The Mask shook, trying to pull loose the knife. Deirdre shook, trying to stop It. Searing micrometer by micrometer, the blade crept cell-by-cell free. In a competition of sheer strength and endurance, Deirdre would lose. Was, in fact, losing. Her periphery throbbed and blurred. Her eyes ached.

She had to push the Mask off of her, somehow. She had to shove It loose without having It yank the knife out of her. She had to do this because somewhere around the back of the mansion, Paul and Victor fumbled and crawled through growing bloodloss. If she couldn’t get back to them in time, they’d both die. She couldn’t let them die, therefore she had to push the Mask off of her; and since she had to, she had to be able to. In the prayerful sanctum of her mind where she spoke to Luna and Gaea and the universe, this was the argument she made.

But the universe didn’t listen. It didn’t care.

A spurt of blood escaped her innards as the blade shifted oh-so-slightly. A spasm tugged through her. She choked down a whimper. The Mask stared. (Did It grin? She couldn’t tell.) Its breath came long and slow, reflexive and supernaturally superfluous. Hers spiked, all dry heat panting through her nose. She kept her lips sealed tight against desperate, teeth-battering vocalizations. She didn’t want the Mask to hear her scream.

She tried not to think about the taste of copper tangling at the back of her throat.

With her back braced against the dense door, she lifted a foot and stomped down on one of the Mask’s boots. The Mask didn’t respond, but she hadn’t really expected it to after watching It recover from multiple gunshots. She’d done it just-in-case, halfway so nobody could say she hadn’t tried, later.

The blade shifted oh-so-slightly…

The door jarred open behind her. She and the Mask plummeted. The world disintegrated into light and sound, particles distilled in void. They tumbled together. The knife slipped free. Deirdre clenched her teeth against a cosmic throb of pain. In cell-shrieking slow-motion she and the Mask twisted through the air, orbiting.

They separated, though not by much.

Time sped up.

They crashed to Earth; to a marble floor. Deirdre’s throat burned with unscreamed scream. Her eyes caught hints and glimpses of Olly and Nora, but she couldn’t see anything else through the chaos. The Mask landed on Its back just over a foot away from her and her hands and knees.

Wisps of silver smoke rose from trails of salt and chalk. Magic thickened. Every hair on her body bristled. Even in her admittedly-weak sixth sense, she felt the static hum of power crackling between atoms.

The scream transformed into a shout as she opened her mouth and lunged at the Mask.

It jerked, seeming shocked, as she landed on top of It. She pinned Its knife-arm with one hand and drove the opposite elbow into the side of Its(their?) head. As bone met bone, a faint, muffled grunt escaped the Mask. Already out of breath, she reared back and slammed her elbow into Its head again. Its knife-hand jumped up and she lost balance. Her third strike faltered; she collapsed, thrashing against It. Her grip found the knife-wielding wrist. The Mask’s other arm slammed into the side of her ribs.

The floor hit her spine like a hammer. The Mask came down on top, Its(their?) shins pressed against her thighs, Its left hand against her collarbone after missing her neck, Its knife glimmering in candleglow and moodlight.

The impulse surged out of her unbidden. Even as her reality boiled and melted around her, as her pulse drowned out all other sound, Deirdre persisted. She locked eyes with the Mask’s lightless sockets. She threw out both hands, the last muscle-straining remnants of her energy coiled into a spell in her mind. The Mask drove the blade toward her sternum and—

—and froze.

Deirdre could feel herself shaking but could no longer distinguish individual muscles. Thick rust slicked the back of her throat. Her breath struggled through the mass of it. The tip of the knife hovered inches from her right palm. It twitched, wobbling side-to-side, searching.

She gagged. Swallowed.

A vaster spell engaged. Ritual cogs rolled into place. The dense energy humming through the cavernous hall rapidly condensed. For a moment, an utter and true silence held sway over the room. Deirdre’s pulse paused. The knife held still. All fell to pause.

Then the ritual went off.

The Mask seized, back arching, arms flung back. Its knife clattered across the floor. Squirms of ropey something seethed beneath Its body’s human skin. Its even-keeled breath gargled into snarls and yelps.

Deirdre panted, eyelids sagging.

The Mask jerked to the left, to the right, and fell still. After a second, It twisted around and bore down on Deirdre. Sliding into semi-consciousness, Deirdre responded too slowly to stop It. It grabbed her throat and squeezed. Even as she gagged and grabbed Its arms, she felt Its strength immensely waned. Arching her back, trying to make enough room to breathe, she searched with the nails of her thumbs for the soft flesh of his inner wrists.

The Mask unpeeled. Someone ripped It loose from the man’s head.

Bob-Bob’s-son glared down at her, eyes a rampage of burst capillaries. Sweat painted his features. Breath steamed from his flaring nostrils.

A bust of someone centuries-dead cracked the side of the man’s skull open. Bob-Bob’s-son keeled over sideways and collapsed.

“Okay,” Rehani panted, somewhere behind her. “Now we call the cops. You, Nora, go. Call 911.”

Deirdre groaned herself onto her hands and knees.

“Whoa, you stay there.”

She shook her head. “Paul,” she grunted. “Vic.”

Somewhere, a door thundered open. An outpour of whispers funneled down the exterior corridor of the mansion. She heard words and rasps but couldn’t make sense of them. She crawled forward.

“Ay!” Rehani yelled.

Deirdre’s vision hazed. The undulous shadows at her periphery tore at the filmreel of her gaze.

“You — stay — here!”

One of Deirdre's palms slipped on something sticky-wet and the marble rose up to meet her.