The rain fell on Los Angeles like it had a personal grudge against the city.

Ray Donovan sat in his office on Hollywood Boulevard, watching the water run down the window in thin silver streams, and tried to figure out how a man could become a painting.

Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Literally. Two-dimensional. Flat. Like something out of a comic book, if comic books were real and if the people in them could be found standing in the middle of a penthouse suite, stiff as cardboard, with eyes open and mouths slightly parted and bodies so flat that a strong wind could blow them over.

Mrs. Blackwell sat across from him, wrapped in black silk that cost more than Ray's car, more than his office, probably more than his annual income. She was twenty-eight, maybe thirty. Pretty in a way that made you look twice and then look away because there was something about her face that wasn't quite right. Too symmetrical. Too still. Like a photograph.

"My husband," she said. Her voice was calm. Controlled. "You need to see him."

"Where is he?"

"In my home. In the study. You'll understand when you see him."

Ray had learned not to ask questions when clients said that. Questions led to answers, and answers led to expectations, and expectations led to complications, and complications led to Ray doing things he didn't want to do for people he didn't particularly like.

He followed Mrs. Blackwell to a house in the Hollywood Hills. It was one of those modern things—all glass and steel and angles that made Ray's head hurt. The kind of house that looked great in a magazine and would be a nightmare to clean.

The study was on the second floor. Ray knew because Mrs. Blackwell led him there, her heels clicking on the polished concrete floor, her expression unreadable.

And there he was.

Mr. Blackwell stood in the center of the room, or rather, he occupied the center of the room, in the way that a poster occupies a wall. He was maybe forty-five, wearing a suit that hung off his flat body like fabric on a mannequin. His face was turned toward the door, his eyes open, his mouth slightly parted. He was exactly as tall as a man should be. He was exactly as wide as a man should be.

He was also exactly zero inches deep.

Ray stepped closer. He could see the edge of Mr. Blackwell's body—the thin line where the front met the back, separated by a distance that was not quite zero but close enough that it made Ray's stomach turn. He could see both sides of Mr. Blackwell at once, the front and the back, simultaneously, as though he were looking at a photograph that had been cut out and stood on end.

"What happened to him?" Ray asked. He kept his voice level. He had seen things in his twenty years as a private detective. He had seen dead bodies, drugged-out celebrities, politicians with their pants down. But this—this was different.

Mrs. Blackwell stood beside him, looking at her husband with an expression Ray couldn't read. Not grief. Not fear. Something in between. Something worse.

"I don't know," she said. "One day he was fine. The next day, he was like this. The doctors—" She stopped. Shook her head. "There are no doctors for this."

Ray circled Mr. Blackwell. There was nothing to circle, really—he was flat, so going all the way around brought him back to where he started in three steps—but the habit was old and hard to break.

"Has anyone else—" he began.

"Yes." Mrs. Blackwell turned to look at him, and for the first time, Ray saw something in her eyes. Not fear. Recognition. "Others have disappeared. Or rather, they've become like him. Like this."

"How many?"

She counted on her fingers. "Seven. In the past six months. All in Los Angeles. All people I know. All people who—" She stopped again. Swallowed. "All people who were members of the Obsidian Society."

Ray had never heard of it. "What's that?"

"A private organization. Men and women of means. Influence. I didn't know my husband was a member until after—" She gestured at Mr. Blackwell. "Until after this happened."

Ray looked back at the flat man. Seven people. Six months. Los Angeles. A secret society. It added up to something, but Ray couldn't see what yet.

"Who else was in the society?" he asked.

Mrs. Blackwell gave him a list. Seven names. Seven people who had disappeared. Seven people who were now paintings standing in the rooms of rich houses across Los Angeles.

Ray took the list. "I'll need more than a list."

"You'll need everything," Mrs. Blackwell said. "And you'll need to be careful. Because whatever did this to my husband—and to the others—it's still happening."

Ray's first stop was Detective Morales at LAPD Homicide. They had worked a case together five years ago, a kidnapping that turned out to be a hoax. Morales was good. Honest. And honest was rare in a cop.

