“Some other time,” Dante said as Iago leaned heavily on his shoulder. They walked slowly from the barn, a few of the Conjures lingering behind. Their utter dedication to finding Thomas Atchison was admirable, but Iago knew it was far too late. Viola was too clever for the brutes, anyway. “For now, I intend to take you home.”
He briefly surveyed the damage done to yet another suit. Iago sighed. At this juncture, he was in the market for an entirely new wardrobe.
The cold air was refreshing against his skin, and the clear sky above was pockmarked with stars. It was almost idyllic, despite the corpse of Mr. Gregor Cunningham which laid prostrate near the few lingering stones of the old house’s foundation. It was a shame the gentleman had felt so suicidally bereft following the murder of his brother, Kit, but Iago wished he could thank him for leading the sort of life which caught the attention of the angels.
“Oh, where would I be without you, Mr. Lovelace?” Iago paused and frowned as he considered the obvious answer. “Actually, don’t answer that. I don’t want to think about it.”
XIII.
Augustus Stewart was content to be locked in a box. His victims and his pride were ample company. He felt the non-gazes of every one of his ladies creeping over his skin. He smiled. He’d been smiling a lot recently. It felt good to grin so broadly, to bare his teeth.
He pressed himself into the grimy corner of his cell, like a spider in hiding. “I told them everything, brother,” he said hoarsely. “This is a mess, a dreadful mess which cannot be swept away. A dreadful mess, yes.” He saw Arthur’s sad eyes before him. He’d always had sad, pathetic eyes.
Augustus waited for his brother to respond. He always had something to say, was always reprimanding his younger brother. And then, he would find a way to clean it all up. Arthur was so very good at lying and hiding, the coward. But a dreadful mess such as this deserved to be seen.
Arthur said nothing.
“And it is our mess. No one shall ever underestimate the Stewart brothers now. Not after this,” Augustus said and shut his eyes, “this beautiful disaster.”
The first of December saw Iago Wick at the Marlowe Depot. He took a delicate sip of burnt coffee. The pound cake was a touch dry, but it still did Iago’s heart good.
While the train station had a grand and antiquated sort of beauty outside, the cafe at the depot was a rather pitiful affair, particularly since the advent of dining cars and luxury trains. It smelled of stale food and mildew. Its wooden floors were creaky and uneven, but Iago tired of The Golden Swine and the various overpopulated dining rooms of Marlowe. To share a secluded table with Dante Lovelace as though they were the only two in the world was all he desired, burnt coffee and all.
Dante, as per usual, looked as though he were attending a funeral rather than seeing Iago off.
“Don’t worry, my dear,” Iago said and finished his cake. “I’ll be a short train ride away from you.”
“I know. The distance between Marlowe and Boston is decidedly more manageable than that between Marlowe and Los Angeles,” Dante said with a smile. “All the same, it will take some time to acclimate to this change. I fear our work will keep us apart. You will be very busy, I’m sure. And we can’t have the city’s elder tempter finding you constantly distracted by some backwards catastrophe artist from Marlowe.”
“Backwards? No! We’ll manage. We always have. If I wish to see my dear Dante, then I shall find a way,” he insisted and looked out the window upon a dull and exceptionally chilly December day. The people of Marlowe were little more than eyes and various configurations of coats and scarves and hats. Still, those sunken eyes flittered over the very same newspapers which sat on the table between Dante and Iago.
SECRET SOCIETY AND MURDER MYSTERY!
AUGUSTUS STEWART TRIAL!
DYLAN COURTWRIGHT TO HANG!
The people of Marlowe read the stories as though they were some morbid life source, and perhaps they were. These people were a macabre sort of Greek chorus chattering in the background of Iago’s masterpieces. He would miss them dearly. Christmas dinners and ice skating excursions would surely still see them talking about the horrors committed by these men, the tales of The Fraternal Order of the Scarab told proudly by one Augustus Stewart once he gave himself to the police. Wilburn Cox and Septimus Boeing had themselves been tarnished in death by Stewart’s scandalous news. Such conversation was the perfect accompaniment to lunch, or a day at the park, or a few empty moments while waiting in the doctor’s parlor.
