Chapter 11
NOLAN
D reschner once prowled these same halls and convinced himself they belonged to him, his private hunting ground for schemes and backroom bargains. He was mistaken then, and he is mistaken now. Saltmoor has never been his, and tonight it feels as if the house itself wants him driven out.
Our shoes strike in rhythm as we push through the narrow corridors. The tension between us is taut, threaded with adrenaline. She glances at me, her lips twitching. “If you get yourself hurt, Porter, I’m not carrying you.”
“Sure you will,” I whisper back, unable to keep the grin from my voice. “You’d sling me over your shoulder like a damsel in distress.”
She snorts. “You weigh twice as much as me. You’d get dragged by one leg, and I’d leave you in the first broom closet.”
“Romantic,” I laugh. “Exactly the reassurance I needed.” Her eyes spark, and even in the middle of a chase my chest tightens with something that has nothing to do with fear.
We burst into the courtyard, the night air damp and heavy with salt.
The sand is churned and scarred with fresh skiff tracks, grooves deep enough to tell of hurried departure.
A strip of velvet cloth hangs from a nail, whipping in the breeze like a flag of retreat, its torn edge catching the moonlight and drawing our eyes east toward the water.
There’s nothing there. A classic misdirection. Before we can formulate any kind of plan, a shout echoes from deeper inside the house. Members of the security team rush by, one calling out, “Movement in the east corridor!”
Allison and I sprint, dodging through tight passageways.
Saltmoor is a maze—servant stairs, locked galleries, narrow halls that twist without warning.
Dreschner appears to know them, but so do I.
I spent hours poring over floor plans, and Allison memorized them faster than anyone I’ve ever met.
Together we move like we belong here. The thought of losing her in this labyrinth cuts sharper than any knife.
I stay close, close enough to hear her breath, to feel the strength she lends me with every stride.
We catch sight of him as he shoves through a half-open door. Allison mutters a curse and pushes harder. “He’s fast for a man fueled only by spite.”
“Spite’s a hell of a motivator.”
He darts into a corridor, shadows dragging at his heels, then hurls himself toward a narrow shaft.
His hands seize the thick rope of the service dumbwaiter and he yanks hard.
The pulley shrieks as the platform plunges, dropping him two levels in a blur of motion.
The gust of air left in his wake stings my face, the echo of the rattling descent taunting us with how close he is to slipping away.
Allison curses. “We’ll lose him.”
“Split up,” I say. “Cameras cover the vertical chutes.” I point to the control room. “I’ll trap him on the monitors, closing off his exits. You push him into the trap from below.”
Her chin lifts. It is her call, not mine.
She nods once and barrels down the stairs, vanishing into the echo of her own footfalls.
For a breath I feel the hollow ache of separation, my chest clenching with the fear that she might slip too far ahead.
I force myself toward the control room, eyes fixed on the monitors, even as my ears strain for the sound of her shoes.
The tether between us holds, stretched thin but unbroken.
On the monitors I catch Dreschner bolting into a cross-corridor and seizing a staffer, pressing a small dagger beneath the man’s chin.
His eyes are wild, sweat dripping, his grip white-knuckled.
I race to intercept, pulse hammering, praying Allison will converge from below so that we meet again at the same flashpoint.
By the time I reach the corridor, Allison is already there, gun steady.
Dreschner snarls, “One scream from him and Ryan’s empire is finished.
Scandal sells faster than gold.” His voice shakes with genuine terror.
Whatever he expected from his performance, this isn't it.
The cold is real, the voices are real, and he's lost control of forces he never believed existed.
Allison doesn’t blink. Her eyes blaze, her jaw tight, and though her hand is rock steady I know her pulse is hammering.
She jerks her phone up and angles it toward a polished sconce.
The flashlight beam bursts across the corridor, flaring off the glass and slamming into his pupils like a blow.
Dreschner snarls, recoiling as the light sears his vision.
The knife trembles in his grasp as his control falters and he scoops up one of the fake masks discarded earlier.
I drive forward, every nerve screaming, and yank the staffer out of his hold.
The man stumbles into my arms, terror shaking through him.