He found Morales in a diner on Sunset, eating eggs and reading the paper. Morales looked up when Ray sat down, and his face did what faces do when they recognize someone they haven't seen in a while—surprise, then warmth, then the careful neutrality of people who have learned not to show too much.

"Donovan," Morales said. "I heard you were back in town."

"I am. I need your help."

Morales set down his coffee. "With what?"

Ray told him. Everything. The flat man. The seven disappearances. The Obsidian Society. The list of names.

Morales listened without interrupting. When Ray finished, he was quiet for a long time. Then he said, "You're telling me that seven people in Los Angeles have disappeared, and the only connection is that they were all in some secret society, and the one person you've actually seen is flat?"

"Yes."

"Flat."

"Exactly as flat as a sheet of paper. Maybe flatter."

Morales picked up his coffee and took a slow sip. "Ray, I like you. You're one of the good ones. But you're asking me to investigate seven missing persons cases based on the fact that one of the missing men is two-dimensional. Do you know how many crazy things I've heard in twenty years on the force?"

"Probably more than I have."

"Exactly. And I'm telling you, this is up there with the best of them. Flat men. Secret societies. It's like something out of a pulpy novel."

"It's not pulpy. I saw him."

Morales set down the coffee. Looked at Ray with an expression that was almost pity. "Then go see him again. Confirm what you saw. Get me something I can work with. Because right now, you've got nothing."

Ray had something. He had a list of seven names. He had a society he'd never heard of. And he had the image of a man standing in a study, flat as a photograph, with his eyes open and his mouth slightly parted.

He started with the first name on the list. Marcus Hale. Real estate developer. Last seen at a restaurant in Beverly Hills. Gone three days later.

Ray found Marcus's wife in their house in Bel Air. She was crying. Not the controlled crying of Mrs. Blackwell. Raw, ugly crying, the kind that comes from shock and grief and the inability to process what has happened.

"Where is he?" Ray asked.

"In the house," she said. "In the garage. You need to see him."

Ray saw him. Marcus Hale was in the garage, standing next to a Porsche, flat as his neighbor Mr. Blackwell. Same open eyes. Same slightly parted mouth. Same zero depth.

"He was in the garage," Mrs. Hale said. "Working on the car. And then he was like this. I came back from shopping, and he was like this."

"Like what?"

"Like a picture." She said it simply, matter-of-factly, as though she were describing a grocery list. "He's a picture now."

Ray left the house and drove to his car. He sat in the driver's seat and gripped the steering wheel and tried to think.

Seven people. All flat. All members of the Obsidian Society. All in Los Angeles.

He needed to find the society. He needed to find out what they did. And he needed to find out what made men into pictures.

He found the Obsidian Society's headquarters on a cold night in December. It was in the basement of a building in downtown LA that looked like an insurance company from the outside. Ray picked the lock on the side door—twenty years as a detective taught him a thing or two about doors—and descended a flight of concrete stairs into darkness.

The basement was large. Larger than it had any right to be. Ray turned on his flashlight and saw walls lined with shelves, and on the shelves were books and files and something else—objects he couldn't identify, strange and angular, made of a material that absorbed the light rather than reflecting it.

In the center of the room was a table. On the table was a device.

It was roughly the size of a microwave, boxy and black, with dials and switches and a glass tube at one end that glowed faintly, even in the darkness. Ray approached it cautiously, and as he got closer, he felt something—a vibration, low and steady, like a heartbeat.

He reached out and touched the glass tube.

It was warm.

"Don't touch that," a voice said from the shadows.

Ray turned. Mrs. Blackwell stood in the doorway, still wrapped in black, still composed, still looking like a photograph come to life.

"What is this?" Ray asked, nodding at the device.

"The Flatiron," she said. "That's what we call it. Though I suppose 'it' isn't the right word. It's a machine. A weapon, really. Designed to reduce three-dimensional objects to two dimensions."

"Who designed it?"

She was quiet for a long time. Then she said, "We did. The Obsidian Society. We've been working on it for years. It was supposed to be a demonstration project—a way to show the world that we could manipulate the fundamental structure of matter. Reduce an object to two dimensions, study it, restore it."

"You couldn't restore them," Ray said. "The seven people."

"No." She shook her head. "We couldn't. We thought we could. We were wrong."

