by Kat Ross
On the tenth day, she gathered the torn pieces of the sketch and tossed them overboard. The dream was probably just a metaphor for her own subconscious fears. A proverbial road to nowhere. She did love Gabriel, but their lives and goals were very different. In truth, she had no idea how they would reconcile those differences even if he decided to trust her again. The dream had started when she left London. It all made sense.
She told herself this, yet Anne believed that road led somewhere.
She leaned on the rail, watching the scraps of paper float in the ship’s wake like petals. Unbidden, the words to an old children’s rhyme popped into her head.
In the dark, dark wood
There was a dark, dark house
And in that dark, dark house….
Anne couldn’t remember the rest.
But she felt sure it wasn’t anything good.
Part II
“Open your eyes, Ambrosio, and be prudent. Hell is your lot; You are doomed to eternal perdition; Nought lies beyond your grave but a gulph of devouring flames.”
―Matthew Gregory Lewis, The Monk
6
Balthazar lay on the canopied bed, legs and arms sprawled wide, a heavy gold pocket watch resting against his heart. For the last two hours, he’d done little more than listen to its relentless ticking. The tempo came in a swifter counterpoint to his pulse, which was slow and measured.
Tick, tick, tick, tick….
He was dressed for an evening out, though his cravat still hung loose around his neck. The daylight had faded long before, the room grown dark. Yet he hadn’t managed to rouse himself.
He’d been in a strange mood since the events at the Picatrix Club two months previous, both introverted and craving risk. More predatory than ever, yet curiously tender toward the women who sustained him. Reverent of the gift they gave him and desperate to be worthy of it.
After his brush with death, he’d hurled himself into an endless stream of parties and balls and late nights at London’s various nocturnal attractions. He had fed and fed, glutted himself with a dizzying variety of partners, far more than he needed. None had any inkling he’d done them a whit of harm and no doubt thought of him fondly. What he did to them was the opposite of pain, and some might even have paid the price willingly if they’d known. Or perhaps that notion was simply his own arrogance.
Tick, tick, tick….
Every second of his life was bought and paid for by a perverse exchange of pleasure and loss. Not for the first time, Balthazar wondered about the individual who had forged the ouroboros. It would take a deviant mind to even imagine such a thing. Someone with a macabre sense of humor and no morals whatsoever.
Perhaps someone not so different from the sort of individual who would use it.
The starched linen of the shirt pressed cool against his skin, a breeze from the open window caressing the sharp plane of his cheek. It might have been the surfeit of life pumping through his veins, or something else, but every sense was almost unbearably heightened. He could smell the beeswax the housemaid used to polish the bedposts and a hint of the soap she’d bathed with. Distant sounds drifted to his ears. The excited bark of a dog, a man’s laughter, the clop of hooves on cobbled streets, an enchanting strain of music heralding the onset of some new revelry.
Tick, tick….
Balthazar sat up abruptly, the pocket watch sliding to the rumpled sheets. The watch was not the talisman. It simply served as a reminder. Yet suddenly he was done tormenting himself.
If he was adept at seducing willing victims, how different was he from any other carnivore, gifted by Nature with tooth and claw in pursuit of dinner? The only thing capable of sustaining life was other life. This rule was not of his invention. He simply followed its dictates.
Now he felt acutely alive and grateful for it, aware it could all come to a screeching halt at any moment.
He rose and lit the lamps. Then he combed his hair, buttoned his waistcoat, and tucked the watch into a pocket. Long, elegant fingers quickly knotted the cravat. Balthazar hooked his coat from the back of a chair on his way out the bedroom door, shrugging it on as he went down the staircase.
“Lucas,” he bellowed. “Where are you?”
He strode through the hall to the library, where Lucas sat at a desk going through stacks of paperwork. He handled all of Balthazar’s properties and investments, most of them concealed behind a web of false identities. Balthazar enjoyed the comforts of money but had no interest in managing it, and Lucas’s meticulous nature made him ideally suited to the task.
