Predictably, my face heated. She’d meant nothing by the comment about wearing too much, other than an innocent remark on the differences between our peoples. Still, the thought of being unclothed before her sent a flush of warmth between my legs.
“Is-is everyone gone?” I asked, a bit breathlessly.
“Yes.” She nodded to the building beside the theater. “I watched from the roof. The land dwellers left and locked the door. I’ve seen no guard.”
Hopefully, she was right and the theater was indeed deserted. I took out the candle I’d concealed in my coat. My summoning stone was still in my coat pocket; I’d forgotten to remove it. “Then light this, and I’ll pick the lock. Then we’ll see what—if anything—we can find.”
This lock was a bit more complicated than the ones I’d picked before. As I worked at it, I couldn’t help but imagine Oliver’s reaction if he could see me now. No doubt he would consider Mr. Flaherty a corrupting influence for teaching me.
Odd, that a handsome man like Mr. Flaherty never seemed to have a sweetheart. He’d never brought a lady with him to any of the museum functions. No doubt as a private detective, he’d seen more than his share of love turned sour. Perhaps he preferred to remain unencumbered by any romantic entanglements. No doubt a meeting of the minds, such as he had with Dr. Whyborne, was more satisfactory to him.
“There,” I said with satisfaction, when the lock clicked open.
“Well done, Maggie.” Persephone’s teeth gleamed in the dim light. “Let’s go in.”
The door let onto a corridor, with more doors opening off to either side. Dressing rooms, no doubt, and perhaps the green room or manager’s office. “You know more of the ways of land dwellers,” Persephone said. “Where should we search for Irene and Burton?”
“We won’t find anything near the public areas,” I said. “So either backstage, or in any basement area, if there is one.”
“Down, then,” Persephone said. She shifted her spear in her hand. “Lead the way.”
I did so, doing my best to keep my steps silent. It was impossible, though: my skirt rustled, and the claws tipping Persephone’s webbed toes clicked against the stone floor.
The stone floor, which had been part of the original church. A church such as this would indeed have a basement. More accurately, it would have a crypt.
“Come,” I murmured. “I think I know where to look.”
I found the old stone staircase leading down to the crypt. The stage must have been directly above us. An opening had been cut into the stones of the ceiling, through which ran various ropes for hauling up props. The crypt itself seemed to be dedicated largely to storage: costumes spilled from half-open trunks, furniture for sets crowded in between the raised vaults, and cans of paint for backdrops were stored in niches that must have once held urns. What had happened to the earthly remains of those once interred here? Or—I shivered at the thought—had they simply been left in place, and even now rested beneath our feet?
I took the lead, and Persephone followed. The crypts occupied a small series of rooms, with a chapel at the far end. Other than the fact the prop room was in a crypt, nothing unusual presented itself until we reached the chapel.
The place seemed darker, somehow, and the scent of the sea stronger than it should have been beneath the ground. The light of the candle struggled against the shadows. Reluctantly it crept across the marble floor, the empty alcoves where saints had once rested, until it touched the rusty iron bars of a cage.
~ * ~
Persephone let out a hiss and rushed to the cage. I approached slowly, expecting to see poor Irene or Mr. Burton imprisoned within. Instead, the candlelight revealed a ketoi.
She huddled on the bottom of the cage, barely moving. Glossy skin had gone dry and cracked, and her tendrils lay limp and shriveled against her neck, their tips gone brown as rawhide. Her ribs heaved, breath rasping through parted lips as if every inhalation were a struggle.
Persephone crouched by the cage, her eyes narrow and teeth exposed. “Who are you?” she asked.
I paused in my approach. “You don’t know her?”
“She isn’t from our city.”
The ketoi opened her eyes at the sound of Persephone’s voice. Her lips parted, but what issued forth was the strange language Persephone sometimes sang in. The ketoi tongue, no doubt.
Persephone tugged on the padlock holding the cage shut, but it resisted her strength. “Can you open this, Maggie?”
“I’m sure I can.” I knelt beside her. “Who is she? Where did she come from?”
