This Eternity of Masks and Shadows

by Karsten Knight

  Then it came flying off the hinges.

  “Gods help us,” Cairn whispered.

  She bumbled through the darkness until she found her phone on the nightstand, nearly ripping the charger out of the wall in the process. Delphine stirred, so Cairn slipped out the window onto the fire escape to make the call.

  Nook picked up after three rings. “It’s late, kid,” he answered, voice gruff with sleep. “Look, there is nothing you can say to make me change my mind about letting you—”

  “Shut up and listen for a second,” Cairn interrupted him. She pressed a finger to her other ear to block out the wind rushing past the fire escape. “Do you still have the forensic report for the victim in the bog, Tane?”

  A pause. “Yes.”

  “I need you to read me the part about what they found on his wings,” Cairn instructed him. “Please—it’s important.”

  Nook let out a long, exasperated sigh on the other end. She heard the sound of a desk drawer opening and then papers rustling. “They didn’t gather much from the wings—just a cheap mass-produced accessory bought at a costume store in South Bay, in cash, no video footage.”

  “What about the wax that was sprinkled on the wings?” Cairn asked. “What kind of candle was it from?”

  Nook started to read from the report again, but the moment he mentioned the detail Cairn had been hoping for, she cut him off again. “Pick me up on the corner of Summer and Melcher as soon as you can. Don’t fight me on this. I’ll explain everything in the car.” She hung up before he had a chance to protest.

  Back inside, she scribbled out a note and left it on the nightstand. Delphine continued to doze peacefully, face pressed into the pillow with her long, wavy hair pooled around her face. She had always been a heavy sleeper, dating back to their earliest slumber parties.

  Cairn placed a kiss on her temple. With any luck, she’d be back before sunrise and Delphine would never know she’d been gone.

  With any luck.

  Cairn had banked on Nook’s curiosity prevailing over his stubbornness, but she was still pleasantly surprised when the Dodge Challenger rolled up to the curb. She climbed into the passenger seat and pointed down the road. “Quincy Marina.”

  Nook responded by shifting the car into park. “This is not an Uber. Tell me what you know, then return to your girlfriend and your illegally imported exotic pet and go back to sleep.”

  Cairn glanced back at Delphine’s apartment. “How did you know—?”

  “I’m a detective.” He pointed to her black jeans. “And you are covered in fur.”

  She locked her door. “Here’s the deal: I’m not telling you what I know until we get there.”

  “This is not a negotiation.”

  Cairn pounded her fist on the dashboard. “And he didn’t kill your mother!”

  Nook fell silent. Cairn trembled in the passenger seat, oscillating between rage and desperation.

  She lowered her voice. “I could have followed up on this lead on my own—but I chose to call you. I want you to be there, to have my back. But you can’t ask me to hang back and sit this one out when we’re this close to catching the asshole who stole from me the one person in this world I cared about most. So give me that grumpy papa bear scowl all you want, but there’s no version of this scenario that ends without me on that island.”

  After a moment, Nook pulled a notebook from his pocket and flipped it open. “And what island would that be … ?”

  Cairn threw up her hands in exasperation.

  Nook tossed the notebook into the backseat and started the car. “Fine, you win. But my boat is docked closer.”

  A half an hour later, they arrived at Outer Brewster Island. The choppy seas crashed against Nook’s boat as they tied off. Ahead, the greenhouse lay dark against the night sky.

  It didn’t take long to locate Ari once they entered. They found him sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat in the middle of his labyrinth of beehives, eyes closed, palms facing up. A ring of candles surrounded him.

  At first, Cairn couldn’t tell whether Ari was meditating or asleep, but then his eyes fluttered open. His disoriented gaze fell on her first. “Cairn? What are you—?” Then he noticed the hulking silhouette of Nook emerge from the shadows, his police-issue Beretta already in his hand. “Ah,” Ari said quietly. “I see now.”

  No denial.

  No fear.

  Only calm understanding.

