This Eternity of Masks and Shadows Page 9

  “I’m sorry,” Themis said. “I see now that I was wrong. If you’re going to continue to follow the dark roads of Sedna’s final days, then I’m only putting you at risk if I withhold information that might be relevant. I didn’t give you the journal because …” She swallowed back tears, then started again. “I didn’t give it to you because I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to forgive myself for tarnishing your mother’s memory.”

  “My mother is dead,” Cairn replied brusquely. “What could possibly make that any worse?”

  “An hour from now, you might feel differently.” The doctor trudged toward the exit but paused in the doorway. “Before you read it, just remember: one horrible deed doesn’t make a person evil. When it’s time to be judged at the end of our lives, it’s the sum of our actions that ultimately defines us.” She closed the door behind her.

  Alone again, Cairn dropped into Themis’s vacated chair and turned her attention back to the puzzling contents her mother had left her. She set aside the empty vial and the silver bell, too cryptic for her to decipher any meaning from in her frazzled emotional state.

  For now, the journal held the greatest promise for answers. Inside the front cover, she found another faded Polaroid of the Pantheon. A college-aged version of her mother stood arm in arm with the four fellow gods from the other photograph, including the recently deceased district attorney. Behind them, a ship loomed, with the name Dreadnaught printed on its barnacle-studded hull.

  There were two newcomers in this photograph: an older looking gentleman with an Albert Einstein look to him, and a young girl, no older than six or seven, who hid behind him. She was so meek and unassuming that she was easy to miss at first glance.

  Cairn took a deep breath and flipped to the first page. Seeing her mother’s handwriting again drove an iron spike into her heart.

  Half an hour later, when she finished the last entry, her hands wouldn’t stop shaking as she closed the book.

  Themis had been right about one thing. In the time it took to read the journal, everything had changed.

  While Cairn was brimming with more questions than ever, two things were clear:

  Everyone who’d been on that damned island had a motive for making sure what happened there never came to light.

  And her mother—her seemingly innocent mother—was a cold-blooded child killer.

  Sable Noir, Part II: The Sea Witch

  Nineteen Years Earlier

  Sedna knelt in the black sand, stuffing supplies into her hiking backpack. She watched the smoke from the volcano rise over the jungle. In a few minutes time, she and her teammates would begin their journey into the uncharted forest, and she wasn’t sure what possibility she feared most: being incinerated by a pyroclastic flow from the volcano or an attack from whatever vengeful deity they’d been sent here to find.

  “Free me from these bonds!”

  The captain’s furious demands interrupted her daymares. She wandered over to Comstock, who they had tied to the trunk of a palm tree. The grizzled man wriggled against his restraints but succeeded only in giving himself rope burn.

  “I am a danger to no one!” he growled.

  Sedna nodded to the ship that had run aground. “Just minutes ago, you tried to reenact the Titanic’s maiden voyage.”

  “I told you, I can’t remember any of that!”

  “You’re not helping your case, amigo,” Nagual called out.

  Tane indicated the tequila-filled flask tucked in the jaguar god’s waistband. “Take a moment to appreciate the irony of you lecturing others about blacking out.”

  Despite her misgivings, Sedna flipped out her hunting knife to cut Comstock free.

  But Ra caught her by the arm. “What are you doing?” A superior tone had crept into his voice recently. It was no secret that the sun god had come to fashion himself as their de facto leader, but lately, he’d made it clear that he believed all decisions should funnel through him.

  “What’s he going to do, crash the boat again?” Sedna’s voice came out testier than she intended. “Besides, we need someone to try to dig out the Dreadnaught, unless you think we should build some beach huts and settle here indefinitely.”

  Ra released her and held up his hands, a truce of a smile on his lips. “I don’t suppose you could just strap harnesses to a pod of whales and have them tow the damn thing out.”

  Njörun drifted over. “Or we could saddle some dolphins and ride them back to the mainland.”

