by Kat Ross
“Yes, sir.”
The gateway swallowed Bekker without a ripple. Constantin stared into the still waters for a moment, a troubled expression on his face. His scarred right hand, the one that was being gnawed by revenants when Gabriel saved him, had clenched into a fist again.
“I thought he was gone, too,” Balthazar remarked. “Funny the sanctus arma didn’t work. Maybe he really is an archangel.”
“He’s just a man,” Constantin growled. “Soon to be a dead one.”
Balthazar nodded sympathetically. “I’m sure that will come as a relief.”
Constantin gave him a withering look.
“I’m not implying you’re afraid of him. He’s trussed up like a Christmas goose.” Balthazar sighed. “But you know how excitable Gabriel is. His tongue could flay the soles from a pair of hobnail boots. Wiser to stay away. I’ll gladly keep an eye on him until—”
Constantin’s bearded face went red. “He’s my charge and you’d do well to remember it.”
He shoved past and strode in the direction where Gabriel was being held. Balthazar looked at the remaining guard and shrugged. “Touchy,” he said.
“He’s an arsehole,” the guard muttered.
“Well, he’s had a hard life. We must make allowances for the less fortunate.”
“Still an arsehole.”
“I won’t dispute that.” Balthazar reached into his breast pocket and took out a flask. Tipped it back and took a slug. The guard watched him with a hint of longing. He wiped his nose with one sleeve and gave a discreet cough.
Balthazar raised the flask, arching his brow in a question mark.
“We’re not supposed to drink on duty.”
“I won’t tell.”
He hesitated. Glanced at the portal. “Better not.”
“You’re an upstanding citizen.” Balthazar took another pull and studied the flask with deep affection. “Balvenie twelve-year-old single malt scotch. They brew it in some godforsaken castle in Scotland. Finest whiskey you’ll ever taste.” He sighed and made to slip it back into his pocket when the guard crumbled.
“Just a nip,” he said. “I have a bit of a cold.”
Balthazar sauntered over and handed him the flask. “You see, it’s medicinal. A nip never hurt anyone. Something to warm the bones.”
The guard raised the flask to his lips, his head falling back, and Balthazar’s saber slid from its scabbard in one fluid sweep. The head hit the pool first, followed by the rest a moment later. Balthazar seized the guard’s arm and hauled the corpse to the edge. He turned out the pockets. A small tin of Keating’s lozenges. A switchblade. And two talismans, one to Travel, the other key-shaped like the one Bekker had used to open the stone wall. Perhaps there were many such doors in the house. Hidden, immured places. Balthazar pushed the body away with his shoe and watched it sink into the depths, drawn down by the weight of the chains.
The talisman of Travelling looked like a spiral shell, though twisted in strange ways that would cause dizziness if one stared too long. It glowed softly in his palm. As he’d hoped, the gateway was sealed against entry but not leaving. Balthazar stepped into the not-water, feeling the pull of the abyss below. Let the Order save their leader. He’d done what he could. Gabriel would already be dead if he hadn’t intervened. Their debt was cleared.
Balthazar took two more steps and halted, an unpleasant thought forming in his mind. He was overdue to appear at the townhouse in London. Lucas was supposed to wait, but what if he didn’t? He would come here, the brave fool. And they would kill him.
Then there was the “specialist” from Boma…. Against his will, Balthazar heard Bekker’s words at the warehouse.
I have men who deal in pain like the Old Masters understand the play of light and shadow on a canvas. One in particular honed his skills in the Congo. You wouldn’t wish to meet him.
“Damn,” Balthazar muttered. He stood still for a moment, fingertips jittering against his thigh. Then he made the sign of the flame, touching forehead, lips and heart. “I’m retiring when this is over,” he snarled. “No more. Just wine, women and song.”
He waded out of the gate, shoving both talismans in his trouser pocket and returning the sword to its scabbard. Time was short. He needed Gabriel intact, before the “specialist” reduced him to a lump of quivering flesh. If D’Ange was unleashed, Balthazar felt confident the two of them could clear the decks before Bekker returned. He only needed to distract Constantin, and goading him into confronting Gabriel would have knocked him off balance already.
