by Kat Ross
The room was starting to empty, either because the men inside it were dead or they’d had the wits to bring a talisman of Traveling. Gateways were opening in the spilled blood all over the room, necromancers leaping into them, half with their animal masks askew. It was like some surreal, hellish scene from a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
Where was Lucas? Vivienne? Balthazar took a step toward the windows fronting the balcony and saw Constantin rush up and seize Gabriel’s arm. Gabriel shook him off, raging in French so rapid Balthazar couldn’t follow it. Apparently, things weren’t turning out the way they were supposed to. Gabriel turned away….
And Constantin reached into his cloak, unsheathed a sword and drove it straight through Gabriel’s back.
Balthazar froze, shocked to his marrow.
D’Ange blinked rapidly as a foot of steel erupted from his chest. Quick as a snake, Constantin withdrew the blade and stabbed him again. And yet again.
The sword looked ordinary enough, if forged in the old way, double-edged with a cruciform hilt now dark with rust, but Balthazar knew it had to be sanctus arma. He waited for the inevitable scream, but it never came.
Blood ran from Gabriel’s mouth. He sank to his knees, his face disbelieving.
Constantin swung the blade back to take Gabriel’s head from his shoulders when one of the Order — a loyal one, apparently — slammed into Constantin and dragged him down. The man was already dying from a dozen wounds. Constantin finished him quickly. He stood and turned back to Gabriel, now braced on all fours, head hanging low.
And Alec Lawrence stepped between them.
“He’s mine,” Alec snarled, a bloodied revenant blade in his hands.
Constantin scowled and raised the sword, but his new master beckoned sharply. “He’s good as dead,” Bekker snapped. “Leave him.”
Constantin cast a final look at Gabriel and Balthazar knew exactly what he was thinking. Better safe than sorry. But Alec still stood over D’Ange and Bekker was snapping orders. Constantin spun away, striding to one of the open doorways where Bekker’s men stood guard. They all vanished, presumably to a Gate.
Gabriel fell to one side, unmoving.
What did he offer to make you betray your mentor? Balthazar wondered with a strange bitterness. He should have been grateful that he wouldn’t be hunted like a dog for the rest of his life, but he felt … sad. They didn’t make them like Gabriel D’Ange anymore.
And then Balthazar was swept into the melee again, wondering where the hell the reinforcements were.
Old grudges were settled at the Picatrix Club that night and new ones born. Everywhere Balthazar turned, he saw flickers of black lightning, heard the roar of revenants as necromancers died. He kicked one from his broadsword, adjusted his cuffs, and took a moment to survey the scene. Balthazar had always thought the term bloodbath to be hyperbole, but in this case….
Alec Lawrence had hold of Gabriel’s boots and was hauling him toward the balcony to the garden. One of Gabriel’s arms dragged limply above his head, trailing the chains locked around his wrist. His face was a death mask.
But he hadn’t gone into the usual convulsions, the instantaneous suffocation, and Balthazar felt a superstitious thrill of fear.
What was he?
Alec crouched down and injected something into Gabriel’s thigh. Then he stood, swaying a little on his feet. His bad leg had started to buckle. The eagle mask was long gone and he looked exhausted. Balthazar guessed Alec had been occupied protecting his prize.
He failed to notice when Gabriel’s eyes fluttered open.
With a savage groan, Gabriel sat up and whipped the chain around Alec’s ankles, yanking it taut. Alec crashed to the floor. D’Ange had something in his fist, a talisman of Traveling, and the two of them sank into the slick of blood.
It happened in an instant.
“Where are they?”
Balthazar turned. Vivienne stood on the balcony, wild-eyed, Lucas at her side.
He could tell she already knew, but he answered.
“Gone.”
A police whistle sounded in the street. Vivienne screamed, an animal sound, and Lucas stepped forward, blade sweeping to behead a revenant as it shuffled toward them. Balthazar gently took her arm.
“He’s gone, Vivienne. We have to get the hell out of here.”
