Deirdre moved backwards down the corridor and the Mask kept pace with her. Every time she thought It might lunge, she swung her bat to cut It off. She couldn’t hit It without triggering the mansion’s defenses; she needed It to hit her. But not until they’d crossed into the sigil in the center of the entry hall. And then she had to get back outside to help Paul and Victor and…

The Mask accelerated just-slightly toward her and she swung her bat.

Her breath came in quick pants. Sweat collected all over her. She’d watched the Mask repair Its own left hand, had watched It generate flesh and meat and skin in super-rapid genesis. Its healing abilities exceeded her own. Its lethality, too. With so much power, she wasn’t sure the mansion’s anti-violence defenses would even knock It down. The only advantage they had boiled in the magic Rehani waited to trigger.

How far away, now?

Following the angles of the library’s exterior, she tried to keep her movements smooth and even. It got harder by the moment. The Mask kept pace effortlessly, inexhaustible, Its vacant, unblinking sockets studying her, Its blade seeking even a sliver’s ingress. 

She stepped back, one arc’ing stride after the next. She had to get to the entry hall. She and Rehani had to contain the Mask. Then she had to rush back outside. Victor and Paul hadn’t sustained any immediately-lethal wounds, but they wouldn’t last the night if she couldn’t patch them back together.

So here it was: her and the monster that wanted to kill her, one on one for another sixty seconds before Rehani could do anything to help.

As they passed the library’s eastern entrance, the Mask stopped walking. A moment later, so did Deirdre.

The Mask turned Its head to peer into the piled archival labyrinth beyond the broad threshold. Nora and Olly waited at their offices in the center of the library. Did the Mask somehow know? It slowly moved Its gaze from the library to Deirdre and back to the library again. Its grip tightened around Its knife.

The Mask had never felt so much spellcraft inside a sapient structure, before. And so much of it so old. To have lasted so long against forces of entropy, mundanity, and chaos, they would have required semi-regular maintenance from powerful, disciplined practitioners. Great mortal spellweavers had ministered to this mansion/monastery/fortress, and the Mask held no doubt that they’d left defenses behind. But what kinds?

When It had entered, It had broken through a veil of invisible resistance at some expense to Its resources. That would have represented one layer. Another came in the form of an omnipresent pressure, a feeble-but-constant push against the host body/vessel back toward the outside. What else?

It followed the Lock stride by stride, studying.

The Lock carried a revolver in a holster but defended herself with a club(baseball bat) instead. Why?

As It followed the Lock down the hallway, a wide maw of an entryway opened up on Its right. The spellcraft beyond the threshold hummed in so many layers the Mask couldn’t tune it out of the vessel’s mind. The sensations leaked into the audiovisual processors. The (library? Bob guessed) glowed brightly; crackles of golden-white light seemed to flare in and out of existence.

Whatever waited in that room held great importance…

To some other entity.

The Mask spun and thrust the knife forward. Deirdre yelped, leaping back with a wild swing of her bat. A standing lamp toppled across the hall, bulb shattering on impact. Deirdre swung the bat again, still backing up.

The Mask stepped over the fallen lamp and followed.

How far to the entrance hall?

They backed down the corridor for a stretch of seconds lost in heart-race, the Mask mirroring her every move. Deirdre’s eyes ached. Her eyelids quivered. She hadn’t blinked in so long... 

The Mask stopped walking. So did Deirdre. It watched her and she watched It.

Abruptly, It turned around and started walking back toward the library.

Without thinking, Deirdre swung the bat one-armed into the nearest wall. The aluminum dented and cracked the surface, powder and paint chips spraying down. “Hey!” she shouted. Only a few strides away, the Mask came to another stop. Its—his? their?—shoulders lifted just slightly as It took deep, prolonged breaths. 

(Did the monster truly need to breathe, or was the reflex mere muscle memory?)

Deirdre shuffled forward, leading with the bat, elbows cocked. “I’m back here.”

The Mask turned slow-slow-slowly. She felt It appraising her. Examining.

She held the baseball bat ready. If she swung it, would the mansion’s defenses knock her flat? 

The Mask took a cautious stride toward her.

She backed up.

It tilted Its head one way and the other, as if It could read her better at some slightly-altered angle.

She took a deep breath, stepped back, and blinked. In the micro-flash of dark, the Mask moved up. When her eyes opened, It stood easily within swinging distance of her bat, almost within swiping distance of Its knife. (Had It stopped breathing or was that just her imagination?)