Behind me Allison fires two shots into the stone floor, the concussive crack reverberating like cannon fire. Dust rains from the ceiling and the air shudders with the sound. Dreschner flinches hard, his face twisted with rage and pain, before he bolts once more.
He tears through the kitchens, scattering pots and staff.
A knife clatters against a stove when he hurls it back.
From there he storms into the wine cellar, racks crashing into our path, bottles shattering until the air reeks of vinegar and oak.
Allison vaults debris like a predator, fury burning bright.
My lungs burn, but one look at her—unrelenting, fearless—and I find another reserve of strength.
We drive him deeper into the bowels of the house until he crashes hard against a locked maintenance hatch.
The impact rattles the frame, and he whirls, cornered with nowhere left to run.
His chest heaves in jagged bursts, sweat streaming down his temples and soaking his collar, one of the fake masks clutched in his grip catching every shard of light.
His knuckles whiten around it, desperation twisting his features as though the gold itself is the only thing holding him upright.
For a terrible moment, the whole room seems to breathe.
Frost creeps across the stone, not supernatural but the sudden vent of compressed coolant from a cracked vial sewn into his coat.
My breath fogs. Staff nearby scream as the temperature plummets.
The sting of cold drags me back to nights I’d rather forget, missions where the air froze in my lungs, where brothers didn’t come home.
When Dreschner speaks, it's in layered voices—his own overlaid with a guttural chant.
The sound crawls across my skin like a thousand ghosts.
For a moment, the supernatural weight of it stops us cold.
Then my eyes catch the glint of wire at his collar.
A tiny speaker, nearly invisible, projecting distorted archival recordings.
“Nolan,” she breathes, pointing. “Look at his neck.”
“You feel it, don't you?' Dreschner rasps, eyes fever-bright. “The mask remembers.”
My throat burns; resin particles ride the air.
The acrid smell triggers recognition—not ancient ritual herbs, but synthetic compounds.
Chemical irritants designed to create physical sensations that feel mystical.
I scan his setup more carefully: the cracked vial in his coat, the residue on the mask, the precisely positioned fog machines.
“Allison,” I call, my voice cutting through his performance. “Look at the mist pattern. Look at the chemical burns on his fingers.”
She studies Dreschner with new eyes, her expression shifting from spiritual wariness to professional disgust. 'Dry ice and synthetic hallucinogens,' she says coldly. 'You're not channeling spirits, Dreschner. You're running a con.'"
Allison steps forward, voice sharp, defiant. “You think this makes you chosen? It makes you pathetic. You needed drugs and gadgets to fake what real history already proved you never had.” Her voice steadies me. She sounds unshakable, but I catch the tremor in her jaw and love her more for it.
Dreschner slashes the mask’s edge across his palm. Blood smears gold as he holds it high. “Proof,” he shouts, loud enough for the guards on the balcony. “The mask chooses me. Ryan Murphy used me to recover it. He’ll pay me to keep quiet or burn for corruption!”
The words echo unnaturally, ricocheting off the stone until they sound larger than one man’s voice.
The hidden speaker loops and distorts the fragments, layering them into a chorus of falsehoods that ripple through the corridor.
The effect prickles along my skin, and I see some of the staff falter, their eyes wide, their belief wavering under the weight of the manufactured spectacle.
I force steel into my voice. “No one here buys it. Every lab in the world will see what’s on that mask—resin, pollen, poison. You staged a haunting, Dreschner. That’s all.”
Dreschner's eyes dart between us, and I see the moment he realizes we've seen through his elaborate stage show. The mystical authority drains from his posture, replaced by the desperate calculation of a cornered fraud.
“You think this makes you chosen?” Allison steps forward, voice sharp with contempt. “It makes you pathetic.”
“It doesn't matter what's real!” Dreschner snarls, dropping his fake mystical voice entirely. “What matters is what people believe. And they'll believe I have power over this mask and that Ryan stole it from its rightful guardian. My word against his, with all this as evidence.”
“Evidence of what?” I laugh harshly. “That you're a carnival magician with delusions of grandeur? Every lab in the world will identify your chemicals. Every audio expert will recognize those recordings.”
