The Iron Gate

By Harry Connolly

Stormy Bay is a dying town nestled against an eerily placid ocean, and Ray Lilly is trapped in it. He can barely remember his name let alone his mission for the Twenty Palace society. Worse, he realizes that for some time now he’s been living as a puppet, his body and mind under the complete domination of an unknown power.

And that power can still seize control of Ray’s body at any time, forcing him and the people around him to playact in nonsense stories that center around a mysterious boy and his monster dog.

The town and its people shift and change, but only Ray seems to notice. He has no idea what sort of magic has imprisoned all these ordinary folks in Stormy Bay, but he does know he needs to get them, and himself, out.

But that might mean crossing a line he has never crossed before. While Ray has certainly taken lives in his work for the society, it was always in self-defense or in the desperate moments before impending calamity. Can he bring himself to commit cold-blooded murder, even to save dozens of lives?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harry Connolly
• Release date: Sep 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781951617028

Harry Connolly

Child of Fire, Harry Connolly's debut novel and the first in The Twenty Palaces series, was named to Publishers Weekly's Best 100 Novels of 2009. The sequel, Game of Cages, was released in 2010 and the third book, Circle of Enemies, came out in the fall of 2011.Harry lives in Seattle with his beloved wife, his beloved son, and his beloved library system. You can find him online at: http://www.harryjconnolly.com

Book preview

RAY LILLY

CHAPTER ONE

What was I doing?

That question seemed to surface out of dark waters, and I seized on it. What was I doing? I didn’t know the answer, but the question—and the ability to ask it—felt like a precious gift that might vanish into darkness at any moment.

But that darkness was receding. Movement. Sweat. Light. Color. The world moved around me in a kaleidoscope of meaningless shapes.

Except they weren’t meaningless. My thoughts were coming back to me. Actual thoughts. My body was moving. I was doing something. I didn’t understand what it was or why I was doing it, but at least I knew it was happening.

This was bad.

It would have been one thing to wake up in a hospital. Or maybe even a jail cell. But to wake up on my feet, running?

My breath was hot against my face, and my vision was obscured. Rough burlap scraped against my cheeks and nose, and I realized someone—me?—had cut eyeholes in a sack and pulled it over my head.

I couldn’t stop running. I tried to make himself stand still, but I seemed to have forgotten how. I couldn’t adjust the eyeholes in the burlap sack, either. My legs were still churning, my arms raised over my head, an unhappy moan coming from my mouth. My body was doing this without any input from me and I couldn’t make it stop. Couldn’t grab a doorway as I ran through. Couldn’t stop moaning long enough to call for help. Couldn’t even flex my leg muscles to make them go rigid and fall flat on my face.

Screams echoed from the hallway ahead, and I turned my attention outward. I was in a room built from crooked slats and planks, which appeared to be made of brown plastic, or plastic that had been painted brown.

I went through a doorway—a passenger in my own body now, just a dumb motherfucker along for the ride—and turned left into the hall. There were more plastic slats here, but my heavy work boots made a wooden clunk sound against them. Cob webs hung in the corners of the ceiling.

The place looked like a prefab haunted house.

But it was the kids that really caught my attention. There were three of them: two boys of twelve or thirteen, in faded blue jeans and short-sleeved shirts with no pictures or logos I could see. Between them was a girl of the same age. She wore a pleated skirt and a top that looked like it came from a toddler’s sailor costume.

And behind them, as though it wasn’t fast enough to outrun a few kids, was a huge Marmaduke-looking dog. It was almost the size of a pony, and I would have stopped dead in my tracks if I had any control of my body. There was no way a dog that size dog should be running away from me. It should have spun around and turned me into lunch.

A new group of three kids crossed in front of the first group, and the dog chased them. The original three peeled off.

Steered by some unknown force or compulsion, my body followed this new group up a flight of stairs, then through turning corridors. After a short while, another group switched out to lead the chase, then another.

Soon my lungs were burning and my muscles ached, but my body kept up the pace. I ran, moaned like a specter, and waved my arms over my head. Someone had chosen this role for me, and they were going to make me play this part no matter how I felt about it.

The kids burst into a huge warehouse space. I followed.