Balthazar strode from the chamber. He encountered no one until he saw Lars, standing outside the blank wall. Constantin had banished him to have a private conversation. Perfect.
Balthazar’s steps quickened. He adopted an expression of alarm.
“They’re here,” he hissed.
Lars blinked.
“The bloody Order! I heard swords clashing downstairs. They’ve gotten inside somehow. You’d better tell Constantin.”
Lars gave a decisive nod, fisting his own key talisman. The doorway winked open. Raised voices carried through the opening, too far away to make out. One of Gabriel’s epic rants, no doubt.
“I’m going down,” Balthazar said, squaring his shoulders for battle. “And Lars….”
“What?”
“If I don’t return… say a prayer for me.”
Lars gave a serious nod. “I will, Mr. Balthazar.”
“Not to Satan.” Balthazar rolled his eyes heavenward. “To Him.”
Lars looked confused and Balthazar took pity on him. “I won’t keep you any longer. Duty calls us both.”
He hurried off and halted just around the corner of the first intersecting corridor, pausing to listen. All was quiet for a long minute. Then he heard heavy footsteps striding away. The moment they faded, he ran back to the blank stone wall and used the key he’d taken from the guard to open the doorway. He entered the hall and sealed it behind him.
Lars stood with his hands loosely clasped, watching Gabriel. He turned at Balthazar’s appearance, a quizzical look on his face. “I thought you went down,” he said.
“I lied,” Balthazar growled, whisking the saber from its scabbard and striding forward. He was done with subterfuge.
Lars actually looked hurt. Then his own sword came out in answer. He spread his thick legs and waited, a silent, brooding mountain. Six seconds later, his blade was clattering to the floor and Balthazar’s pressed hard against his throat, a hair from severing the windpipe.
“Where’s the key to the manacles?” Balthazar snapped.
“Don’t … have,” Lars managed through gritted teeth.
“I saw you lock them on.” His knee drove into Lars’s testicles and the necromancer toppled like a falling tree. Balthazar kicked him in the temple and crouched down to go through his pockets. Lars was almost too pathetic to kill, though he’d probably have to. Balthazar pulled out another key talisman and threw it aside. There was nothing else but a lint-covered piece of toffee that left his hands revoltingly sticky.
“He gave it to Constantin,” Gabriel said.
Balthazar bit back an oath. “Of course.” He glanced at Gabriel, twisting like a side of beef from the ceiling. Holy Father, what now? Those chains were made to restrain a grizzly, each one nearly as thick as Balthazar’s arm….
“I always suspected you were a turncoat.”
The harsh voice, with a hint of a Germanic accent, made Balthazar’s head snap up. He rose to his feet with a feral smile. “Takes one to know one. As it happens, you’re just the man I was looking for.”
Constantin emerged from the shadows at the far end. He didn’t draw his sword, but his black eyes went even blacker, like pinholes in his face, and Balthazar felt power gathering in the chamber. The vibrations drilled into his skull like a dog whistle.
Not again. No. Just … no.
Each cell in his body shriveled at the sight of the black lightning flickering along the chains and up throu
gh Constantin’s left arm. The Order never used it. Gabriel had declared it off limits. A power too evil to wield. But Constantin was no longer bound by Gabriel’s rules.
“Wait,” Balthazar said in desperation, holding his palms out. “Just listen. This is all a mis—”
20
Everything hurt.
Everything, from the tips of his toenails to the roots of his hair.
His left ear throbbed like a funeral drum. His right eye watered uncontrollably. Dangly bits were trying their best to crawl back inside and hide like flustered field mice. He felt as if he’d been dipped in boiling oil and staked out to dry on a medieval rack.
Which wasn’t far from the truth.