His facade crumbles completely. The theatrical gestures vanish, leaving only a sweating, desperate man clutching stolen property. “You don't understand. I need this. Ryan destroyed my reputation, my career. This mask was supposed to be my redemption.”
The pathetic admission hangs in the air. This isn't a mystical confrontation anymore—it's the last stand of a failed academic who chose fraud over facing his limitations.
He lunges. Allison intercepts, catching his wrist. He fights like a rabid animal, high on his own concoction.
The cold mist burns our lungs, dizzying us, but she won’t let go.
“Nolan!” she snaps, her voice the one tether I need.
The sound of my name in her mouth cuts through the haze sharper than any command I ever obeyed in combat.
I hurl myself into him from the side, the impact jarring bone to bone as we slam into the wall.
His breath bursts out in a grunt, and I wrench his arm behind his back with a savage twist. The mask slips from his grip, clattering across the stone with a metallic ring that echoes like a gunshot.
The acrid residue burns my eyes and scalds the back of my throat.
Allison reacts in a blur, boot connecting with the mask to send it skidding across the floor out of reach.
She crashes down with me, pinning Dreschner beneath both our weight.
He thrashes, nails clawing, teeth bared, but she slams his wrist to the ground with practiced brutality.
Our bodies move in perfect synchrony, unspoken understanding guiding every strike and counter—raw, desperate, and intimate, as if we’ve rehearsed this dance a thousand times.
The adrenaline is blistering, the danger immediate, yet beneath it pulses a fierce awareness: her shoulder pressed against mine, her breath hot and ragged in my ear, our hearts pounding together in a rhythm that refuses to break.
For long seconds the world narrows to thrashing limbs, the crack of fists meeting flesh, blood slicking our knuckles, and the choking sting of chemicals burning our throats.
My pulse hammers in my ears, every muscle locked in the brutal rhythm of survival.
Dreschner jerks and claws, but his strength gutters out beneath our combined weight.
At last the fight leaks from him in ragged gasps, leaving behind a hollow shell of a man, his bravado shattered, his body shackled to the lies he spun until even he can no longer believe them.
Security floods the room, grabbing hold and yanking him upright.
He shrieks about spirits, his words warped by the tiny speaker still crackling against his collar, but the sound has lost its power.
Faces around us are no longer fearful, only grim with disgust. The illusion has dissolved, leaving nothing but a desperate fraud exposed under the harsh light of truth.
The mask lies between us, gleaming terrible and beautiful. Allison studies it, then glances at me. Her eyes meet mine, fierce and steady, and in that look is the promise that neither of us is alone in this. “We’ll prove the truth.”
“We already have.”
Later, on the balcony, moonlight silvering her hair, she leans against the rail.
The adrenaline drains from both of us, leaving only salt air and exhaustion.
For a long moment neither of us speaks. The silence hums with everything we felt in the chase—the fear of losing, the fear of losing each other.
“You saved me back there,” I say quietly.
She shakes her head. “We saved each other. That’s the only way this works.”
I step closer until our shoulders brush. The contact is subtle, but it sparks through me like fire catching dry tinder. I reach for her hand. She lets me take it, fingers threading with mine, warm and strong. For once, neither of us pulls away.
The horizon pales with the first hint of dawn. My pulse hammers with something more certain than adrenaline. I draw a steady breath, the night settling around us. “We stand in this together.”
Her fingers tighten around mine, answer enough. She tilts her face toward me, her eyes soft despite the steel still in her voice. “Side by side.”
Her words settle deep, but I see the flicker of vulnerability in her eyes, the part she guards from everyone else.
I lift our joined hands and press my lips to her knuckles, tasting salt from the night air and the faint tang of sweat and gunpowder.
She doesn’t pull away. Instead she leans against me, shoulder to shoulder, as if the storm that just tore through Saltmoor has fused us together.
For a moment we simply stand there, watching the horizon bleed into rose and gold.
My heart pounds, not with the rush of combat but with the weight of something harder to admit—I want her, not just tonight, not just for missions and danger, but for every dawn after this.
When she finally tips her face toward mine, her expression unguarded, the air between us hums with possibility.
“Side by side,” I echo, softer now, before I kiss her—slow, deliberate, sealing the promise with more than words.