  It was all the confession Cairn needed. Suddenly, she wished she was the one with the gun. “Why’d you do it?” she asked. “Why’d you kill my mom?”

  Ari rose to his feet and cricked his neck. “It was just a job—nothing personal.” He cringed. “You know, I might have sociopathic tendencies, but in retrospect, I can hear how that might have sounded insensitive.”

  Cairn lunged for Ari, longing to wrap her fingers around his neck and squeeze, but Nook restrained her.

  “How’d you figure it out?” Ari asked.

  Cairn shrugged free of Nook’s grip. “You’re not as careful as you think,” she said. “Next time try using store-bought candles.”

  Tane’s forensic report had been the decisive clue. Chemical analysis had determined that the wax on his wings came from a beeswax candle. That detail hadn’t struck Cairn as unusual the first time she read the report.

  Only tonight did she remember that most common modern candles were made of a cheaper petroleum-based wax called paraffin, not beeswax.

  Once she made that connection, other little things started to click into place, including what Themis had said to her about dreamwalkers letting bits of their own subconscious bleed into their victim’s dreams. All this time, Cairn had mistaken that pervasive hum in her nightmares for chanting. Nagual and Dr. Sibelius’s assistant had both ranted that the same noise had haunted their dreams, too.

  In reality, it wasn’t a human voice at all, but rather the blunt drone of a bee colony. Even now, Cairn could make out the hum in the background of the greenhouse.

  The catch: the man standing in front of them wasn’t a bee god at all, the shy insect-loving boy that Cairn had attended summer camp with years ago.

  All this time—the mead launch party, her date to win back Delphine—she’d been talking to the assassin who’d poisoned her mother with Nocturne and manipulated her into drowning herself.

  The Greek god of nightmares that Njörun had warned her about before she died.

  Phobetor.

  “Where is the real Aristaeus?” Nook asked, gun trained on the assassin.

  Phobetor’s eyes flicked to the wall of wooden casks. “He’s been decomposing in a barrel of his own mead for the last six months.” He winked at Cairn. “Remember that smoky rosé I served at the Ambrosia launch party?”

  Cairn had feared that the assassin must have killed her old campmate in order to take his place. To have it confirmed so casually was like a knife in her side.

  To be sure, on the boat ride to the greenhouse, Cairn had pulled up an online album of her summer at camp and found an old photo of Ari, the real one. At a quick glance, he really did look like he could have blossomed into the chiseled hipster that stood in front of her now. But once you looked past the earthy-crunch veneer—the glasses, the man bun, the stubble—you could see the subtle differences between the two men. “Why?” Cairn asked. “Why him?”

  “Identity theft is shockingly easy when you can steal from people’s dreams.” Phobetor gestured around at the greenhouse. “And as far as cover identities go, how could I turn down the opportunity to appropriate buzz-boy’s life? Private island to myself, day job drinking booze, undisturbed place to meditate while I frolic through the nightmares of others?”

  Easy access to Senator Ra and his family, Cairn silently added. And while it wasn’t unusual for a god to masquerade as a human, no one would think to look for one impersonating another god. For an assassin trying to keep a low profile, it was a brilliant cover.

  Phobetor rolled his eyes. “Don’t sulk, princess, yo
u barely knew the kid. And let me tell you, I watched some of Ari’s dreams, and even after all these years, let’s just say he harbored some racy fantasies involving you.”

  Nook had heard enough. He indicated the floor with his gun. “Down on your knees, hands behind your head.”

  Ari complied without hesitation, the same unnervingly calm expression on his face the whole time.

  Nook plucked a pair of cuffs from his belt. “You are under arrest for the murders of Ahna Delacroix, Tane Makoa, Leopold Sibelius, and Aristaeus Kava. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say—“

  “You might want to skip reading me my rights,” Phobetor interrupted. “That is, if you want to get back to the mainland in time to save that blind mentor of yours.”

  Cairn felt the world tilt around her. Nook, too, paused as he approached Phobetor.

  “Are you familiar with the myth of Ixion?” the nightmare god asked.