He dragged her back out the French doors and down to the garden below, where a dozen more bodies sprawled in the grass. It was clear now what had them taken them so long to arrive.
Vivienne was trembling as they ran to the carriage and Lucas leapt into the driver’s bench and shook the reins.
“I’ll kill him,” she whispered as they hurtled through the dark streets. “Mark me, Balthazar.”
He glanced at her face and wondered if D’Ange had finally met his match.
25
Vivienne refused Balthazar’s offer of a glass of brandy, staring at him with an unreadable expression.
So he drank alone while she paced the study and Lucas watched out the window to make sure they hadn’t been followed back to Mayfair.
“Is he…?” Balthazar let the question dangle in the air.
“Still alive?” Vivienne replied in a hollow voice. “Yes.”
That came as something of a surprise.
“And I presume you can find him?”
She gave a hard nod, then pressed her palms to her eyes. She looked dead on her feet.
“I have to get home,” she said. “I need my scimitar.”
Balthazar knew she’d lost the sword she brought to the Picatrix. He held up the bottle. “Sure you won’t—”
“I don’t want any of your bloody brandy,” Vivienne snarled. “I want….”
“Alec back,” Balthazar said in a soothing tone. “Of course. Where is he?”
Her eyes lost focus and Balthazar knew she was following the thread of their bond.
“Not far … in the direction of the Channel,” she murmured. “It has to be France.”
“No great shock there,” Balthazar said. “We can Travel—”
“I’ll lose him in the Dominion. The bond doesn’t work beyond the veil.” Her head slowly turned. “What do you mean, we?”
“I’m going with you. Mr. Devereaux will come, too.”
Balthazar glanced at Lucas, who nodded.
“Why?” she demanded.
Because I’m not letting you walk into Gabriel’s lair alone.
Because I owe you a debt, though you don’t remember my name and I sorely hope you never do.
Balthazar sighed. “Because I’m not having him after me for all eternity. I’d prefer to be there when you settle it. One way or another.”
Vivienne hesitated, but she was in no position to turn down his offer. “We need to take a ship. It’s the swiftest way.”
“My man can arrange for passage. We’ll hire horses on the other side.”
Lucas let the curtain fall. “I’ll ride down to the docks,” he said curtly, still brooding over Bekker’s escape. “Find out what’s leaving first thing in the morning.”
Which wasn’t far off now. The sky outside was lightening to dawn.
Lucas strode from the study and Vivienne made to follow. Tendrils of hair had sprung loose from her braid. A streak of blood across one dark cheek made her look like some warrior-priestess from ancient Kush. “I have to go home. I need weapons—”
Balthazar smiled.
He led her up to the attic and unlocked a door. Vivienne stared for a long moment.
“This is quite a collection you have, Balthazar.” She strode into the room and surveyed the gleaming array of swords and daggers, curved sabres and nimble rapiers.
“Why is Gabriel punishing you?” Balthazar asked, curious, as he watched her roam the large space, running her hands over the hilts, lifting the blades and testing their weight. “What did you do?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Vivienne snapped.
“All right.” Balthazar chose a katana sword from
the wall and examined the edge. “Will you at least tell me how he managed to take your cuff?”
“He drugged me,” she muttered.
“Ah.” That might explain the aversion to brandy.
“D’Ange pretended to be an abbot,” Vivienne admitted. “He was so convincing. He made me like him. Trust him.” She shook her head. The prospect of revenge seemed to be reviving her spirits. “It was a flawless performance until the end. He even spoke English with a Hungarian accent!”
Balthazar gave a mirthless laugh. “That sounds like Gabriel. He specializes in getting to people who can’t be gotten to. And his schemes are often … elaborate. I suppose it keeps him entertained.”
Balthazar thought about Bekker, about the trap he’d laid knowing D’Ange couldn’t resist coming for him. He’d said Gabriel was good as dead.
But that wasn’t quite the same as dead, was it?
Balthazar had a feeling Jorin Bekker would learn the difference soon enough — assuming D’Ange scrounged up yet another of his feline lives and survived Vivienne.