In the soft candlelight, Lucas looked even younger than his twenty-seven years. He had a small neat moustache that he kept waxed to little points and deep-socketed brown eyes that gave little away.
“I’m going out,” Balthazar said. “Don’t wait up.”
Lucas glanced at him. “Do you require the carriage?”
The tone was mild if a touch cool, his face expressionless. The ire wasn’t directed at Balthazar’s evening proclivities. Lucas was used to those and his loyalty was beyond question. No, Balthazar knew Lucas thought he was a fool to stay in London. He’d urged his master to return to Spain, or better yet, retreat to a remote house he kept on Lake Baikal in Russia, one purchased under another name entirely.
“No need,” Balthazar said. “I don’t wish to interrupt you. I’ll find a cab.”
Lucas nodded and returned to the papers.
Balthazar hesitated a moment longer, wishing he could explain himself but somehow unable to do so. In truth, Lucas was right and Balthazar wasn’t entirely sure why he’d stayed, only that he was waiting for something. It was the same feeling one had on a hot summer night when the air grew heavy and charged. The primitive brain knew a storm was brewing long before the first thunderheads appeared on the horizon.
This did not trouble him – quite the reverse. He thrived on his little war against the Duzakh. Killing his former brethren was the only thing that gave him pleasure anymore.
Let them come.
“I’ll find my own way home,” he said at length.
“Very good, my lord.”
Balthazar quashed a pang of regret as he placed his hat on his head and stepped into the warm June evening, silver-headed walking stick tapping the ground, his chin dipping in acknowledgement of his fellow Londoners on the street. He drew lingering stares from both sexes, a reaction so commonplace Balthazar barely noticed anymore.
His features were roughly attractive, intent dark eyes with a wide, sensual mouth and slightly off-kilter nose, a souvenir of his childhood in the ghettoes of ancient Karnopolis. His clothes were of an impeccable cut if severe, in somber shades that set off his olive-complected skin and coal black hair. The overall impression was of a large, sleek panther on the prowl.
A modern man for a modern age.
Balthazar strolled over to one of the hansom cabs lined up in front of the imposing edifice of Brown’s Hotel, telling the driver an address he’d been given at yet another party. It would likely be a crashing bore, but it was Sunday and he had nothing better to do.
They rattled off toward Pimlico, an area of stolid Regency homes that had once been affluent but parts of which were falling into decline. It was on one of these vaguely seedy streets that the hansom deposited him a short time later.
A woman with tresses of brown hair falling loose from their pins opened the door. She gave him a slow-blinking smile as he bowed and stepped inside. The house was large and very dim, with heavy drapes covering the windows. Candles flickered low, casting just enough illumination to outline bodies writhing in dark corners. He saw bottles of champagne, some tipped on their sides, and heard the strains of languid music coming from somewhere deeper in the house.
Balthazar moved into the entrance parlor, his dark gaze flicking over the revelers. A woman reclining on a sofa drunkenly seized his sleeve and he brushed his knuckles against her cheek with a smile, but didn’t pause. He disliked intoxicated partners. Their bodies were too nu
mb to feel what he did to them, too distanced to experience true arousal.
The whole place reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke. As he drifted from room to room, Balthazar began to regret allowing the cab to leave. This party had started hours ago and he had no desire to engage in pointless coitus with a stranger. At the moment, he brimmed with life and vigor. He could afford to be as choosy as he pleased, even to forego a liaison altogether, and he was on the verge of changing his plans to a late supper instead when a heavy male hand fell on his shoulder.
Balthazar prepared to decline yet another offer when his eyes narrowed in recognition.
An immensely fat man gazed up at him with a sardonic expression.
“Balthazar,” he said, small eyes glittering within folds of pink flesh. “Still with us, I see.”
The necromancer went by the name Sebastian Ainsley when he was in England, though he had others. One arm was hooked around a flaxen-haired girl, a mere child who couldn’t have been more than twelve, and Balthazar felt a wave of disgust and pity.
“So it would seem,” he agreed mildly.