Persephone’s tendrils thrashed and coiled. “She isn’t making much sense. She says she’s a chieftess, like me. That her city was destroyed, her people slaughtered. But the rest is incoherent.”
“A destroyed city?” I asked, alarmed. “Is that possible?”
“It’s happened before.” Persephone’s expression was grim as she regarded the other chieftess. “We trade with one another, send emissaries to one another, but we are scattered across the globe. We are in close contact with the ketoi city off the coast of Cornwall, but otherwise? If she’s from a distant place, it might take months, even years, for word of it to travel to us here.”
I bent my attention to the padlock. The foreign chieftess valiantly struggled to sit up in the confines of the cage. “Why is she here? And what’s wrong with her?”
“The first, I don’t know.” Persephone put her hand between the bars of the cage, and the other chieftess seized it. “As for the second, she’s been outside of water for far too long. We can come onto land, but not live here indefinitely.”
The lock fell open. Persephone hastily swung open the door, then hauled the other ketoi out. “She’ll recover, in time, but only if we get her into water soon.”
I reached out to help. The ketoi snapped her shark teeth at me, and I snatched my fingers back in shock.
Persephone snarled something at her angrily. “She’s confused,” she said to me, apologetically.
I took a deep breath and nodded. Somehow I’d let myself forget just how dangerous those teeth could be. “I understand. She’s been held captive. Tortured.”
“Still. I won’t let her hurt you, even by accident.” Persephone shifted the chieftess into her arms. “I’ve got her. You lead the way.”
Seeing them close together, it was even more obvious how sick the foreign ketoi was. Her markings were pale, her muscles wasted. Sinews stood out beneath her skin, and the edges of her gill slits were red and inflamed.
I moved up the stairs as quietly as possible. Before I could make for the stage door, however, there came the murmur of voices. “… be here soon,” a man said.
Oh dear. Apparently the theater wasn’t deserted after all.
I froze. Persephone stopped as well, but I could still hear the rasp of breath from the freed prisoner. If we were caught…
Ordinarily, I would have believed Persephone equal to any threat. But the imprisoned chieftess suggested the acting troupe—or whatever they truly were—had defeated ketoi before. An entire city, even. They’d slay us without a thought.
“Yes, Grandfather,” replied a woman. The siren—Joanna Ayers. “I’ve done this before. You don’t have to repeat yourself.”
Footsteps echoed, making for the direction of the stage. Of all the bad luck.
I turned to Persephone. Careful to stay clear of the other ketoi, I leaned in, until my lips were nearly at her ear.
“We can’t risk the stage door, if there are people moving around near it,” I whispered. The tendrils of her hair shifted, perhaps in response to the touch of my breath. One glided over my skin, where my throat met my jaw. A shiver ran down my body, and my mouth went dry. “We’ll have to sneak out the front, and hope no one is about on the street outside.”
Persephone nodded mutely. I withdrew, but her scent of salt and ambergris still clung to my skin.
I went cautiously, careful to stay in the back corridors, away from the auditorium. The voice
s faded—they must have gone to the stage, as I’d thought.
A discreet door let us out into the lobby. I led the way across the shadowy space, relief creeping over me. We’d escape, and Persephone would carry the foreign chieftess back to the sea, and the ketoi would take care of whatever was happening here at Undertow.
The grand doors rattled in their frames. A moment later, there came the click of a latch, and one of them began to swing open.
Chapter 6
There was no time. I seized the arm of the foreign chieftess, gesturing wildly toward the coat check as I did so. She didn’t snap at me; perhaps she realized now I was trying to help. Persephone and I hauled her between us to the entrance of the coat check and ducked behind the counter.
The creak of hinges sounded, the door shutting again. Then slow, shuffling footsteps made their way across the lobby.
My heart thundered, and I had to fold my hands together to keep them from shaking. At least the steps weren’t drawing any nearer to our hiding place. Persephone shifted to her knees and cautiously peered over the top of the counter.