  Cairn was familiar. Ixion had been the son of Ares and king of the Lapiths. During a visit to Olympus, he’d made the mistake of lusting after Hera, Zeus’s wife. Enraged, Zeus cast Ixion out with a thunderbolt and banished him to the hell of Tartarus—where he was strapped to a fiery, spinning wheel to be tortured for eternity.

  Nook pressed his Beretta to Phobetor’s head. “What the fuck did you do?”

  “What I was paid to do. Six gods, six hits.” Phobetor gritted his teeth as the muzzle dug into his temple. “You’re already too late.”

  Cairn felt paralyzed. If what Phobetor said about Themis was true, they needed to get back to the mainland, right now, if it wasn’t already too late. On the other hand, she needed to find out who’d hired the assassin to kill her mother and the others. Phobetor was a master of deception, but she believed him when he said it was just a job to him. She saw no malice, no personal vendetta toward Sedna—just the cold, calculated determination of a hitman completing a contract.

  That didn’t mean he wouldn’t still pay a dear price.

  Nook flipped off the safety. “Last chance, dirtbag: who hired you?”

  Phobetor ignored the threat and gazed right at Cairn instead. “Do you know where the original formula for Nocturne came from?” He bared his teeth. “The venom in my saliva.”

  With the speed of a viper, Phobetor snapped his head around and sank his incisors into the wrist of Nook’s good hand. The detective growled with pain as the nightmare god’s fangs broke the skin. He tried to shake free, but the assassin had latched on tight.

  In the scuffle, Nook’s Beretta clattered across the floor. Cairn lunged for it, intending to empty a magazine into Phobetor’s head to put him down once and for all, even if it meant never getting answers about his employer.

  Phobetor saw her going for the gun and disengaged with Nook. Just as her fingers brushed the grip, he struck her across the face with a vicious backhand that sent her reeling back.

  Cairn shook off the ringing in her ears and rallied for another attack, but she hesitated. Nook had stopped moving. Even as blood dripped from the bite wound in his arm, the detective gazed calmly up through the glass ceiling, as if the assassin he’d been searching for wasn’t standing two strides away.

  “Nook?” Cairn shouted, then again, “Nook!”

  The detective didn’t even flinch. Like a punch to the gut, she recognized the distant, glassy stare of someone under the spell of Nocturne.

  Phobetor planted a foot on the Beretta. “I’ve recently spent a little time gallivanting around the detective’s dreams, and when I looked past all the flashbacks to his daughter’s murder, I discovered the one thing he fears most: seeing you get hurt.” He rubbed his chin. “But then I thought to myself, you know what would make an even better nightmare? If he were the one doing the hurting.”

  Nook’s head rotated until his dream-glazed eyes landed on her.

  Cairn rushed up to Nook and shook him by his massive shoulders, trying to wake him.

  “He doesn’t see you,” Phobetor said. The dream assassin’s eyes clouded white. “Now he only sees the woman who killed his daughter.”

  Nook suddenly seized Cairn by the lapel. “You’re going to suffer for what you did to her, Nemesis!” he screamed as he lifted her off her feet.

  “Wait!” she protested.

  With superhuman strength, Nook hurled her across the greenhouse and she slammed into wooden casks that lined the walls. The impact sent a shockwave through her back as she dropped to the concrete.

  Nook’s body quaked as his limbs thickened and his torso elongated until he was eight feet, nine feet, ten feet tall. As his prosthetic clattered to the floor and his clothes tore away, white fur sprouted from his skin and his face elongated into a snout. “I will feast on your marrow,” he growled, his voice only half-human but full of murderous intent.

  Cairn struggled to peel her battered body off the floor. The man who had carried out the kill order on her mother was just a few strides away, and she knew if she fled now, the bastard could vanish forever—or worse, come back to find her the next time she slept, on the nocturnal plane where he had home-court advantage. And she didn’t want to leave Nook behind, while he was a vulnerable slave to Phobetor’s whim.

