Page 37 of Deader than Dead

He was right though, even those few seconds of delay having meant she was mere meters away from the gate. London wasn’t ready to witness a woman being torn apart by reanimated corpses. London would never be ready for that. If there’d ever been a moment, it had well and truly passed. Which left Bellamy and I unable to do anything but watch, as with one last glance over her shoulder, she disappeared through the gate and out onto the street.

Left with no targets to attack, the skeletons gathered up the bones of their fallen compatriots and, one by one, disappeared back into the soil. The graveyard fell silent as the earth closed over the last skeleton’s head. If it hadn’t been for the churned-up soil, it would be hard to believe that anything had happened here. Not a single gun remained on the surface. Not even a scrap of fabric. It had all just disappeared, swallowed up by the soil and the dead. It was just a shame that O’ Reilly had gotten away to stop it from being a clean sweep.

When all was still, I pulled my fingers from the soil and released my control over them, allowing them to rest in peace once more. Bellamy crouched, so we were face to face, wiping at the blood that had come from my nose with his sleeve with almost manic intensity, his eyes alight with concern. I grabbed his arm to stop him. “I’m fine.”

“You’re bleeding.”

“It’s just a nosebleed. I promise, I’m fine.”

Bellamy scrutinized my face, as if searching for the lie. When he didn’t find it, he palmed my cheeks instead, his lips coming down on mine. I kissed him like he was oxygen and I hadn’t breathed for an hour, and he kissed me back in the same manner. When we finally broke apart, he took a seat next to me against the tomb, both of us staring out over the furrowed earth.

“They’re going to wonder what happened here,” Bellamy said.

“Probably. I’m sure they’ll come up with a cover story. Earthquake… or subsidence. Unexploded World War two bomb. Something of that ilk.” I let out a sigh. One that couldn’t decide between relief and fatigue. “We should get out of here, though, before someone arrives and starts asking questions.”

Bellamy nodded and climbed to his feet, holding out his hand to help me up.

There was still one problem to be solved before we could leave. Or another problem if you counted O’Reilly’s unfortunate escape. “Where is it?” I asked.

Bellamy took off, and I followed. He stopped between a large stone cross and a war memorial, turning in a slow circle until he was sure he was facing the right way. From there, he disappeared behind a bush, appearing a couple of minutes later with a cloth-wrapped parcel in his hand. Curiosity got the better of me and I unwrapped it. Bellamy had described it as an unremarkable-looking mask, and it really was. Simple wood. Simple carving. There was nothing about it indicative of something harboring a great power.

I reached out to touch it, but withdrew my hand at the last moment without making contact. It didn’t do to tempt fate. “What the hell are we going to do with it? All O’Reilly has to do is pick up more men and then come find us, and we’re back at square one. Only, this time, she’s going to be even more pissed because we took out her men.”

Bellamy shook his head, his expression troubled. “I don’t know. Get rid of it, I suppose. I just don’t know how. I already told you I tried to burn it and it didn’t leave so much as a mark.”

“The Bontifi mask cannot be destroyed.”

We both whipped round to find a man standing there when only moments before the graveyard had been empty. His hair and beard were both as white as snow, giving him the appearance of being ancient. Yet, his skin didn’t bear a single wrinkle, and his blue eyes blazed with vitality. He wore an old-fashioned tweed three-piece suit with a bow tie. Even stranger than all the contradictions of his appearance, was the young boy who accompanied him. The boy stood silently next to him, holding the man’s hand, calm and relaxed in his presence.

The man held up a bag and I frowned as I recognized it. “Is that—?”

“Your bag,” the man said. “I took the liberty of procuring it for you. You’ll find all three phones in it, too.” He placed it down on the ground in front of him and gestured at it in an invitation to take it.

He had a strange accent. Not English. Not French. Not any one thing, but containing parts of all of them, like someone had added all the accents of the world into a bucket and shaken them up, and this was the result. “Thank you.” My gaze strayed to the young boy, already suspecting who he was. “What about him?”

The man smiled. “I procured him, too. I’m sure it will please Cade to have him returned. Don’t you think so, John?”

Him not only knowing my name, but knowing Cade’s too, was jarring. “Who are you?”

The man tipped his head to one side in a way that said the question deserved some thought before he provided an answer. “I have had many names over the years. Some of them complimentary. Others less so. Many of them are in different languages. Though, for the last century, people have simply known me as the keeper of the mask.

Bellamy went still next to me. “I stole it from you?”

He turned his gaze Bellamy’s way. There was no sign of irritation, the man emanating peace and tranquility. “You did.”

Bellamy swallowed. “I’m sorry. You must be angry.”

The man smiled. “If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else.”

I frowned. “Shouldn’t you have better security for it? Like, I don’t know, locking it in a bank vault or something. If it’s dangerous, then keeping it in a chest in a basement doesn’t seem enough.”

The man nodded. “I can see why you would think that, but the mask has a way of testing people. It’s part of its purpose. Every decade or so, it likes to get out in the world and see how things have changed.”

It was strange to hear him talking about the mask as if it was a sentient being. I cast a quick glance across at it, still nestled in Bellamy’s hands, almost expecting the corners of the carved mouth to have quirked up into a smile. They hadn’t, of course. It looked just the same as it had before.

The man smiled. “I’ve confused you, I apologize. People struggle with understanding the mask’s purpose. You see, it’s not evil. Not in the right hands, anyway. It’s far more complex than that.” His gaze slid across to Bellamy. “What I’m trying to say is that if it hadn’t wanted to be stolen, you wouldn’t have been able to steal it. You wouldn’t have seen anything but an empty basement. It obviously saw something in you it liked. It wouldn’t have compelled you to put it on if that wasn’t the case.”

I raised shocked eyes to Bellamy, a tinge of pink having appeared on his cheekbones. “You put it on?” I hadn’t even wanted to touch it, and he’d not only touched it, he’d pressed it against his face, even knowing that it was dangerous.

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