Balthazar’s eyes cracked open. He hung suspended from manacles around his wrists, his feet just brushing the floor. The fancy uniform coat was gone, ditto his shoes and the Grand Cross of the Royal Hungarian Order of Saint Stephen. He pressed up to the tips of his toes and the agonizing weight in his shoulders eased a little. Balthazar winced at the momentary relief.
He turned his head and found Gabriel staring at him from a few feet away.
“Sorry,” he managed in a hoarse croak. “I tried.”
Gabriel made no reply for a long moment. His expression was grim. “You’re sorry.”
Balthazar coughed. Spat a gelatinous gob of something dark. “I’ll admit, it wasn’t the most well thought-out plan. But you might give me some credit for trying. I could have left you to your fate—”
“That’s not the fucking point! I almost had him,” Gabriel hissed. “At the museum. I was seconds away.” He shook his head in disgust. “And then you—”
“Oh, please. With that ridiculous false nose? Bekker would have seen through it even if I hadn’t first.” Balthazar’s eyes narrowed, his own voice dangerously soft. “Do you have any idea how long it’s taken me to get close to him with a weapon? Weeks. The tedium I endured! The endless meetings and luncheons—”
“Luncheons?” Gabriel was swiftly growing apoplectic. “Nom de dieu. If you weren’t utterly incompetent—”
“I surrendered my virtue for that invitation,” Balthazar snarled. “And Bekker’s head would have been sailing through the air in another five seconds if you hadn’t come along like some ludicrous version of Cyrano de Bergerac—”
A pink flush crested Gabriel’s cheeks. “Everywhere I turn, there you are. First at the Picatrix with Alec Lawrence, then in Brussels. Like an evil little monkey—”
The chains started clanking as Gabriel tried to swing himself towards Balthazar. It was a pointless exercise trussed as he was, but his rage needed some outlet. Balthazar’s lips curved in a wintry smile.
“I’ll enjoy watching them torture you,” he announced. “In fact, I hope I get a front row seat.”
“You fils de pute….” Gabriel lapsed into a lengthy, escalating tirade that finally drew the attention of the new guards. They strolled over and exchanged an amused look. Balthazar knew them. Their names were Axel and Daan and they could have been first cousins. Blonde, beefy and not the brightest lights in Bekker’s cosmos, but then none of them with the exception of Constantin had an ounce of cunning. Bekker clearly didn’t want any free thinkers in his service.
“Trouble in paradise?” Axel inquired.
Gabriel subsided, though his chest still heaved.
“I would like to request that I be moved to a different detention area,” Balthazar said. “Maybe a nice dank cell somewhere where I can ponder my coming death in peace.”
“Why don’t you hang him up by the ankles?” Gabriel suggested.
“By all means, if it helps distract you from the fact that you’re about to be wearing your entrails like a muffler—”
“Shut up,” Axel growled, his blonde brows lowering. His forehead was so negligible, the result looked like something scrawled on a cave wall in Altamira.
“Save your breath,” Daan added helpfully. “You’ll both need it to scream soon enough.”
They had a good giggle over this. Balthazar wondered if they’d been drinking.
“You won’t be laughing so hard when my wife gets here,” Gabriel said.
The guards exchanged a solemn look.
“His wife,” Daan echoed in a quaking voice. “Well, now I’m truly terrified.”
A fresh burst of hilarity erupted.
“Will she bring her rolling pin?” Axel wondered, wiping his eyes.
“No, no, it’ll be knitting needles,” Daan put in. “She’ll poke us and tell us we’re very naughty boys.” He mimed the poking with one meaty hand as Axel made porcine squealing noises.
Gabriel waited, stone-faced, until their breathless wheezing subsided.
“You haven’t met her yet.” His smile made the hair on Balthazar’s neck rise up. “But you will.”
Part IV
“There is love in me the likes of which you've never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.”
―Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
21
Anne ran faster than she’d ever run before.
The ground unfurled beneath her feet, the stars streaking past overhead like bright nails hammered into the roof of the sky. Paved streets turned to dirt roads. A rabbit bounded across her path. Barking dogs gave chase, but they didn’t catch her. The lights of towns came and went, one after another, until they grew far apart and the land began to rise.
