Page 16 of Masked Intentions in Pelican Point
Against every tactical instinct I possess, I press my palm to the case glass.
The vision hits me like a physical blow.
Water. Dark, cold water rushing over sun-bleached sand. Bodies floating face-down, metal armor dragging them toward the depths. Spanish voices screaming prayers that go unanswered.
And rising from the wreckage, figures in dugout canoes. Calusa warriors, painted for battle, retrieving what the sea has claimed. But they move wrong, too fluid, as if the boundary between living and dead has dissolved in the salt water.
One warrior holds the mask, and when he turns toward me, his eyes are holes filled with starlight. "Keeper," he says in perfect English. "You will choose. Protect or destroy. Guard or abandon. The hungry ones grow stronger with each moon."
The scene shifts. I see Nolan, but different—older, wearing the paint and bone ornaments of a tribal shaman. He reaches for me across an impossible distance, his mouth forming words I can't hear over the roar of rising water.
"The blood remembers," the warrior continues. "His blood, your blood. All blood that has touched these shores. The mask knows its guardians."
I yank my hand back, gasping. The exhibit room snaps back to normal—warm air, electric humming, the ordinary sounds of a house at rest. But my palm tingles where I touched the glass, and when I look down, I see a perfect handprint glowing faintly on the surface.
As I watch, the print fades, leaving only clean glass and my own shaken reflection.
My tactical radio crackles. "All stations report in. Status check."
I force my voice steady. "Central post, all clear."
But it isn't clear. Nothing about this is clear. I've experienced combat stress, sleep deprivation, even mild hallucinations during long ops. This is different. This feels like someone else’s memory—not mine, but inherited from somewhere deeper than conscious thought.
Walking back toward the door, I notice my footsteps echo strangely, as if the floor remembers other feet, other purposes. The portraits on the walls seem to watch me pass, and I catch glimpses of movement in my peripheral vision that vanish when I turn.
Only when I reach the main corridor does the oppressive weight lift from my shoulders. But even then, I feel observed, measured, as if something ancient and patient has taken my inventory and found me... interesting.
In my room, I strip off my gear and stand before the bathroom mirror. My reflection looks normal—tired, alert, human. But for just a moment, I could swear I see paint on my cheekbones, the ghost of patterns that belong to a warrior culture that died centuries before my birth.
"The blood remembers," I whisper, and shiver at how right the words feel on my tongue.
CHAPTER 6
NOLAN
The next morning, I pace the east wing with Allison at my side. Whoever left that footprint and that strip of velvet isn't just playing games. They're baiting us. I can almost feel the invisible strings tugging through the house, pulling us toward something larger. Saltmoor has become a stage, and every guest is part of a performance none of them understand. Allison pretends not to shiver, but I see the tension riding her shoulders and the sharp scan of her eyes. She doesn't miss much. Neither do I.
Once the guards sweep and clear the storage room again, we head back toward the main corridors. Allison keeps her stride quick, her chin lifted, daring the world to challenge her. I let her take point, watching the way she moves: efficient, contained, but carrying more fire than she wants anyone to notice. Something has cracked open between us. This morning hammered it again. Now every second near her feels like walking on the edge, waiting for the slip that will change everything.
I need to ground myself in what I came here for: the mask. History doesn't lie, even when people do. I stop by the exhibit once more, ignoring the look she throws me when I veer off course. The jeweled mask sits in its case, glittering with the kind of menace only centuries can breed. My reflection stares back from the glass, pale and restless, but the carvings around the eyes draw me more. Spanish, yes. But older symbols are hidden beneath the gilding: etched faintly, worn by time, but there.
Allison steps up beside me. "What now, Professor? Looking for a curse hiding in the filigree?"
I crouch slightly, eyes narrowing as I trace the lines without touching the glass. "Not a curse. A map."
She laughs, a low, incredulous sound. "You're serious."
"Deadly." I tap the edge of the glass where the pattern curves into a series of repeating shapes, taking out my notebook and drawing the etchings. "These aren't decorative. They're directional. Ancient navigational marks, tied to early coastal tribes before the Spanish ever laid claim."
Allison tilts her head, her dark hair catching the filtered light. "So you're saying someone carved a treasure map into a mask, wore it at rituals, and centuries later it ended up here so you could play explorer?"
"You make it sound absurd."
"It is absurd."
I meet her gaze steadily. "Absurd things keep getting people killed. Ask the Calusa who disappeared when this ship went down. Ask the smugglers who tried to recover it in the nineteenth century and vanished before they reached shore."
Her sarcasm falters, if only for a beat. "And you think this connects to the mess we've already seen here at Saltmoor?"