It occurred to me that I might be dead.

Maybe I’d fucked up somehow, gotten myself killed, and landed in hell. Maybe that’s why I was running after these kids like a dad in a polo shirt.

We crossed to the loading dock, passing fake-looking wooden crates and cracked barrels. There were more cobwebs here, too, hanging around like Halloween decorations, and everything suddenly felt horribly familiar. Had I been there before? Had I pulled a sack down over my face and chased these kids before?

How long had I been riding around inside my own body, watching it do things I couldn’t control?

The kids skirted the edge of the loading dock and headed for a flickering EXIT sign. They hit the push bar on a metal door and went through. I caught a glimpse of moonlight on calm waters—a lake? A sheltered lagoon?—before the door swung shut again.

I wanted to stop. To turn away. If there was any place for an ambush, this was it. Those kids weren’t just running away. They’d been leading me somewhere. I could feel it.

But I couldn’t even slow down when I spotted the rope lying across the doorway, and I couldn’t change my stride when I tripped over it.

The next few seconds were disorienting, and I panicked at the thought that I might be losing consciousness again. I flew forward more than fell. When I struck the wooden deck, it spun on a center axle like a paddle wheel, and a railroad tie—a counterweight, maybe—swung in front of me, inches from my face.

Then I was in a net, swinging down toward the dark water. My arms and legs were held tight by the heavy cords, and the salt water was icy when I plunged into it.

Then the water was over my head. I couldn’t kick free. I couldn’t move my arms. I felt a sudden, agonizing stab of pain below my right collarbone but couldn’t imagine what had caused it. Maybe the railroad tie had clipped me after all.

Not that it mattered, because the net was holding me under, and there was nothing I could do to reach the air again. I kept trying anyway, but my body fought me. My breath was being held—at this point, I didn’t think I could take credit for a beating heart—but my body wouldn’t move a single muscle to survive. It wanted to die.

A moment before it would have gotten its wish, I felt myself being yanked upward. The net was on some sort of boom, and someone was swinging me back toward the dock. The burlap bag—which had stayed in place even after the plunge into the water—made it difficult to see who was operating it, but then they came into view.

Of course it was the fucking kids.

I tried to struggle free of the net, and my body did the same. I couldn’t tell if I was getting some measure of control back or not. Not that it mattered, because my body and I were both trapped.

A potbellied cop limped into my line of sight. At first glance, I thought he was an old white guy, well past retirement age, but a second glance showed there was no gray in his hair and only few lines on his face. I put him in his forties but with a crookedness to him that suggested he’d carried that leg injury for so long that it had changed everything about the way he moved.

He looked me over, tipped back his cap and scratched his head. Welp, it looks like you kids did it.

A big group of kids approached confidently. The dog towered over them.

That we did, Chief, said the smallest of the kids, the boy in a bright red shirt.

A second cop appeared behind the chief. She was a young woman with a big frame and a tidy black ponytail. The expression on her pudgy white face was pure befuddlement. But… I don’t understand. How did you catch a ghost in an old fishing net?

More people appeared behind the cops as though they were emerging from a fog. The men were dressed in polo shirts in neutral colors and the women wore simple dresses in blue and green. Victims was the word that came to me out of nowhere. They looked like they’d gathered just to watch this scene play out. Even the birds were settling on the telephone wires, and the squirrels on the railing of the dock. An orange tabby with some kind of locket dangling from its collar peeked out from between the chief’s legs.

But he’s not a ghost! the kid in red shouted, and I hated him just for the smug, triumphant tone of his voice.

Everything about this suddenly felt familiar to me, although I was sure it had never happened to me before. Not while I was awake, anyway. But for no reason at all I was sure I knew what was about to happen to me.

The kid in red stepped forward. The Phantom of Stormy Bay is actually… He reached over and yanked the burlap sack off my head.

The crowd, in ragged unison, cried, Handyman Carl!

It was hard to talk, but I forced the words to come. Fuck you, I managed to say.

I was awake again. I was regaining control over my body.

It was a brand-new day.

The chief looked at me in shock. "Carl."

That isn’t my name. My name is…

Shit.

I couldn’t finish that sentence. I didn’t know who I was. I’d forgotten my own name.