  But as she gazed up at the polar bear towering over her, balanced on his two back paws, she realized that to stay and try to wake him from the nightmare would only result in an immediate, painful death.

  So with a final look at Phobetor, his lips taut in a gloating smile, she made the difficult decision to run and fight another day.

  As Cairn exited the greenhouse out onto the chilly beach, she listened for the growls of a pursuing bear but heard only the crash of the waves against the shore. Maybe she’d fled prematurely. Maybe Nook had rebelled against the nightmare god’s control and regained consciousness to destroy him.

  Cairn chanced a look back at the greenhouse. She saw a big white blur growing larger on the other side of the windows.

  Then the polar bear exploded through the glass.

  Cairn had just reached the end of the jetty and dropped down into the boat’s cockpit. “Come on …” she whispered as she twisted the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered to life.

  Nook had been searching the beach for her, but the hum of the boat’s outboard motor might as well have been a signal flare. He galloped over the sand and onto the pier, still quick even with one missing paw. Cairn watched in horror as he closed the distance between them in long, powerful strides.

  She rammed the throttle forward, and the boat puttered out into the water.

  Nook didn’t slow down as he approached the end of the dock. His muscular legs propelled him in a massive leap impressive for a polar bear that weighed a metric ton.

  His front claws slammed into the bulwark, and the boat lurched hard, but the rest of his body fell just short. Nook plunged into the water with an incredible splash.

  As the boat glided away, the bear resurfaced and paddled hard in the boat’s wake, eyes vengefully fixed on Cairn. She could hear his frantic grunts, but with the boat accelerating toward thirty knots, he would never be able to keep up.

  Cairn wanted desperately to help Nook, but until the Nocturne wore off, his life was in Phobetor’s hands. If she turned back to help him or tried to go after the nightmare god, Nook would catch her and tear her apart.

  And while there was nothing she could do for Nook right now, it might not be too late to save Themis.

  So Cairn angled the boat to the north and set a course for the doctor’s mansion. “I’m sorry,” she called out to Nook as he receded into the distance.

  Over the wind, she heard the distant whine of another motor. A sleek cigarette boat emerged from the cove behind the Island. The high-speed rum runner turned south and quickly disappeared into the night as the man who murdered Cairn’s mother escaped.

  Cairn’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. Phobetor could run to the ends of the earth if he wanted.

  But one day soon, she would track him down again—

&n
bsp; And this time she would teach him a thing or two about nightmares.

  Ixion’s Wheel

  Cairn could see the fire before she even docked the boat.

  As she cruised north, she first spied the tremendous, billowing cloud of smoke blotting out the night sky, and eventually the flames consuming the windmill.

  You’re already too late, Phobetor’s words taunted her.

  Cairn coasted into the dock too hard, slamming with a jolt into the plastic bumpers. She hopped onto the pier and sprinted up the eighty steps carved into the cliff.

  When she reached the top, she emerged into the worst nightmare of all.

  An inferno had engulfed both the mansion and windmill. Even from half a football field away, the overwhelming heat lapped at Cairn. Smoke filled the air and it was hard to breathe with the flames thirstily sucking in all the oxygen they could. The fire department had already arrived and furiously sprayed the mansion from all sides, but the uncontrollable blaze instantly turned the water to steam and roared on.

  You’re already too late.

  As Cairn gazed at the fire, she remembered Phobetor’s reference to Ixion—the king who’d been strapped to a flaming wheel for eternity. A wave of dread rolled over her. She slowly turned from the mansion to the windmill burning behind her.

  Even as the fire raged, the colossal sails continued to revolve. And as one blade curved toward the ground, flames writhing over the wooden lattice, Cairn spotted the blackened body tethered to the frame.

  Themis.

  The doctor had been bound by coils of wire to the windmill’s sail. Her face, so charred it was nearly unrecognizable, was frozen in a horrible scream from the moment she’d died.

  Cairn dropped to her knees and vomited onto the ground. Somewhere between the retches, a sob escaped her throat, and she watched, paralyzed, as Themis’s corpse continued to make its grisly orbit.