“I always thought all his talk about being chosen by God was … well, I thought Gabriel was a bit insane,” he said to her. “But the sanctus arma didn’t kill him. And I’m not sure what that means.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps it’s not what you think.”
“Perhaps.”
Yet Balthazar had known both men for centuries. Constantin would never be so foolish as to think an ordinary blade would finish Gabriel D’Ange. And if he tried, he’d damned well better succeed.
“There’s one proven method,” she said tightly. “Cleave his head off.”
Balthazar nodded, feeling oddly conflicted. Vivienne’s reticence made it difficult to say who was at fault in the situation. And he wasn’t at all certain the world would be a better place without Gabriel D’Ange. Safer, yes. There were many who would dance a jig on his grave. But still….
Holy Father, I’m getting soft in my old age, he thought, wishing he’d brought the bottle upstairs with him.
“I doubt even Gabriel could come back from that,” Balthazar agreed softly, replacing the katana in its brackets.
Vivienne lifted her skirts a few inches to strap a stiletto to her ankle. “What does the Church think of him?”
Balthazar laughed. “Oh, they’ve officially disowned him. He can’t be controlled and Rome won’t tolerate that. But he has … sympathizers. Mostly among the lower ranking clergy.”
“The brothers at Saint George’s knew what he was. They went along with it.” She let her skirts fall. “He was after Bekker at the Picatrix?”
Balthazar nodded.
Vivienne’s jaw tightened. “I’d almost admire the bastard if he hadn’t done what he did. But now….” She trailed off.
There was no need to finish the thought.
It was war.
Part IV
“There is no bombast, no similes, flowers, digressions, or unnecessary descriptions. Everything tends directly to the catastrophe.”
—The Castle of Otranto
26
Anne was reading one of her books on mathematics when she heard a creak somewhere in the house below. She leapt out of bed and ran to the head of the stairs.
Gabriel leaned against the wall, halfway up. She could see a trail of bloody handprints behind him.
Anne rushed down the stairs and threw an arm around his waist. He sagged against her but didn’t seem to see her. He looked ghastly, his eyes wild. She hauled him up to the second floor, step by painstaking step, as he ranted incoherently in French. Anne eased him into his bed, panting from the effort of nearly carrying him the last twenty paces.
Gabriel looked at up at her, his pupils tiny pinpricks. Anne had seen it before in the rougher parts of London. Opium.
“You’re knackered,” she muttered.
Then she unbuttoned his coat and her heart turned to ice.
Gabriel smiled through red teeth as she fetched wet cloths and cleaned the gore away, tried to bandage the terrible wounds with strips of cloth she ripped from the shirt hanging over the chair. They kept bleeding through so she wound them tight as tourniquets. At least he seemed beyond pain.
“God sent me an angel,” he whispered, so low it was almost inaudible.
The sight of him was more than she could bear.
Why wasn’t he healing? What had been done to him? And who had done it? She felt a cold rage far worse than any he’d ever driven her to.
Anne stayed up all night watching him, cooling his forehead as he muttered deliriously in his sleep, raising water to his lips and making him drink. The next morning, when the sun rose, he looked a little better, but she was shocked to see a streak of white in his hair.
Gabriel’s eyes opened. They had a mad light. Then he saw her and his gaze softened.
“Anne….”
“You’re home now,” she said soothingly. “Drink some water.”
She held the cup to his dry lips. He winced as he swallowed.
“Tell me what happened.”
Gabriel face grew hard. “I was betrayed. Constantin sold me out. It was … a mess.”
“Is he the one who drugged you?”
Gabriel looked away. “It doesn’t matter. Bekker is gone. It could take years to find him again.” His jaw tensed. “But I’ll hunt them down, every one of them.” He struggled to sit but she gently pushed him back down again.
Anne touched the white in his hair. “You’re aging, Gabriel.”
“The fight at Picatrix drained me,” he admitted. “And the price of healing.”