CHAPTER TWO

The kid accused me of some sort of convoluted real-estate scam involving the abandoned cannery we were all standing in. He was speaking ordinary English, but what he said was pretty much empty gibberish. I didn’t pay much attention after that. It was meaningless. Still familiar in some far-off way, but meaningless.

Someone had taken my name away. That wasn’t meaningless. That mattered. And so did the pain in my chest. And so did this big scary dog, who was leaning over the edge of the dock to growl at me as though it didn’t like harsh language.

Unmasking Handyman Carl was apparently an excuse to party. A little stage had been constructed on the end of the dock, maybe while I was holding my breath underwater, and a few of the kids took up instruments. Within minutes, they were belting out bubblegum pop—with the boy in red on guitar and vocals—and the whole town was dancing, even the cop with the ponytail. Only the chief and his bad leg were exempt. He stood near the boom that still held me prisoner, clapping along with a big grin.

Nearby, that big dog was up on its hind legs, dancing to the music. At Chino, I’d met a Haitian gun runner who claimed to teach his English setter to walk around on its hind legs, but I had never really believed it until now. Then a cat wandered too close—a little tuxedo cat with oversized gold tags on its collar—and the dog bolted after it. The two pets spent the rest of the song racing around the stage.

I suppose it was meant to be funny or sweet. I suppose it was meant to be endearing.

Not to me. I didn’t even know who I was. The only things I knew for sure were that I wasn’t a handyman and I had no interest in real estate. I was also in real pain from some kind of injury below my collarbone. Once I got out of this net, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to lift my right arm above my shoulder.

And I’d nearly drowned.

The band finished their song. How many times had they played it? I had the feeling that I’d heard it before. A dozen or so ordinary townsfolk gathered around the kids to congratulate them or whatever. In the comparative quiet, the chief said, Watch your language, Carl. You aren’t here to cuss at little kids.

Those kids didn’t look all that little to me. I was maybe a year older than them when I shot my best friend and ran away from home. But I couldn’t make myself say so.

The dog had returned. I didn’t know if it caught that cat, but it was standing behind the chief, glaring at me. It looked almost ready, finally, to have me for lunch.

Then everything went gray.

I opened my eyes without realizing I’d closed them.

The cannery, the docks, and the fishing net were gone, replaced by a run-down little room… It was nothing more than a squat, really. The floor and walls were planks of unfinished wood, but they looked like real wood rather than the weirdly painted plastic of the docks. I extended my hand—I had control of my body again, thank fuck—and ran my fingertips across it. It felt like real wood, too.

I sat up, wincing as I moved my right arm.

Damn. It still hurt like hell. I stood and went to the little mirror over the sink.

And stopped cold. I was wearing new clothes—black pants, white button-up shirt with collars the size of pie slices, and a red tie. Why did people think I was a handyman if I was wearing a tie? And why was I wearing a fucking tie, anyway? I may not have known my own name, but I knew I didn’t want to walk around with a noose around my neck.

With my left hand, I loosened the tie and pulled it over my head. My bed was little more than an unrolled pad in the corner. I threw my tie on top of it. Then I worked at unbuttoning my shirt, which taught me that I was right-handed, because it should not have been such a challenge.

There were tattoos on my chest and over the backs of my arms and hands—how had I not noticed my hands before?—from my knuckles to my elbow. I ran my fingers over them, sometimes tracing the black squiggles and sometimes moving across them to feel for an edge. I didn’t feel any edges, of course, but I couldn’t feel anything else, either. I scratched my skin, pinched it, tugged on it… I felt nothing. Nerve damage, maybe.

But there was one exception. Below my right collarbone was a little nest of black squiggles that looked a little like a rib cage or maybe a security gate, and it ached like holy shit. It felt like someone had put a lit charcoal under my skin. I touched it to see how tender it was. I didn’t know where I was born, but I knew that fresh tattoos could get infected and turn red and hot to the touch.

But this tattoo wasn’t new, apparently. It wasn’t swollen or red, and no matter how much I poked at it, the pain didn’t get better or worse.