Ray looked at the device. Looked at the glowing tube. Looked at Mrs. Blackwell.

"Why hire me?" he asked. "If you built this, if you know what happened to these people, why hire a private detective?"

She walked toward him, her heels clicking on the concrete floor, and stopped inches away. She looked up at him, and for the first time, Ray saw something in her eyes that he hadn't seen before.

Fear.

"Because you're immune," she said.

"Immune to what?"

"To the Flatiron. To the reduction. We tested you. When you walked into the study and looked at my husband, the device reacted. It—changed. Adjusted. As though it were trying to understand you." She paused. "You're the only person who isn't flat, Ray. The only person who still has depth."

He felt the room tilt. "Why me?"

"I don't know." She turned away, looking at the device. "But whoever controls you controls the future. And there are people who want to control you, Ray. People who want to use you."

"Who?"

She didn't answer. She couldn't. Or wouldn't.

Ray left the basement. He drove home. He sat in his apartment and stared at the ceiling and thought about flat men and secret societies and a machine that could reduce people to pictures.

And he thought about being immune.

The next morning, he went to see "Flatiron" Frankie.

Frankie ran the docks. Smuggling. Protection. The usual. He was forty-five, built like a refrigerator, and had more scars than a battlefield. He sat behind a desk in an office above a warehouse, smoking a cigar the size of a crowbar, and listened to Ray with an expression that ranged between amusement and annoyance.

"Obsidian Society," Frankie said, blowing smoke. "Never heard of them."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. If there's a society in this town I don't know about, it means one of two things: they're either very good at being invisible, or they're new. And if they're new, they're dangerous."

"What if they're both?"

Frankie smiled. It was not a nice smile. "Then you'd best be very careful, Donovan. Very careful indeed."

Ray was careful. But not careful enough.

He investigated the Obsidian Society for three weeks. He traced the members. He followed the money. He found that the society was funded by a network of shell companies, most of which traced back to a single source: a defense contractor that had lost a government contract and was looking for alternative applications for its technology.

He found that the Flatiron device had been built using components sourced from military surplus. He found that the seven victims had all been present at a society meeting the night before they disappeared.

And he found that Mrs. Blackwell was not just a member of the Obsidian Society. She was one of its founders.

He went to see her one last time. She was in the study, standing beside her husband's flat body, looking at him with an expression Ray still couldn't read.

"You know," he said.

"I know."

"You hired me to test me. To see if I was immune."

"Yes."

"And now what?"

She turned to look at him. The light from the window caught her face, and for a moment, she looked almost beautiful. Almost human.

"Now," she said, "you have a choice."

"What choice?"

"You can walk away. Go back to your office on Hollywood Boulevard, take small cases, drink yourself into oblivion. Or you can come with me. Into the basement. And we can finish what we started."

"Finish what?"

"The Flatiron. The reduction. We can control it now. We can reduce objects to two dimensions and restore them. We can save the seven. We can save everyone."

"Or?"

"Or someone else will find the device. And they won't be as careful as we were."

Ray looked at Mr. Blackwell, standing in the center of the room, flat as a photograph, eyes open, mouth slightly parted. He thought about Frankie's warning. He thought about the defense contractor. He thought about the seven flat people standing in the rooms of rich houses across Los Angeles.

He thought about being immune.

"I'll need a gun," he said.

Mrs. Blackwell nodded. She reached into her purse and handed him a revolver. Heavy. Old. Real.

"Good," she said. "You'll need it."

They descended to the basement together. The Flatiron device hummed in the darkness, its glass tube glowing faintly, like a heartbeat.

Ray held the gun in one hand and the device's manual in the other. He read quickly, his eyes scanning the technical specifications, the safety protocols, the activation sequence.

Behind him, Mrs. Blackwell was speaking. He couldn't hear what she was saying. He could only hear the device, humming, vibrating, warming.

And he could feel it—the flatness of the world pressing in on him, the two-dimensional weight of it, trying to flatten him, trying to reduce him to a line, a point, a nothing.

He didn't flinch. He didn't blink.

He kept reading.

Because he was Ray Donovan. And he was the only man in Los Angeles who still had depth.

And he intended to keep it.