  Sedna squinted at Njörun. The Norse goddess was so immersed in the dream world that it was often impossible to discern whether she was joking or stone-cold serious.

  After Sedna had freed Comstock, she found Leopold Sibelius hidden behind a copse of trees. He was trying to inject a syringe into Aether’s arm while the little girl squirmed.

  “Hold still!” he hissed. “How many times do we have to go through this, you recalcitrant little—?” He suddenly noticed Sedna and offered a smile thinner than tissue paper. “Children, always rebelling against what’s best for them.”

  Sedna had so far resisted the urge to ask about the girl’s daily injections, but now she saw an opening. “If Aether suffers some sort of affliction, maybe it’s best that you both remain here at the base camp. The journey up this rugged terrain would be trying even for a healthy adult. I would hate for your daughter to overexert herself.”

  “Oh, she’ll be fine,” the doctor replied with forced cheer. “Aether and I have devoted many mornings to hikes through the Alps. You could say she’s spent her whole life preparing for this trip—isn’t that right, Aether?” He pinched the girl’s shoulder.

  Aether didn’t react, aside from a twitch of her left eye.

  Looking back, Sedna would later realize that was the moment she should have refused to let them come along.

  The only upshot to Captain Comstock’s suicidal meltdown was that they’d crash-landed in front of Sulfur Gulch, a long ravine that snaked up to the volcano’s caldera. While the majority of the island’s slopes were covered in overgrown forestation, the lava from previous eruptions had scored a long, dark channel through the trees.

  Nagual took one gander down the narrow canyon. “Oh, hell no,” he said. “I’ll shadow you guys from the trees above. See you at the top.” He dropped to all fours. Orange spotted fur populated his flesh as his body contracted and disappeared into his linen shirt and pants.

  Moments later, a small jaguar emerged. Nagual could assume several sizes but preferred a more agile form when exploring and climbing.

  Aether applauded with delight as Nagual completed his transformation and effortlessly bounded up into the trees. Even if her father had prepared her for the Pantheon’s supernatural talents, it must still look magical to a mortal child.

  Dr. Sibelius, on the other hand, had observed Nagual with the clinical, wary gaze of a scientist who didn’t care for mystical processes that defied the grasp of science. Sedna suspected that he viewed them all as specimens, and if given the chance, would dissect them in his lab if he felt it would reveal a blueprint of whatever divine cog-work powered them.

  Sedna collected Nagual’s discarded clothing from the ground and stuffed it into her pack. The jaguar king had a propensity for exhibitionism, and she preferred to minimize the time he shamelessly strutted around in the nude after morphing back into human form.

  No one else seemed eager to enter the crevasse first, so Sedna volunteered to take the lead. While her powers weren’t as useful on the mainland, Themis had trained her in Krav Maga and other schools of close combat for the last year.

  Something told her that martial arts would prove a weak defense against whatever dark being haunted the island.

  The stone walls of the passage grew taller as they traveled single file up the mountainside. Occasionally, they heard rustling in the forest above the ravine, and it was impossible to determine whether it was Nagual keeping pace with them—or something else entirely.

  Tane, who followed Sedna, seemed parti
cularly ill at ease, despite his proximity to the jungle. “Tactically speaking, I don’t like this,” he said. “Do you know how the three hundred Spartans defeated an entire Persian army at Thermopylae? They ambushed them in a narrow pass.”

  Sedna felt on edge, too. Still, the gulch seemed less dangerous than hacking their way through the jungle above. Plus, Tane had formed such a close psychic connection to plant life that every swing of the machete would feel as though he were being sliced apart himself. “Tell me a story,” Sedna said, hoping to distract him. Since she’d learned of her own divine origins, Sedna had become fascinated by the ancient myths of other gods. While they were often bizarre and larger than life, she believed a kernel of truth existed in every one.

  Tane, proud of his heritage, took the bait. “In the beginning, there was no forest. There was only Rangi and Papa—Father Sky and Mother Earth. They yearned for each other with such passion that they lived perpetually in a tight embrace.” Tane interlocked his fingers for emphasis. “When they birthed my siblings, we were forced to live in the narrow space between.”

