Page 23

A s soon as the sun set, rushed to Achilles House and banged on the knocker. Gold Stitch answered immediately as if he’d been waiting for her.

“Meet me at the petrol station down the way.”

“Do you realise half of what you say sounds like you’re an axe murderer?”

“It’s good I don’t use an axe but a scalpel then, hm? Less painful.”

snorted.

“I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.” He closed the door and she was left doing what he said. Again.

On the drive to the petrol station, she considered talking to him about what she and Murdoch had been researching that afternoon. Sonder, she corrected inwardly, suppressing a tingle up her neck. The two of them had to be in contact, at least minutely. wasn’t foolish enough to believe Sonder’s consulting didn’t include information trading with the head of Achilles House. He probably knew who Gold Stitch was and all about the flora found in Stage 3 Infected bodies. She couldn’t very well ask Sonder that, or it would reveal a whole host of her own secrets. Sometimes, she entertained the thought that the two men were in league together, perhaps even one and the same. It made sense for how sullen and bossy they both were.

That train of thought flitted away when she pulled into the station and saw Lauren Kennedy’s roommate leaning against her Volkswagen, smoking a cigarette. She recognised her from the broadcasts and couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of sadness for the girl. Kathryn had been the one to find Lauren like that, dead-eyed and consumed. couldn’t fathom what that was like. Sure, she saw the deceased every day of her life, but she’d never stumbled upon someone she loved that way.

What if Kathryn had been at their dorm and not home visiting her new niece as she’d told the newsreader?

The thought gave a horrible, brilliant idea.

She recognised Gold Stitch’s car but didn’t realise until a few moments later that she’d never actually seen it before. Though, she was convinced people looked like their cars and pets. The lead anatomist of a masked secret society driving an olive Ford Capri from what looked like the 1960s was almost comically fitting.

She parked near him but selected a spot with a streetlight and he had not—ever in the shadows. locked her car and slid into his.

“Do I look like my car?” she asked by way of greeting.

“Excuse me?”

God, she wanted to rip that stupid mask off. “Do I look like my car?”

The mask rotated in the direction of her car, goggles shining. “Em. I suppose so?”

huffed. “Never mind. I think we should look at a different cadaver than the one we found last night.”

“Why is that?” He pulled out onto the main road.

“Because I don’t know what Stage 4 is, but I think it’s Lauren Kennedy.”

Gold Stitch’s head snapped toward her. “No.”

“So you know about her.”

“Obviously I do.”

“Then let’s take her.”

“That’s a death sentence. We can’t thieve a body from under the Society’s nose, .”

There he was using her name again, damn him.

“We should at least go collect a sample.”

He sighed so heavily she had to stifle a chuckle because he sounded like he was about to say, ‘No, I am your fatha ’ to Luke Skywalker.

“All right.”

“ All right ?” squealed.

That low, thunderous rumble of a laugh of his sounded in his chest and ’s cheeks heated. “Do you know where she is?”

“As a matter of fact, I think I do.”

She noted that he wasn’t wearing gloves this time, and her attention snagged on his hands as they gripped the wheel.

didn’t know her way around Dublin as well as she should, but she definitely knew they weren’t headed to college.

“This is a café,” she said blandly when he pulled into a car park. “There are Infected bodies under this café?”

“No.” He got out of the car and leaned his head back in. “But you’ve got the underground part right. Come on.”

climbed out and followed a masked man onto a secluded walkway into a dark, wooded area. One of these days, she was going to pay for being so trusting. Or was it reckless?

“Where are we going?” she whispered, stepping more quickly to walk next to him.

“You’ll see.”

A tree rustled above them and gasped, grabbing Gold Stitch’s arm and squeezing it to her chest before she realised what was happening. An owl glided out from the branches near the top, swooping down past them and into another tree with a hoo .

Realising it wasn’t a monster or villain or anything else that goes bump in the night, let out a breath, then noticed she was clutching her masked man’s arm like her life depended on it. She looked up into his goggles and dropped his arm, stepping away abruptly. “Sorry,” she murmured, rubbing at the back of her neck.

