Page 22 of Masked Intentions in Pelican Point
Allison walks to the window, looking out at the moonlit ocean. "But the Calusa are gone."
"Exactly. The spirits have no purpose, no community, no reason to remain bound except hunger." I join her at the window. "And tonight, with hundreds of people celebrating, drinking, their spiritual defenses lowered... it's a feast."
"This is insane."
"Is it? You've felt it too. I see it in your eyes when you look at the mask. The temperature drops, the electronics malfunction, you hear sounds that shouldn't exist."
She turns to face me, and I see the admission in her expression before she speaks. "I touched the case glass. Had what I told myself was a stress hallucination. Water, drowning, warriors who moved like liquid shadow."
"What did they tell you?"
"That I was a keeper. That blood remembers." She pauses. "That you were connected to this somehow."
I feel the familiar chill that means my grandmother's spirit is near, approving of my honesty. "The Calusa and Seminole intermarried before the Spanish arrived. Some bloodlines carry memory deeper than conscious thought. The spirits recognize their own."
"So what does that make me?"
"I don't know yet. But the fact that you're here, that Fitz sent his best operative to guard this specific artifact... there are no coincidences when old magic is involved."
Allison is quiet for a long moment, processing. Finally: "What do you need me to do?"
"Trust me. When things go wrong tonight—and they will—trust that I know how to handle spiritual threats the way you know how to handle physical ones."
"And if you're wrong? If this is all elaborate self-deception and the only real threat is human greed?"
I smile grimly. "Then I'm a crazy man with useful combat training and an unhealthy interest in folklore. But Allison..." I catch her hand, feeling the calluses from years of weapons training, the strength that comes from surviving violence. "What if I'm right?"
She squeezes my fingers, her decision made. "Then we protect people. That's what we do."
Outside our window, storm clouds gather despite the clear forecast. In the distance, we can hear the first rumbles of thunder—or drums, depending on what you choose to believe.
DRESCHNER
I kneel in the hidden chamber beneath Saltmoor House, surrounded by candles arranged in patterns I've copied from Spanish missionary accounts. The stone walls are covered with symbols I've spent five years learning to draw, Calusa spiritual markers that most scholars dismiss as decorative art.
But I know better. I've dedicated my life to understanding the truth the academic establishment refuses to acknowledge: some artifacts aren't just historical curiosities. They are doorways.
Of course, I don't actually believe in spirits or curses—that's superstition for the gullible. But I've learned that belief is profitable. Tonight's performance will convince everyone that the mask chose me, that I have mystical authority over it. Ryan's reputation will crumble, and I'll walk away with both the artifact and a monopoly on 'authentic' Calusa spirituality.
The mask replica in my hands is my third attempt. The first cracked when I tried to channel energy through it during a private ritual in my Miami warehouse. The second simply went cold and lifeless, rejecting my efforts to establish a spiritual connection. But this one—constructed with gold I've stolen from other Calusa artifacts, inscribed with symbols copied from original source documents—this one hums with potential.
"Tamuk chiska miskito," I whisper, the words feeling natural despite my Anglo heritage. The language has come to me in dreams, along with visions of warriors rising from dark water, their faces painted for eternal war.
The irony isn't lost on me—Ryan was right about the sacred trust. But he was wrong about who deserves to hold it. Academic institutions display these artifacts like museum pieces, stripping away their spiritual context. Private collectors treat them as investments. Only I understand their true power, their living connection to forces beyond the material world. Tonight I'll prove that understanding trumps ownership.
I've been having the dreams for twenty years, ever since my first encounter with authentic Calusa artifacts as a graduate student. Most people see museum pieces when they look at pre-Columbian gold work. I see power.
When I wear the authentic mask—not this replica, but the real Reina de Oro—during the height of the masquerade, I will have access to more spiritual energy than any practitioner in recorded history.
The replica pulses with increasing warmth, and I feel the familiar sensation of consciousness expanding, of awareness stretching beyond the boundaries of my individual mind. I can sense the guests upstairs, their bright life forces flickering like candle flames. I can feel the authentic mask in its display case, radiating power like a spiritual sun.
"Tamuk chiska miskito," I chant, and this time other voices join me—whispers from the darkness, agreements from entities that have been denied purpose for too long.
The time has come. The mask is calling to me, and tonight, I will answer.
I'm going to steal more than gold and jewels. I'm going to steal the power of gods.
CHAPTER 9