Which meant I was a passenger again. This might have been my body, but some asshole had carjacked it. Body-jacked. I couldn’t feel my own skin, not even to hurt myself. Something—or someone—had done this to me, and the idea made me so furious that I wanted to hunt them down and kill them, whoever they were.

My name is Ray Lilly, I said to the empty room.

There it was. I’d remembered my name, and with it came the realization that I had come to this place, whatever this place was, to find someone—no idea who at the moment—and kill them.

I was doing a shit job of it, though. Looking around the room, I saw the bedding was rumpled and split at the seams. The floor was littered with creased, battered paperbacks I didn’t remember reading.

How long had I been here, not murdering my target?

A lonely chair stood in the corner beside a narrow table. There was nothing on them but an old-fashioned pen and dried-out inkwell, and a single sheet of unmarked paper. Beside that was the only window. I looked through the dirty glass and saw an empty street corner. It could have been Anywhere, USA. The window had been painted shut.

This place felt like a cell.

I turned back to the mirror and examined myself. I couldn’t spot any gray hairs, so maybe I hadn’t been stuck here for decades. There was a scar on my face—maybe from a knife—but not much in the way of wrinkles.

Then I noticed something else. My jaw was smooth. I’d been dressed like an old sailor when I went into the seawater, but when I’d come around on the bed—woken up? It didn’t really feel like waking up—my clothes had been changed. I rubbed my face. Bad enough to have someone dressing me, but my skin felt freshly shaved. In fact, it was smoother than it had ever been since puberty.

I stepped back and looked down at myself. My shirt was buttoned up and my tie was back on.

That fucking tie was supposed to still be on the bed where I tossed it. Had I blacked out and put it back on? Had someone come in and dressed me?

I scanned the room for some sign of an intruder, but there was nothing. My hands were shaking and my thoughts jumbled. Bad enough that someone had dressed me. I imagine a nurse or someone changing my clothes with impersonal professionalism, and while I fucking hated that thought, it didn’t bother me half as much as the idea of strangers touching my face.

I put my hand on the doorknob—if it was locked, I was going to tear this place apart—and the door swung open easily.

Cool air blew in and I could smell salt water and pine. A single bare bulb hung in the hallway, showing warped boards and rusted nailheads. Character. This place had character. Directly in front of me was a flight of creaky stairs leading down. One other door stood at the far end of the hall.

As if on cue, the other door opened. I saw another bedroom there, with actual windows that let in actual daylight, and an actual mattress that rested on an actual frame.

The man that came through and shut the door behind him was tall and broad, but if he’d ever had any real strength in his frame, it had aged out of him. He carried a great big head of silver hair and wore red-checkered bow tie beneath his oversized collars.

Okay, he said to me, "Have you heard the saying, A man’s debts are a clearer indication of his character than his name or his reputation? Jonathan Massey-Indigo said that."

No. He sounds like an asshole.

What it means, Carl, is that I shouldn’t have to tell you that the rent is overdue. Do you have it?

Was Carl the name of the asshole who could take control of my body? Ray.

What’s that again?

My name is Ray, not Carl. And I don’t know how I got here. What’s your name?

Silver Hair sighed as though I was trying his patience. "I’m a workingman, Carl. I don’t have time for shenanigans. Rent."

"Name."

He seemed startled. Whatever shenanigans he expected from Carl, I was giving him something else. It occurred to me that this might be the person I was sent to kill. Silver Hair didn’t look particularly dangerous, but I wasn’t sure I could take him with only one working arm.

My name is Lou. I’m… He looked around, and for a moment he looked as confused to be there as I was. Then the expression passed. I’m Lou, the guy who rents you that room.

There were a hundred other questions I wanted to ask him, starting with how long I’d been rooming there and why I wasn’t in lockup after the bullshit at the cannery last night. Assuming it happened last night and not last year. But what came out of my mouth was Did you put this tie on me? I touched my baby-smooth chin.

Lou sighed again and shook his head. Come on down for breakfast, Carl. I’m sure you have plenty of work to do today.

He went down the stairs. I looked around my room, hoping to find something clean I could tie into a sling for my right arm but there was nothing. The pain was unending and slowly growing worse by the minute. Maybe it would feel better if I stabilized it. Maybe I’d be able to focus and remember more about myself than just my name and my mission.