He said something, but it was too low for her to make out behind the mask.

They continued walking until the trees spit them out at a side entrance to a stunning building of towering stone. looked up at the spires, the arched windows, the utter, sacred beauty. “This is Saint Patrick’s Cathedral."

“It is indeed.”

To her complete astonishment, he pulled out a skeleton key that looked like it belonged to Dracula and shoved it into a lock. “It might be time for that Society history lesson,” she whispered at his back, so nervous that she kept scooting closer to him.

They crept inside, and Gold Stitch locked the door before striding purposefully to a cupboard of some sort couldn’t see for how dark it was. He pulled something out, and she heard him strike a match a split second before the flame ignited, and he lit a gas hand lamp. “You really don’t believe in torches, do you?”

He chuckled. “Secret societies like to dabble in the arcane and ominous.” His words were punctuated by him handing her a plague doctor mask he pulled down from the cupboard. “Put this on. I don’t think we’ll run into anyone, but just in case.”

She followed him to a great wooden door, wishing very much that they were headed into the sanctuary proper, though she knew that was highly unlikely. As expected, the door led to a set of steep stone steps that descended down and down. So far down that it didn’t make a great deal of physical sense.

“Are we going underground?” she whispered when the steps turned into broken cobbles, then dirt.

“Quite far underground.”

thought he was revealing an awful lot for not even letting her know his name. She wasn’t about to say so, though. “About that history lesson . . .”

He glanced at her, the tunnels growing so narrow their beaks were in danger of touching. Her foot kicked something that skittered down ahead of them into the shadows, but not before she could tell it was the skull of some small mammal.

Finally, Gold Stitch spoke. “Agamemnon Society began long ago as a group of comrades who wanted to do academic research outside of regular societal norms without becoming pariahs, mostly hidden behind the HPSC.”

It was difficult for to see with the heavy, oblong mask and she tripped more than once, trying to listen to his story.

“Most of the founding members wanted to research medicine, though the only way to truly understand the human body was to cut into it. Most saw this as disturbing, so the Society formed quietly and made deals with morgues and gravediggers to procure their subjects.”

They rounded a corner, the tunnel widening enough that was no longer brushing shoulders with him.

“Eventually, the Society grew to all manner of outcasts, men and women. Poets, authors, free-thinkers. It was a beautiful thing here in Dublin.”

“ Was ?” questioned.

“You’re a clever one. Yes, the early days were filled with innovation, breakthroughs, and wonders in all manner of academia you can imagine. Slowly, new members and those who gained entrance by blood—an inherited seat, if you will—began poisoning everything the Society stood for. By the time I joined—my seat was inherited and also earned—the Society had become rife with in-fighting and corruption. Even politicians weaselled their way in and began trying to control everything, to use the Society for their agendas.”

“Then why be in it at all?” she pressed, engrossed.

“Not everyone in Agamemnon is corrupt, and the opportunities it affords are vital to what I do. Sometimes things have to be reformed slowly from the inside.”

reached out and grabbed his bicep to halt him before they went any further. She felt his arm tense, and she let go. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

“Would you like the truthful answer to that question?”

“As opposed to a lie? Yes, please.”

She watched his mask move as he looked everywhere but at her.

“I don’t know,” he finally said, the words hardly audible. “I think I’m tired of looking for a cure, for reform, on my own.”

“But you said not everyone in the Society is like that. You have Achilles House. The broader Society.”

“You can be surrounded by people and still be alone, .”

She could see her birdlike mask reflected in his goggles in the lamplight. “I understand that.” Possibly better than most.

“Tell me you haven’t been digging alone for years, too.”

“I have.”

“Then let’s figure out what in hell is really going on, hm?”

dipped her beak and they rounded one last corner. Gold Stitch opened the door to what felt like another time. Two giant stone braziers blazed with fire at the foot of a short set of stone steps. Everything was stone. Save for the skulls and bones that made up the cave walls.

“ Jesus ,” she whispered in awe, descending the steps to have a better look.