She refused to think about the slim chance Gabriel was still alive, or what might be done to him if he was. She just kept on running. The constellations guided her south, where rivers cut through the rugged terrain and medieval fortifications dotted the hills. The Forest of Ardennes stretched across three Belgian provinces to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. When she passed the town of Belval, Anne knew she was getting close.
And she felt no surprise when five miles beyond the village, she saw a long drive cutting into the woods. The crowns of the trees formed an arching tunnel overhead. It was a place she’d seen a hundred times in her dream. Two stone pillars flanked the drive, although there was no gate. The forest was mostly tall pines with some oak and beech. She listened for mortal heartbeats but heard none.
Anne left the road and veered through the woods. A mile later, she encountered a wrought-iron fence. She unlaced her boots and peeled off her stockings. The cumbersome black dress followed. Anne stood still for a moment in the darkness. With her slender arms bared and auburn hair spilling loose down her back, she looked like a sweet woodland nymph.
She climbed a tree and perched in the crook of a branch. Lights glimmered ahead, like a huge steamship floating on the horizon. The dirt road met an elaborate pair of gates and turned to a gravel drive. Inside the grounds, she saw twin reflecting pools and curlicues of manicured hedges, none higher than a foot tall. She estimated the distance from the fence to the house to be a quarter of a mile. Dark shapes moved purposefully around the perimeter.
Anne watched for several minutes and counted four pairs of guards making circuits of the fence. They didn’t carry lanterns or torches, presumably to maintain their night vision. Anything moving across that vast expanse of lawn would be immediately spotted.
She waited for the next pair to pass and climbed the fence, bracing a foot between the sharp finials at the top. Her shift caught on one of the spikes and she ripped it free, dropping down on the other side. Anne slid into the Nexus. She smelled freshly cut grass and a faint whiff of cigarette smoke. Fish swam in the pools. She sensed the ripples of their passage disturbing the water. She heard mortal hearts beating, some close by, others distant.
The next pair approached along the perimeter, fifty yards off. She called to earth and her bones trembled in response. She called to air, her own breath quickening. Cloak me from the sight of these men. Shadows shifted and rearranged. Her form faded to a dark blur and they walked straight past.
She made a beeline for the house, the grass cool beneath h
er feet. Halfway across, the clouds parted and the moon appeared, big and bright. She knew her illusion was far from perfect. Feeling suddenly exposed, she slunk into the shadow of a gurgling fountain at the end of one of the reflecting pools and released the power. If Bekker sensed her, he might kill Gabriel on the spot….
She heard a pistol cock. A guard stepped around the base of the fountain, the front of his trousers unbuttoned. The rush of the water had masked his heartbeat. His eyes widened when he saw a girl standing there wearing only a cotton shift, but the pistol aimed at her head didn’t waver.
“Where the hell did you come from?” he muttered.
Anne smiled and raised a finger to her lips as if they were playing a game. In his brief instant of confusion, she kicked the pistol from his hand and snapped his neck. He fell without a sound. Anne waited, watching the ground in a twenty-foot radius around her. Five minutes passed. No revenant tore from the earth. Nor did the guard come back to life.
He wasn’t a necromancer.
She rested on her haunches, thinking. She could hide the body under a hedge, but it wouldn’t be long before his disappearance was noticed. A search would be mounted, the alarm raised. There was no way around it.
Unless I kill them all.
It’s what she would have done back in the day. In truth, it was all too easy to be that person again, like slipping on a comfortably worn pair of boots. Anne looked up at the moon, resigned. I’ll do it quick and quiet.
The sentry at her feet must have come from the guardhouse to relieve his bladder. Besides the pistol, he carried a sword. She took it, testing the balance. It was a heavy iron blade, forged to dispose of revenants. Anne sank into the Nexus again. She deepened the mantle of shadow until the edge grew dull.