“Maggie,” she whispered. “Look.”
A man wearing a nightshirt, dressing gown, and slippers made his way toward the doors leading into the auditorium. His expression was slack, but his eyes were wide, as if he were trapped in a nightmare.
“A hybrid?” I whispered.
Persephone shrugged. “I do not know him, but it seems likely.”
The man entered the auditorium, leaving the door open behind him. Soft light, as of candles rather than stage lighting, spilled out, accompanied by the murmur of voices.
Beside me, Persephone looked torn. Her tendril hair thrashed, and her shark’s teeth flashed briefly. Then she seemed to come to a decision. “Stay here. This is my chance to see what they’re doing with the hybrids.”
“I’m coming with you,” I said.
Persephone nodded. “Yes.” Leaning close to the foreign chieftess, she murmured something in their own tongue. The chieftess had collapsed against the counter, but the lids of her eyes slid open in response to Persephone’s words. Whether she truly had enough awareness to understand them, I couldn’t tell.
This time Persephone led the way, moving in a low crouch across the darkened lobby, both hands clutched around the haft of her spear. I mimicked her stance as best I could, my hands knotted in my skirts to keep them from dragging across the floor. The moment we reached the uppermost seats of the auditorium, we ducked behind them, her to the right of the aisle and myself to the left. All but holding my breath, I peered out from my hiding spot and toward the stage.
The theater’s ghost light illuminated the center of the stage, where Ayers and Joanna waited. Stagehands lurked near the wings or in the first few rows, muscular arms folded over their chests. One man had rolled his sleeves back, exposing crude tattoos of the sort common to sailors. Two others held harpoons loosely in their hands. Were these men whalers, as Papa had been?
The hybrid had almost reached the stage. He stopped short of it, face slack as he stared in Joanna’s direction. Though she wore an ordinary dress as opposed to a costume, she held the bone mask from the play loosely in her hands.
“I have bad news,” Ayers said to the gathering. He clutched a sheet of paper in one hand, crumpling it.
Joanna cocked her head to the side. “Shouldn’t we wait for our sorcerous friend before sharing it?”
“This is too urgent.” Ayers looked out over the stagehands—though surely they were more than mere workers. “Our agent in Kansas has failed. The rust has been destroyed, and the harvest with it.”
Kansas. Dr. Whyborne had gone to Kansas. I cast a worried glance at Persephone across the aisle, but her attention remained fixed on the stage.
Some of the stagehands murmured in dismay. Joanna, on the other hand, seemed far more confident. “Then we’ll try something else. Once the ketoi are annihilated, we’ll be in a position to carry out whatever orders the Man in the Woods gives.”
A chill ran down my spine. The Man in the Woods. I didn’t know what he—it?—was, exactly, other than it had something to do with the rat thing that had tried to kill me last summer. And no doubt with the cult that had attacked Widdershins shortly thereafter. Fideles—that was the name I’d overheard, wasn’t it?
Oh no. Could these people be members of the same cult?
Ayers shook his head. “It’s worse than that. Mrs. Creigh sent her telegram as a warning, to leave town before Dr. Whyborne returns. He’s a monster—”
“So is she,” said one of the stagehands—cultists?—with a gesture at Joanna.
Her eyes widened in fury, and for a moment I half expected her to march down off the stage and strike him. Ayers put a hand to her shoulder and shot the cultist a dark look. “My grand-daughter’s blood may be corrupt, but her service to the masters will cleanse her. Recall that only one with ketoi blood can use the mask.”
The mask. They must have used it to cast the spell on the hybrids. No wonder it looked so different from the other masks in the play.
“But that is neither here nor there,” Ayers went on. “According to Mrs. Creigh, Dr. Whyborne is something worse than a mere hybrid. He has some connection with the maelstrom, and she suggests we flee before he returns.”
“After all this effort?” Joanna exclaimed. “Restoring the theater, making it into a base from which we could operate in the very heart of this abominable city, and now Creigh expects us to abandon it because of some—some hybrid sorcerer?”