“Are you convinced the Powers Below don’t know what transpired between you and Viola Atchison?” Dante asked as he ran his finger around the rim of a cup of black coffee. “That you intended to let her go?”
“They are attentive, but I don’t believe they are quite that attentive. They see a demon who was nearly cast back to the pit, who escaped by the skin of his teeth. They may pity me, but escape and success are not equals. And so, I am deemed unfit to be Overseer now,” he sighed dramatically. “My required date of completion has passed. My final assignment was not completed as requested. Witness here: the failure, Iago Wick.”
Funny how he didn’t feel like much of a failure at all.
Dante shook his head. “Continuing as a tempter in Boston won’t be so terrible.”
“In their eyes, it’s both a gift and an insult,” Iago said and tried to ignore a restlessness in his bones. It hummed and rattled like an approaching train. “Yes, I can continue to do what I love, but I’ll be one of many in that town.”
“You’ll just have to play nicely.”
“Two other tempters and three catastrophe artists,” Iago said disdainfully. “I have a feeling it will be a bit crowded. I hear one of the catastrophe artists is a fearsome woman who is over three thousand years old. A delight, I’m sure.” He reached for the newspaper and flicked through its pages, considering every moment, every life chronicled within. Marlowe, Massachusetts. He would miss it. “Do you think you can take care of this city on your own?”
Dante laughed. “You are leaving Marlowe in able hands, but I have a feeling they’ll send a replacement for you eventually.”
“A replacement?” Iago asked and placed a theatrical hand to his brow. “Oh, perish the thought! It wrenches my poor heart.”
He smiled warmly. “I promise you, my dear Iago, there is no one who could truly replace you.” A life of quickly arranged train travel and lovingly-penned letters awaited them for now. Iago knew he would long ardently for the comfort of the last few weeks spent at 13 Darke Street.
They stood, taking an unusual amount of time to tidy their table, and Iago couldn’t help the strange feeling which clouded his thoughts. Something was unsettled within him—it had been since he’d narrowly escaped exorcism. It was as though something had been shaken loose. Boston was like a dream. He felt as though he were merely going through the motions. Hell had gripped him by the wrists and presented him with what they called a “wonderful opportunity.”
Their grip deeply sickened him.
Such blasphemy on his part was becoming more and more frequent, he feared. What strange appetites this adventure with Viola Atchison had conjured. He had spoken little of his sudden urges to Dante; Mr. Lovelace might have had a heart attack if he knew his partner so vehemently questioned the Almighty Powers Below.
And still, it gnawed at him, teased him and haunted him. What satisfaction might he feel if he continued to defy their orders?
With a biting early December wind curling about them on the platform, Dante took Iago in an embrace that might have lingered a moment too long to be socially acceptable, and with a quick flicker of invisibility that might only have made a man look twice, they shared a warm kiss. Though he had many tragedies to craft, Dante promised to visit before the month was through.
“Just in time for Christmas, perhaps?” Iago asked with a wink, and Dante shuddered at the altogether too jolly holiday.
Iago chose a particularly lonely window seat for the journey to Boston
, hoping it would remain lonely.
Hell told him plainly that upon his arrival, Iago would make the acquaintance of Richard Grimwood, the town’s cantankerous elder tempter. He would greet him pleasantly, respectfully. He would join him for supper at Delrubio’s because that was Mr. Grimwood’s favorite restaurant in Boston (the quail was delightful). He would be shown to the living quarters his Overseer had procured for him. He would thank Mr. Grimwood. He would receive his first assignment and do precisely as he was told. He would because he should, because it was expected of him.
Temptation was a beautiful game. Every game has rules. Rules are meant to be broken. Perfectly logical, Iago reasoned, with a small smile. And at the thought, the vast horizon ahead suddenly thrilled him.
He looked out the window as the train pulled away, bidding one last farewell to his dear partner. He was so entranced suddenly by looking once more over the morose and marvelous people of Marlowe, Massachusetts that he did not notice the young woman who took a seat across from him.
“Do you travel alone, sir?”
Iago turned and found himself looking into a pair of sharp blue eyes. Oh, what a familiar gaze. The woman was a tall and thin creature in a pea green dress and woolen coat which were hardly fashionable, but handsome nevertheless. She had made herself quite comfortable before he even had the time to answer.