  Sedna gestured to the claustrophobic passage around them. “Not unlike this?”

  “No.” As Tane walked, he idly ran his fingertips over the craggy surface of the canyon walls. A ribbon of moss sprouted wherever he touched. “My brother Tangaroa, god of the sea, tried to separate our parents with the crashing of the waves, but he could not tear them apart. My brother Tu, master of war, tried to use his might to break their embrace, but their grip was too strong. Finally, Tane”—he pounded his chest, the muscles of his elaborately tattooed arm bulging—“clever spirit of the forest, lay on his back. He used his legs, strong as tree trunks, to push Rangi away from Papa. The forests grew tall and dense, filling the space between forevermore.”

  “And the crowd went wild!” Sedna made faux cheering sounds into her cupped hands.

  “Unfortunately, no. Legends follow that the rest of the gods persecuted me for the rest of time. Something about my brother Tangaroa flooding my jungles in retaliation for stealing the lizards from the sea.”

  “We’ve all been there,” Sedna joked.

  But her laughter died as she rounded the corner and noticed the graffiti on the canyon walls.

  Mami Wata vous voit, the first message read in messy crimson letters.

  Mami Wata wè ou, read the next.

  Wada Mami ga anata o miru.

  Mami Wata ser deg.

  Mami Wata sieht dich.

  The same message was written in thirty different languages—French, Creole, Japanese, Norwegian. Whoever had scrawled the words saved English for the very last.

  Mami Wata sees you.

  Ra had paused in front of the Arabic message. “Who in the living hell,” he asked, “is Mami Wata?”

  Sedna examined the space around the messages more closely. What she thought had been a natural pattern in the rock was, in fact, a series of small eyes—thousands of them—that had been hand-painted onto the stone.

  “Mami Wata is a powerful water spirit,” Sedna explained. “In Haitian Vodou, she is known as Le Sirène. She originated in the Western African religion, then migrated to the Caribbean and the Americas, carried by slaves to the new world. Details about her vary from country to country, but her M.O. usually involves luring seafarers to her nether realm.”

  Ra scoffed. “You’re telling me that all this hassle has been so we could find a fucking mermaid?”

  Sedna had stopped listening to the sun god and transferred her attention to an unidentified white noise ahead. It sounded like radio static at first, growing louder as someone rotated the volume knob.

  Sedna and Tane exchanged alarmed glances. Somewhere behind them, Njörun said matter-of-factly, “Last night, I dreamed of waterfalls.”

  “Run!” Nagual’s voice echoed down the gulch. They looked up to see the jaguar king stark naked back in human form, sprinting along the top of the ravine in the opposite direction. He gestured frantically downhill like an overzealous air traffic controller. “Run, run, run!”

  As the sound crescendoed, Sedna realized too late what she was hearing, before a ten-foot-tall river of muddy water cascaded around the bend ahead.

  “Shit,” was all Sedna was able to say before the wall of brown hit her.

  The tsunami threw her backward, savagely slamming her into the stone wall. The relentless assault pressed her body into the rock and threatened to fill her mouth if she tried to breathe. Given her abilities, Sedna had spent much of her life swimming in various bodies of water, but immersed in the chaos, she quickly lost all sense of direction. Her eyes stung horribly when she attempted to open them, and she could see little through the rapids.

  Finally, as her lungs ached for air, she maneuvered away from the rock wall. Even as she breached the surface and sucked in a deep breath, the muddy torrent propelled her uncontrollably down the ravine. She caught sight of Tane bobbing in and out of the water not far from her.

  With a dramatic whoosh, the mudslide ejected them out the opening of the gulch at the bottom of the mountain. A final wave dumped Sedna out onto the beach, where she lay stunned in the black sand.

  Soon the current abated, dying down to a deceptively gentle current before stopping altogether, as if someone at the top of the volcano had simply turned off a faucet. Sedna struggled to rise to her feet, a sharp ache in her side, and wondered if she’d broken a rib.