CHAPTER THREE

Downstairs turned out to be an old pub. It wasn’t large, but there was a big empty space near the front door where a little stage would fit. I could just imagine sitting in the back, trying to enjoy a beer while four or five locals ground out cover songs on cheap instruments. There was a row of booths along one wall, and on the opposite side of the room, Lou was already behind the bar, polishing a glass. Behind him was a window that looked into a little kitchen with a grill, and there was already a plate with two sunny-side eggs and a pair of bacon strips curved like a smile.

There was no way Lou could have cooked that breakfast in the time it took me to come down the stairs, but everything was still hot. It tasted fine, not at all like it had been waiting for me overnight on the bar.

Physically, I felt better with each bite—even the spot below my collarbone seemed to get better—but Lou was giving me the creeps. He just stood there, staring at me, while he wiped the inside of a glass for a good ten minutes. That fucker really wanted his money. When the plate was clean, I stood and looked around. Aside from the stairs back up to my room, there were two doors, both with exit signs above them. I picked the front door. As I opened it, a tiny woman in black veils inched toward me. I stepped back and held the door for her. She gave me a dirty look as she passed.

Handyman Carl didn’t seem to be the most popular guy in town.

I hit the street. Hopefully, I’d never see the inside of that building again.

The first order of business was to get the hell away from this place—town or city or whatever it was. I dug into my front pockets and heard a pleasant jingle of metal. No bills. Worse, the metal wasn’t even a bunch of coins. I was holding three blank slugs sized like a dime, nickel and quarter. Enough to rip off an old-fashioned candy machine, maybe, but I wasn’t going to get far on forty fake cents.

It seemed that Handyman Carl wasn’t much of an earner. Whoever was using a remote control on my body was a lazy asshole.

I stepped into the road, which smelled like new asphalt. There were no cars in sight, moving or parked. That was really odd, but it wasn’t something to fixate on, not right now, anyway. I just knew I wouldn’t be rolling out of here on stolen wheels.

Many of the tiny storefront buildings—none of which seemed perfectly vertical—were either shuttered or dark. Maybe it was earlier in the day than I thought, although the cloud cover diffused the daylight so much that nothing cast a shadow. The sun must have been hidden behind a building, because I couldn’t see it.

I heard creaking wheels behind me. An elderly man with scrawny arms and a striped paper hat wheeled an ice cream cart across the street, setting up at the end of the block. Since he was literally the only other person I could see, I walked up to him.

Ice Cream Guy spent a few moments putting chocks on the wheels and arranging his cart for the day’s sales. With his narrow, hatchet-like face and long, grasping fingers, he could probably scare the neighborhood trick-or-treaters if he put a little effort into it. I didn’t think he’d make the effort. From the sweet and friendly way he looked at me—taking a moment to tilt his paper hat to a jaunty angle—I didn’t think it would have occurred to him to put a fright into a couple of kids, even if it was all in fun.

Hello, Carl. Happy to see you today. Here. Your favorite.

A pink ball came out of his scoop onto a waffle cone, which he passed to me. I didn’t take it. I can’t afford it, I said. My money’s all tied up in real-estate scams.

Ice Cream Guy thought that was the funniest thing in the world. When the laughter stopped, he pressed the cone into my left hand. On me.

Thanks. The scoop was weirdly light and frothy, like thickened whipped cream filled with strawberry flavoring. It was too sweet. Terrific. So, what’s your name, Ice Cream Guy?

Want to try a chocolate next?

No, really. What’s your name?

It took Ice Cream Guy a moment to zero in on what I was saying. My name? Carl, come on. I’ve been scooping ice cream for you since before you were old enough to hold a cone. And now you forget my name? Have you been having a tipple? At this hour?

I was planning to let the whole Carl thing go, mainly because I didn’t want to argue about it with everyone I met, but here I was again, in the same situation, and I couldn’t let it go. My name is Ray. There is no Carl and there never was. Tell me your name.

Like Lou the Bartender, the Ice Cream Guy betrayed a flash of confusion. Why, I’m Archie. You know that, um, Carl. And just a quickly, the expression vanished. Are you okay there, Carl?