“Aren’t you listening?” Ayers’s voice turned into an angry growl. “He isn’t just some sorcerer. He might not even be a someone but a something. Without knowing whatever crawled out of cracks in the world and into his semi-human skin, we would be foolish to challenge him.”
I sank back, just a little. That didn’t sound like the Dr. Whyborne I knew. He was a kind man, who forgot to eat if not reminded, and sometimes came to work with mismatched shoes. Not someone to fear. Not a thing.
I glanced at Persephone again. Her expression was one of concentration, but not surprise.
Heliabel had said even some ketoi feared the twins.
Joanna clutched the mask, her face stormy. “Then what? We’re supposed to just flee, tail between our legs? Leave the maelstrom in the hands of rebels and abominations? How do you think the masters will repay us for that when they return?”
“We’ll complete our mission, never fear.” Ayers cast a long look at the rest of the group. “We still have a few days before Dr. Whyborne’s return, no matter how fast the trains run. With the raw magic of the vortex available to fuel our spells, what took weeks before can be accomplished in a single night.” He gestured to the bespelled hybrid, who still stood and swayed like a sleepwalker. “We have enough sacrifices. Tomorrow night, the ketoi city will fall.”
~ * ~
My breath caught, and a hiss escaped Persephone. We had to get out of here. She had to get back to the ocean so she could warn her people.
A croaking shriek rang out through the auditorium. An instant later, the foreign chieftess charged through the doors, past Persephone and me. With a strength I wouldn’t have imagined she still possessed, she rushed the group on the stage.
Shouts rang out. The stagehands fell back, wary of her teeth and claws. But Ayers only shook his head.
“You know what to do, Joanna,” he said.
Joanna lifted the mask to her face and began to sing.
The foreign chieftess stumbled, her whole body twitching, as if manipulated by wires. Across the aisle from me, Persephone’s eyes went wide—and she rose to her feet. The muscles in her neck stood out as she clenched her jaw, but her foot jerked forward, dragging her into the aisle. Her spear fell from her hand.
“Persephone!” I whispered frantically.
“Another one,” Ayers said in disgust.
Her lips drew back from her teeth, and her hair lashed wildly. “The song…it’s like the summoning stones. It draws us. I have
to fight it. I…have…to…”
I pressed myself against the back of the seat. My heart thundered, and I strove to hold my breath. I hadn’t been discovered yet, but it would be only a matter of time. I had to do something, to save Persephone…but what?
A low growl came from Persephone. She halted, only a few feet down the aisle. “No,” she said. “No. I…will…not.”
“What’s happening?” Ayers demanded. “How is she resisting? Joanna!”
The siren’s song grew louder, but volume seemed to have no effect. Blood leaked from Persephone’s hands, where her claws had punctured her own palms, and her entire body was braced as if against a great wind. But she didn’t move closer to the stage.
“No matter,” Ayers said coldly. “Kill her.”
No! I couldn’t let this happen, I couldn’t—
My frightened gaze locked on Persephone’s dropped spear.
If I’d taken the time to think, I would have been paralyzed with fright. As it was, I lunged into the aisle and snatched up the spear. It was unexpectedly heavy in my hands.
One of the cultists had raised his harpoon, his arm poised to throw it at Persephone. With a furious shout, I hurled the spear at him.
It flew perhaps five feet, before clattering uselessly to the floor.
Still, I’d managed to startle them. The song cut off abruptly, and the cultist with the harpoon hesitated.
Released from the bonds of the song, the foreign chieftess leaped on the cultist with a hideous cry. He shoved her off—then drove the harpoon through her body.
I cried out in horror. A shriek of outrage burst from Persephone—and then she flung out both hands.
Wind roared through the theater, howling through the open doors with such force it drove me to my knees. The great curtain tore free, collapsing onto the stage and enshrouding Ayers and Joanna in its folds.
Persephone didn’t wait for the other cultists to act. One strong arm seized my waist—and then she was running as fast as her batrachian feet would carry her, dragging me helplessly along.
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