“It had been my intention,” he said carefully, “but no longer.”
“Perfect.” If this woman was on her way to Boston, Iago Wick was going to have quite the adventure ahead of him, he feared. Or hoped. He wasn’t certain. The police had been having considerable difficulty tracking down Thomas Atchison, and now Iago knew for sure that he had disappeared into the fog which frequently settled over Marlowe’s streets.
“A sad town, Marlowe,” she said. “I am not unhappy to leave it.”
“Where are you going?”
She piqued her fingers smugly. “I am on my way to Boston now.”
“I assume Sofia waits for you there.”
“It was unwise to travel together, and anyway, I wanted to stay behind. I have been watching you,” Viola Atchison said lowly.
“Watching me?”
Viola nodded once. “Yes. 13 Darke Street. A humorously dismal little address. You and your… what is his name? Dante? He is very handsome, if I may say. You’re quite a pair.”
Iago’s face fell, and his nails dug into his palms. His guts turned to ice. Games of cat and mouse and dangerous romps in abandoned barns were one thing, but Iago would not allow Viola Atchison to aim so cruelly for his heart. “No, you will not touch him. If you lay a single hand on him, I will—”
“I would never,” she said ardently. “Mr. Wick, I’m not entirely apathetic. I understand the… animal desire to couple.”
If not for Sofia, he would have had quite a difficult time believing such an assertion. He nodded for her to continue.
“Although, it’s quite strange that you do. You look upon Dante adoringly, and yet, you told me yourself that you’re not supposed to do so. Demons are solitary things,” she said. “I don’t wish to harm you, and I can see plainly that hurting him would harm you most of all. I understand.” Her pale fingers lingered upon a locket about her neck. She softened then, teeth scraping over her bottom lip. It was an opportunity to reach into her oft-impenetrable mind. She told the truth. For now. “Please believe me.”
Still, Iago regarded her warily. “You do not wish to harm me. You’ll forgive me for saying, but I’m not certain I can believe you after you spent a day carving me like a jack o’ lantern.”
“All in the name of discovery, and I assure you, it will not happen again.”
“Why is that?”
She coughed and looked out the window to the bare trees and steely December sky. Her lips pursed as her eyes squinted in something like grievous pain, but she managed, “I like you, Iago Wick.” She reached into her prim and perfectly mint purse. This was most likely its first outing. She withdrew an arachnid device with a red gem in the center: the spark.
Iago arched a brow. “What sort of lady walks around with explosives in her purse?”
“I wanted to return it to its owner.”
“It wasn’t used promptly enough. It no longer functions.”
She hummed. “I know. I tried.”
He took it delicately from her hand and looked bemusedly over the trinket. “You like me.”
“I value you,” she said, leagues more comfortable with that word. “You possess a wealth of information, and I can see that you are not entirely happy with your lot or your kind. What do you owe them, those who order you? You owe them nothing. You are no slave, Iago Wick.”
He smirked. “And you believe that because I am not Hell’s greatest advocate at the moment that I will become your pet demon? To come at your beck and call?”
“No,” she said. “We are approaching the twentieth century. Why shouldn’t a human and a demon associate freely? I would be willing to help you in any way, as well. Protection, anything at all. We shall be allies. Equals.”
Equals. He learned long ago that these agreements rarely ended ideally for both parties involved, but there was a new world in those eyes. That gleam of reverence still lingered. Did he trust her? He could count upon one hand the people he trusted, and Viola Atchison was not one of them. And still…
Iago leaned back in his seat and clasped his hands. “Viola, you are fortunate to encounter me in a moment of weakness. Trust me. I know all about those.”
Viola Atchison gave her customary grimace of a smile, and they exchanged a firm handshake. The train lurched steadily toward Boston.
It was a cold day in Massachusetts when Iago Wick fell to temptation.
About the Author
Jennifer Rainey is a sometimes-writer, sometimes-folk singer from beautiful Central Ohio. When she’s not busy writing, you can probably find her perusing antique malls or watching classic horror films.
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Table of Contents
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
About the Author
The Last Temptations of Iago Wick Page 18