  The others lay around her in various states of injury. She tried to perform a headcount, but with everyone uniformly splattered in mud, it wasn’t immediately clear who was who. Still, through her waterlogged brain, Sedna could tell that someone was missing.

  Dr. Sibelius staggered out of the trees. “Aether!” he screamed. “Aether!” Blood oozed from a nasty gash on his temple, but he didn’t seem to notice as he searched frantically for his daughter.

  Sedna and the others sprang into action, scouring the beach for any sign of the young girl. But she was nowhere to be found. Nagual transformed back into a jaguar and loped up the gulch. When he returned minutes later, he simply shook his head.

  Just when the panic was really starting to set in, they heard Tane cry, “Over here!”

  The Māori god crouched at the edge of the trees, examining the ground a few meters away. A series of small muddy footprints trailed off into the jungle.

  Aether hadn’t been washed away by the river.

  She had run away.

  Sedna was still processing this when a hand gripped her elbow, hard.

  It was Dr. Sibelius, and his eyes were pleading and wild. “We have to find her!” he shrieked.

  Sedna jerked out of his grasp. “Relax, she won’t make it far. She’s a child and this is an overgrown jungle.” She snapped her fingers at Nagual and pointed to the canopy. The jaguar nodded once and bounded up into the branches of the nearest tree.

  “You don’t understand.” Dr. Sibelius wiped the mud away from the face of his wristwatch. When the numbers appeared, Sedna discovered that it wasn’t a clock.

  It was a timer, counting down.

  “We have to find her,” Dr. Sibelius repeated, “and we only have eleven hours to do it.”

  Part Two

  Parasomnia

  Acasta Gneiss

  Cairn was still reeling from the contents of the journal when she arrived home that evening. Squall greeted her with a scowl at the front door. He was splayed out on the cold tiles, and Cairn wondered how long he’d been lying there, waiting for this moment to remind her how neglectful she’d been the last twenty-four hours. “You can be so melodramatic,” Cairn chastised him. She scratched behind his ears and rubbed his belly. While he made a feeble attempt to feign resentment, his purring betrayed him.

  What remained of his grudge faded away after Cairn had refilled his empty food dish. A few bites later and he was restored to his old self, resuming his routine of weaving between her feet and clinging to her ankles.

  If only humans could forgive so easily.

  Cai
rn found her father in a place he’d rarely treaded the last few months: his bedroom. Emile Delacroix was systematically packing his old leather suitcase on the bed, stacking folded clothes like a game of Tetris. He sensed her presence behind him and held up two sweaters. “Green or magenta? I only have room to pack four.”

  “Only four?” Cairn crossed her arms. “What kind of nerd trip requires so many dapper outfits?”

  Her father looked crestfallen. “Ah—you forgot.”

  And then it dawned on Cairn. She’d been so wrapped up in everything that she’d totally forgotten about his research trip—six weeks in Northern Canada studying pillow lava and a greenstone belt, or something like that.

  Worst of all, she’d scheduled a farewell dinner on his calendar for tonight, insisting on cooking his favorite dish, eggplant parmigiana.

  “I’m so sorry, Dad.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Saturday snuck up on me. I’ve been so busy that I totally forgot to check my calendar and—”

  “Hey.” Her father enveloped her in a hug just as she started bawling. “I was craving Chinese anyway.”

  An hour later, they were eating delivery on the couch, watching reruns. It occurred to Cairn that for the last few months they’d been avoiding each other, at least subconsciously. Instead of turning to her father for support, she had decided along the way that she couldn’t bear to see him in so much pain. Her own grief was already a crippling enough burden.

  But now, faced with the prospect of an empty house for the next month, she urgently didn’t want him to go.

  Perhaps sensing her thoughts, her father said, “You know, you could come with me.”

  “To Canada?” Cairn tapped her chin pensively. “I’m worried I don’t own enough sweater vests.”