He studied Ainsley’s face for any sign he knew Alec Lawrence had been Balthazar’s guest at the Picatrix Club, but it was impossible to tell. The man always looked like he was savoring some secret.
“Leave us for a bit, sweetling,” Balthazar told the girl gently.
Ainsley frowned in annoyance, but the force of Balthazar’s gaze sent her scurrying into the recesses of the house.
“I was just getting started with the little tart,” Ainsley complained. He had thick ginger side whiskers that quivered when he spoke.
“You’ll have your chance,” Balthazar replied lazily. “It’s not often I run into old friends these days.” He paused. “I didn’t see you leave the Picatrix.”
Ainsley laughed. “Nor I you. But we were all a bit distracted at the time.”
His breath gusted into Balthazar’s face, a dry, pungent smell.
Absinthe.
Swift calculations unfolded in Balthazar’s mind. If this, then that. And if this….
“Where can we speak in private?” he asked.
Ainsley shrugged, his eyes glassy. Balthazar took his arm and proceeded down the hall, opening doors on varied scenes of debauchery until he found a billiards room that was currently unoccupied. It had a well-stocked sideboard. Balthazar poured them both brandies and leaned back against the table, watching as Ainsley sank into a leather chair.
“What have you heard?” Balthazar asked, idly sending one of the ivory balls spinning across the red cloth surface.
Ainsley gave a wintry smile. “And why should I tell you?”
“In the spirit of mutual benevolence?”
That drew a bark of laughter.
The ball rolled back to Balthazar’s hand and he sent it spinning outward again.
“As a tribute to our long acquaintance?”
“I have many acquaintances.” Ainsley took a sip of brandy, his lips wet and glistening.
“I thought we shared and shared alike,” Balthazar said with mock severity. “I’ve aided you in the past.”
Or so you believed.
Ainsley was unmoved. “That was then, this is now.”
“All right, I’ll go first. I saw D’Ange die.”
His thin brows lifted.
“It took longer than expected, but Gabriel finally kicked his heels up.” Balthazar gave a small shudder. “The sounds he made…. Well, suffice to say, sanctus arma are a nasty business.”
“I rather suspected that—” Ainsley blustered.
“And now I’ve confirmed it.” Balthazar caught the ball again and let it rest against the rail. “Your turn.”
Ainsley sighed and dragged a sleeve across his forehead, which was damp with perspiration.
“The Duzakh will move forward, of course. Periodic thinning of the ranks does no harm. Bekker says it keeps our numbers manageable.”
Balthazar kept his face smooth. “Have you communicated with him?”
“Not directly, but I’ve heard he’s in Brussels. Now that D’Ange is dead….” Ainsley trailed off.
Jorin Bekker believed the threat to be eliminated. Of course. He would crawl out of whatever hole he’d been hiding in for the last century.
“I’ve always been a firm believer in purges,” Balthazar said. “Separates the wheat from the chaff.” He tossed the ball into the air and watched it arc down. It slid through his grasping fingers and rolled across the floor, straight between Ainsley’s legs. “Damn,” Balthazar muttered.
Ainsley made to lift his bulk from the chair. “No more gossip,” he wheezed with a petulant set to his mouth. “I came here to enjoy myself. If I don’t catch that little tart soon, someone else will claim her….”
Balthazar strode past him, following the path of the ball. The instant he passed Ainsley’s chair, his hand delved into an inside coat pocket. As Ainsley laboriously gained his feet, Balthazar looped the wire garrote around his neck, yanking the wooden handles in opposite directions. Ainsley’s hands flew up as the wire bit into his flesh, but the force of Balthazar’s powerful shoulders severed his windpipe. Arterial blood jetted across the carpet, yet Balthazar knew it wasn’t enough, not to finish a necromancer. He braced a knee on the back of the chair and closed the loop, severing Ainsley’s head from his body. The torso slid to the floor with a soft thud.
Balthazar stepped back, examining his own garments for any sign of blood. That was the lovely thing about a garrote. Used properly from behind, it left one clean as a whistle.
