nod. “Consider us even,” he said.

  Ruby rolled her eyes. “I stole from you, but then I saved your life. Isn’t life worth more than property?”

  “It depends on the property,” Sanford began, and then Cain leapt from the pool, like a flying fish, and landed with a crouch on the cavern floor.

  His body had changed, transformed perhaps by his proximity to the god in the water. His shoulders were twisted, his arms elongated and jointless, and tendrils as thick as fingers extended from the maw in his monstrous face. Diana choked back her scream, but she couldn’t hold back a whimper, and her legs threatened to fold up underneath her. Cain rose up behind Sanford, a foot taller than before, torchlight shining off the viscous ooze that dripped along his extremities. The amulet glittered on the monster’s chest.

  “Meat,” Cain said, voice slushy and broken. “You are all meat for our god.” He seized Sanford by the shoulders and lowered his mouth toward the man’s head.

  Ruby stepped behind Cain, but she didn’t shoot him, or club him, or anything of the sort. Instead, she unclasped the necklace that held the amulet, quick as a pickpocket, and spun away, taking the amulet with her. Cain roared, turned, and chased after her – but he moved more slowly, lurching now, as if his altered form suddenly pained him.

  “Kill it!” Ruby shouted, dodging away from one of the priest’s lashing tentacle-arms.

  Without the amulet, Cain was vulnerable… but still formidable. Diana tried to shoot him, but Abel was in the way, stepping forward with the axe.

  “Cain!” he shouted. “I was your beginning, and I will be your end!”

  Cain hesitated, and then dodged, avoiding the axe blow. One tentacular arm slapped the axe away, and another lashed out, wrapping around Abel’s neck like a hangman’s noose. The priest got behind Abel and pulled him close in a bear hug. Cain backed up against the wall, holding Abel in front of him like a human shield.

  “Drop your weapons,” the priest said as Ruby, Diana, and Sanford slowly approached him. “Or I’ll feast on this pathetic human’s–”

  “Tedious,” Sanford said, and fired three times in rapid succession.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ebbs and Flows

  “No!” Diana screamed, but it was too late – one of Sanford’s bullets buried itself in Abel’s shoulder, a second took off his ear in passing as it slammed into Cain’s face, and another tore through the side of Abel’s neck before striking Cain in the throat. Blood gushed from both of them, spraying across the chamber, and Cain slowly slid down the wall, monstrous arms now limp. Two of Sanford’s bullets had struck the priest, either one of them mortal wounds for a normal man, and without the miraculous healing powers of the amulet, it didn’t look like Cain was going to get up again.