The huge door closed with a heavy thud and jumped, turning to see Gold Stitch flanked by two enormous stone-carved reapers on either side of the door, featureless, protective, with their hoods up and arms outstretched, waiting for the dead.

“Sorry.” He said, jogging down the steps to meet her. “That door doesn’t close quietly, I’m afraid.”

“This is where Agamemnon Society meets?”

“It used to be, in the beginning.” He pointed to the curved walls of bones. “Society members’ coffins are buried empty. We are set aflame on an altar here and our bones are taken from the fire before they become ash.” He gestured to the cavelike walls was just realising were inlaid with–

“ Human bones,” she breathed, spinning a small circle, taking in the ossuary, like a miniature replica of the Catacombs of Paris.

“Yes. We make up the walls here.”

Without waiting for her to respond, he led the way forward, down another tunnel, shorter by far than the last. It opened up into an identical chamber, only everything was made of marble instead of crude stone. When the door shut, turned to see if the reapers were there, too. In that updated inner sanctum, the reapers were marble masterpieces.

wondered how they managed to get so much pristine marble underground but didn’t have time to contemplate it because her guide was already entering through another door.

She ran to catch up, ripping off her mask as soon as she made it inside the clinical space. She expected Gold Stitch to reprimand her, but he didn’t. He, too, was taken aback, standing stock-still in front of a body on a metal autopsy table. The body of Lauren Kennedy. Wrapped in crawling ivy.

dropped her mask to the cold floor and walked forward, her mouth agape and breath fogging in front of her, ever so slightly. Lauren’s head was too far up. Unattached from her spine.

bent to look closer, marvelling at the stems growing within the flesh like veins, the petiole and buds protruding from her skin. “They’re completely embedded,” she said as Gold Stitch came to stand next to her.

“They look like they originated from inside her body,” he mused.

He was right. rushed to a wall of small drawers, opening and closing them quickly looking for?—

“Here.” He handed her a pair of surgical gloves and slipped a pair on himself.

Together, they peeled back the flesh at the incision site with forceps, immensely grateful Lauren hadn’t yet been sewn back up.

“Someone will be back soon,” he said, grabbing a pair of surgical scissors. “She’s not been closed properly and there is no way they’ll leave her alone here for long. Not like this.”

reached for a set of tweezers, pushing and prodding the vines in the chest cavity, looking for the root, the beginning of Lauren’s demise.

She and Gold Stitch sucked in a breath in unison when they found a mushroom sprouting.

“Her heart,” whispered, then looked at Gold Stitch. “How?”

She ripped off her glove.

“What are you doing?” Gold Stitch’s voice was urgent.

But she didn’t answer. Instead, she gently touched the mushroom cap.

This time, she almost expected the migraine. Was almost ready for it.

Ivy, thick and wild, crawled up marble pillars. It looked like ancient Greece but draped in a golden haze—like an old Jean Harlow movie. At the end of the row of pillars sat a throne of twisted branches, dotted in unidentifiable flora. Colours her eyes had never seen. There was a glimmer, like gossamer wings. Then there were fangs in her face, dripping with blood. gasped as the creature lunged for her, hissing. Everything went black, then she was back. Looking at Lauren’s body, Gold Stitch’s hands around her waist, holding her upright.

“ ?” He sounded almost frightened like he’d said her name many times already.

“Migraine,” she managed to get out and he let her go, a hand still at the small of her back to steady her as they both looked down at the black spore dust on her fingertips.

In the distance, a giant door thudded shut. just had time for her eyes to go wide before Gold Stitch had her by the wrist.

“Hurry,” he urged her. “Hide.” He bent and retrieved her mask, shoving at her chest. “Go!”

Heart pounding in her ears, searched in a panic for a place to hide. Any place. There at the back of the lab, she saw what had to be a supply closet. She’d just jumped inside it when she saw the exam room door open through the sliver she’d left hers cracked. Whoever it was wore a mask just like the one in her hands. She tried to make out what was being said, but the voices were too muffled by the leather and steel.