He wiped the wire with a handkerchief and coiled it around the handles, returning it to his pocket. Then he bent to heft the ball in his palm. Balthazar tossed it onto the billiards table and watched it roll unerringly into the left corner pocket.
If this, then that.
A thud shook the table. Balthazar sighed. The bloody thing had come up underneath.
He stepped back as the table rocked again. Balthazar grabbed a cue stick. A grey hand clawed at the carpet where his shoe had just been. The revenant began hauling itself out, withered flesh giving off a wave of icy, foul air. Once the torso emerged, he gave it a smart whack across the knuckles, public school style, and yanked its sword away.
“Time for you to go back to the Dominion,” Balthazar said softly.
The revenant snarled, silver eyes luminous in the shadows. Then his blade flashed and it fell silent. Balthazar did his best to push the headless corpse into the hole beneath the billiards table.
He closed the door behind himself, leaving Ainsley where he’d fallen. The body would be found eventually, but he doubted any of the partygoers would be able to summon a clear description of him and they wouldn’t know his name if they did.
What the other necromancers would make of it when word got around…. Well, Sebastian Ainsley had no shortage of enemies.
A rear door led to an overgrown garden and thence to a narrow alleyway running behind the row of houses. As he stepped outside, the threatened rain finally arrived. It ran in a steady stream from the brim of his hat as he walked north toward Mayfair, his thoughts focused on Jorin Bekker.
Lucas wore a scar on his jaw from Bekker’s men, who’d left him for dead after killing his parents and three sisters. Balthazar had found the boy cowering in an upstairs closet. He had no use for a child and considered leaving him there for the police, but the Devereaux family had served him for generations and Balthazar found himself unable to walk away.
He was loath to admit it, but he’d been reminded of himself, left an orphan when his own parents died of plague. That had been another age – one even more merciless towards the weak – yet Balthazar knew all too well what might become of the boy. So he’d lifted him in his arms and carried him out to the waiting carriage, bringing him home and raising him as his own. Hoping he would grow into the sort of man Balthazar might have been if he hadn’t taken up the necromantic chains and sold his soul to Neblis.
Lucas had surpassed every ex
pectation. He was kind when it was appropriate, ruthless when it wasn’t. He’d excelled in his studies at the finest Swiss boarding schools, showing a keen aptitude for numbers and languages. He had a dry sense of humor but also quiet, brute discipline, mastering weapons of every pedigree. Balthazar could find no fault with Lucas and in fact, couldn’t imagine life without him.
His adopted protégé was one of the few things Balthazar felt pride in. Yet he still owed Lucas a debt. The deaths had been Balthazar’s fault – indirectly, but nonetheless.
He’d given Lucas’s father a talisman to hold until he could move it to a secure location, and Bekker must have gotten wind of the transaction. This particular talisman was a ring with a dark stone in a silver setting. It’s only purpose seemed to be that it glowed and grew warm when another talisman was used nearby.
If, for example, a rival necromancer tried to open a gateway into one’s bedroom while one slept.
Balthazar had never encountered a talisman like it; in retrospect, he should have taken greater precautions. The Duzakh stole from each other as a matter of course and Jorin Bekker was the most covetous of them all. So he’d sent men to the Devereaux house in the middle of the night. Balthazar knew it never even occurred to Bekker that he cared far more about the people murdered for it than the object itself.
That was more than two decades ago. Bekker had no doubt forgotten about the whole thing.
But Lucas Devereaux hadn’t, nor had Balthazar.
Again and again, Balthazar had promised Lucas revenge. It was the only thing that seemed to reach him in those early days. He’d barely spoken for weeks, his eyes haunted by what he’d witnessed — and worse, the guilt of surviving when all those he loved were dead. But the idea of retribution, however far in the future it might be, kept him going. Balthazar understood this perfectly. Sometimes hatred was all one had left.
The Picatrix Club was the closest they’d gotten to Bekker since that night twenty-three years ago. Balthazar had been content to cede the actual assassination to Gabriel D’Ange, who could usually be relied on in such matters. But Constantin Andreae had turned traitor and Bekker escaped unscathed.