Fine. Sure, but I’m behind on my rent and I have a new job to get to.

Good for you, son. Happy to see you apply yourself.

Only problem is that it’s in the next town. Is there a bus or something coming through?

You took a job in Hinkleyville? That’s bad news, Carl. There’s no way to get there. Hasn’t been a bus running through Stormy Bay since the bridge went out.

Shit. Well, if I had to walk, I’d walk. Sticking my thumb out by the side of the road had never been a solid strategy for me, but I’d give it a try. Someone or something was making me do shit against my will, and I’d do whatever I had to do to get outside the range of their remote control.

On the corner of the ice cream cart, Archie had a black metal cash box. I was pretty sure I was his first customer, and I hadn’t tried to pay him with the blank slugs in my pocket, but maybe he had actual money in there anyway, in case he needed to make change.

Archie was another victim, although there was something about him that made me wary, too. Not that I was afraid of him. Even if my right arm had been in a sling, we were standing alone on an empty street. I felt pretty sure I could walk away with that cash box.

The thought felt so natural that it troubled me. I could remember my name but not my past. I could have been anyone. Anyone. Maybe even a mugger.

But I didn’t want to be something so small and petty. All I wanted was to put a thousand miles between myself and whoever turned me into a passenger in my own body.

Which way to the washed-out bridge, Archie, old buddy?

He waved vaguely. There ain’t but the one road. Follow it past the cannery a couple of miles, and you’ll come right to it.

The cannery? With its plastic walls and fake cobwebs? I knew I ought to check it out, if only because it might be the hideout of the asshole who took control of me. Then I could punch them in the face a few thousand times until I felt better.

But there was always the danger that they would do the punching and I’d be back where I was before I came around—a helpless ghost inside my own body.

I glanced back and saw the loudmouth kid in the bright red shirt running the other way up the street, poking at a rolling hoop with a stick. It was like something out of an old picture book.

Running right beside him was that gigantic dog.

It stopped and looked back at me as though it knew I was thinking about it. It stared a little longer than I would have liked.

Mike and Duke have been together for all their little lives. It fills an old man’s heart to see it, if you know what I mean.

I started down the road. Time to see where things stand with this bridge. Thanks for the cone.

Archie gave me a military salute that told me he’d never learned to do it for real—which was cool by me, since I hadn’t either—and I left him standing in the empty street. I wondered how long he would keep staring after me, a smile on his face.

Within a hundred yards, I passed the end the tiny downtown of Stormy Bay and my view opened up. On my left, about fifty yards away, was calm, gray water. Not the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans, then. It was possible that I was looking at some sort of sheltered bay or lagoon, but even Puget Sound had more churn in it. I figured I was looking at a lake, maybe, one big enough that I couldn’t see the shore on the other side.

But there was a broad, sandy beach at the waterline that stretched at least a hundred yards in each direction. As far as I knew, there were only two ways that could happen. The first was a million years of pounding surf breaking stone into sand. The other was to have it trucked in for the tourists.

This place had neither.

On my right was a row of narrow homes that looked enough alike that they could have come from kits. Most stood three stories tall with peaked roofs and stone chimneys. The windows had heavy shutters, but exactly zero of them were shut against a potential storm.

They looked empty. No one was touching up the paint. No one was shoring up the foundations. No one was mowing the lawns.

Things hadn’t gotten so bad that the windows had cracked or the roofs collapsed, but they were on the way. The houses gave the impression of standing crooked without actually being crooked. Maybe. Honestly, they looked like they were lined up to audition for the role of tiny haunted house.

Worse, from my perspective, was that no matter how far I walked, there were no cars. If I wanted to get out of here, I was going to need wheels. There was still a lot I didn’t remember about myself, but I suddenly understood that I liked driving nice cars, especially if they belonged to other people.

As I trudged down the road, the cannery came up on the left. A concrete ramp large enough to let two trucks access the loading bay from the road had been laid across the beach, but the rest of the building was unpainted wood. It looked, if anything, even more run-down than the sad parade of houses.

But it wasn’t the same place where I’d worn the burlap mask and been trapped in a fishing net. Even at this considerable distance,