“What do you … need?” Anne swallowed. “I have years to spare—”
Gabriel gave her appalled look. “You? No! Never.” He gazed at her, his eyes narrow. “You say it’s wrong for me for prey on mortals, to steal their lives. So I won’t. But if you don’t bond me, soon I will die, just like the poor, tragic Beast.”
His words triggered that instinctive fear. Could Anne truly trust him with everything that she was?
“I thought you were supposed to be Beauty,” she snapped irritably.
“Yes, but now I’m losing my good looks,” he joked with a weak smile. “It will be Old and Ugly and the Beast.”
Anne didn’t find this amusing in the least.
Gabriel slept again. He slept all day, a sleep as deep and still as the enchantment of her rose cameo. In the evening, Anne came back and sat on the bed. Seeing him at the very edge of death made her realize how terrified she was of losing him.
She kissed his forehead and curled up next to him, listening to his soft breathing.
And she dreamt she was running next to a huge, dark shadow, running through the trees as a stag leapt into the underbrush ahead. It veered away and she let it escape, only running, running through the endless forests of the night.
The moon was high and full when she woke, flushed with strange, feverish longing, and reached for Gabriel.
The bed was empty.
Anne went down to the entrance hall and sat on the stairs, waiting for him to return.
Just before dawn, the door eased open. Gabriel strode into the house wearing only his skin. He had a smudge of dirt on his face and leaves caught in his hair.
He halted when he saw her. He looked full of life again. Unmarked and strong. A man of no more than thirty-five, although she could see the faint streak of white in the moonlight.
“Tell me what it’s like,” she said in a low voice.
He drew a deep breath. Exhaled. “It takes me out of my head. There is no thought. Nothing but…. My beating heart, the sounds, the smells. The earth beneath my feet, the stars above. My body.”
She moved to him and ran a hand down his lean flank. The muscles twitched beneath her palm.
Gabriel pulled back, his face cold. “Don’t,” he said roughly. “I swore to myself I wouldn’t touch you.” His gaze flicked to the rose cameo. “Not like this.”
“Then you have no choice.” She stared at him defiantly, t
ugging at the ribbon on her cotton shift and letting it fall to the floor. A chill from the open door swept across her skin. “Release me, Gabriel.”
His eyes lingered on her small, high breasts, her softly rounded belly, then lifted to her face. Without a word, he pulled her to him, one arm around her waist, the other fumbling at the cameo around her neck and then…. Anne shivered as strength and power rushed into her body. She slid into the Nexus, her senses sharpened to a fine point.
She heard the blood pumping through his veins — and could have reversed its flow with a thought, freezing the powerful muscle of his heart.
She felt earth resonating in his bones — and could have snapped them all, one by one.
The only thing on this earth stronger than a necromancer was a daēva.
Gabriel stepped back, watching her with wary eyes. She knew he’d just been betrayed by the one man he trusted above all others.
Anne didn’t hesitate. She stepped forward and pulled his mouth down to hers. It was a soft, tentative kiss at first. He cradled her head with one hand, pulling her deeper into his mouth, the other exploring the line of her hip. Gabriel lifted her in his arms, his breath ragged, and took a step for the stairs.
“No,” she whispered, aflame with desire for him like no other man she’d ever known. “Right here. Now.”
Gabriel looked down at her, as hungry as she was. Hungrier.
He backed her against a tapestry, the rough weave pressing into her shoulders. Gabriel lowered his head, nuzzling her neck. “Wrap your legs around me, Anne,” he murmured in her ear. “Hold me tight.”
She threw her arms around his shoulders and Gabriel lifted her up to straddle his hips, his hands cupping her buttocks, his thumb brushing her swollen sex.
“Mmmm, like this, Anne?”
“Yes,” she hissed. “Yes....”
His teeth grazed her neck as she arched into him. A finger teased her open, slid inside.
Anne’s breath hitched, a sharp, convulsive gasp. She reached between them and circled his velvet flesh with her hand, eliciting a growl of pleasure. Anne tried to guide him inside her but he slapped her hand away.