With a shaking inhalation, she backed away another step.

The Mask followed.

Moving foot-by-foot, adrenaline beading sweat all over her, Deirdre wondered why It had turned around. Had the Mask meant to return to the library? Had It moved only to discover her reaction? If so, what had her reaction told It? Why had It returned to the pursuit so quickly and easily?

The Mask’s flat (unimportant) visage betrayed no answers.

Deirdre felt the magic thrumming through her sixth sense long before she backed into the broad entry hall itself. It overflowed. The spellcraft leaked into the corridor; the bristling sense of it puckered her skin into gooseflesh. The coolness soothed. 

In the center of the grand entryway, Rehani stood, eyes rolled back white, face turned upwards, still and calm, her dreadlocks winding and tumbling down her back almost to the floor, her hands and fingers woven into a sigil Deirdre didn’t recognize.

Deirdre backed up, glancing every second between the Mask and Rehani, until she crossed the outermost circle of their chalked, salted, and painted arrangement. She slowed down, tapped the head of the baseball bat against the floor. “Come on,” she beckoned, backing farther into the wide assembly of glyphs and symbols. “Come get it.”

The Mask stopped outside of the protective circle. It stared. Deirdre stared back.

“Come on,” she repeated, whispering.

The Mask turned Its head toward Rehani, took her in, and returned Its blinkless gaze to Deirdre. It turned abruptly, followed the boundary of the protective circle to the double front doors, and stepped outside.

For two quick, steaming breaths, Deirdre stood there, watching, jaw loose with surprise.

Then she threw the bat down, yanked her revolver from its holster, and sprinted after the Mask. She burst through the double doors just as they swung closed from the Mask’s departure and skidded down the broad steps leading from the entrance to the driving circle fronting the mansion.

Crickets choired the night.

Beyond the rain-filled fountain, at the edge of floodlight brightness, the Mask walked slowly away. When she reached the asphalt, It remained visible only from the thighs down. Pulling up the barrel of her gun, she squinted at the estimate of Its center mass and squeezed the trigger.

The Mask’s movement hesitated, whether through injury or indecision she couldn’t tell.

“Yeah, run!” she shouted, firing another bullet into her shadowy estimation, “Motherfucker better,” and a third.

The Mask stopped, only Its boots truly visible.

It turned around.

She strode forward, pistol barking loose a fourth bullet. The Mask emerged from the darkness in mirror to her movements, Its void-cavern sockets blinklessly aimed her way. Coming to a stop a few feet beside the fountain and its age-molded angel, Deirdre broadened her stance and blew a narrow tunnel through the monster’s center mass. The Mask paused, losing Its relentless pace. Spots of too-dark blood spread out from the wound before Its supernatural resources could seal a scab. 

The Mask straightened Itself out and continued Its approach.

Another shard of lead screamed through the Mask’s body and It lost balance and staggered. A rush of thick, half-coagulated cruor spread out from the hole before the wound started to close. When the Mask righted Itself again, Deirdre adjusted her aim and squeezed—

The hammer clicked down on an empty chamber.

Her eyes widened.

(the wards didn’t protect her outside)

The Mask and the man lashed out with their knife and—

Deirdre leapt back from the first chop of blade, stuck the landing, and pivoted away from a follow-up. The Mask didn’t relent. Deirdre twisted from a third blow and lost her balance. Still teetering, her feet tripped over themselves as she spun to evade the fourth swipe. She stumbled and fell backwards, rolling. As she dizzily regained her footing, the Mask descended again. Caught off guard, she ducked below a long sweep of Its knife only to find Its boot filling her vision.

Her nose broke. Her face lit like a match-head, everything burnt. The fire blinded her. She scrambled, finding the stairs with desperate hands and knees. She threw herself up the steps until she could stand again. Went for the double doors. Gripping the handle (what was all that noise inside?), she—

She felt the Mask grab her left shoulder. Felt It slam her body against the other door. Felt the knife pierce her skin with a pop and cold-as-death slice-carve through her; felt the tip gore through her back and bury itself in the wood.

She couldn’t breathe couldn’t swallow couldn’t move couldn’t—

The Mask moved to pull the knife back out. Her right hand grabbed Its right wrist and squeezed. When Its left hand shifted away from her shoulder, she used her own left hand to grab that wrist, too. Her muscles quaked to keep It still.

It stared at her and she stared at It.

Her eyelids felt heavy.