Sinner's Heart (Hellraisers)

by Archer, Zoe

  “You’re a different soldier now,” she said.

  “Stronger.”

  “In body, yes. In humanity, as well.”

  His mouth twisted. “I’ve none of that.” He tilted his head back, showing her the length of his throat and the scar that ran along it. “The pulse you see there beating quickly—it’s not the chance to do good that speeds my heart. I want to feel the bite of flesh against my steel. I want to smell blood again.” He lowered his chin. “It’s the fight I hunger for. Humanity has been ripped from me.”

  “You say that to convince yourself,” she answered. “I know differently. The Dark One may have your soul, but it exists. And we shall reclaim it, no matter the challenge.”

  “We can’t.”

  “There are vaults, all gemini keep them. The souls of their prey are kept there. The vaults weren’t as impregnable as the Dark One and his minions believed.” She smiled cruelly. “That was my doing. Two Hellraisers’ souls I’ve helped to free. Doubtless your Mr. Holliday has learned hard lessons, and the vault where your soul is kept is surely more protected than the others, but heed me, we will find a means of stealing back your soul.”

  He pressed his knuckles against his chest. “Doing so would reveal to Mr. Holliday and John that I’m no longer their ally. No, the tactical thing to do is leave my blighted soul exactly where it is—in the Devil’s possession.”

  “Simply abandon it?” She scowled. “That leaves you imperiled. If you should die before we retrieve your soul, your eternity shall be torment and suffering, like all the other damned.”

  “If I die and am sent to Hell, it’s what I deserve.” He spoke over her objections. “We cannot let either Mr. Holliday or John know that I’m not of their number. My soul has to stay where it is. For now.”

  Curse him, he was right. Yet, the thought of him trapped in eternal agony was a cage of burning iron around her heart. “When the time is right, your soul shall be liberated.”

  He seemed disinterested, as though they discussed the retrieval of a pair of boots. “Issues of my withered soul aside, I own that I’m unfamiliar with battling the Devil. Military strategies won’t apply when facing demons and the powers of hell.”

  “Not so. For the first matter of business is assessing strengths and weaknesses, and gathering allies.”

  “Whit and Leo,” he said. “And their women, the Gypsy and the lady.”

  “I’ve no way to use my own magic now, but the women can, and their men are strong.” She nodded. “We need them here.”

  “The last I saw of them was outside Leo’s home, weeks ago. Just after—” His jaw tightened; he had to be thinking of his friend’s death. “They’ve likely made a temporary retreat from London as they regroup.”

  “They must be found, and summoned back.”

  He made a soft scoffing noise. “Neither Whit nor Leo are the kind of men who take well to summoning.”

  Tilting up her chin, she answered, “Their masculine pride must suffer in these circumstances.” She had fought beside them before. Both men had proven themselves as willing and capable warriors. As had their women.

  “We weren’t on affable terms when we parted.” His laughter was hollow, resonant with loss. “They’ll do nothing to aid me, and with good cause.”

  “Much has altered between then and now,” she said. “That won’t escape them.”

  “They need to be found before any of this can be tested. Once we lived in each others’ pockets. Now I’ve no idea where they are. Dozens or hundreds of miles could separate us. Nowhere to send a letter, and even if I had their direction, it could take weeks for any communication to reach them.”

  Now it was her turn to scoff. “Your thoughts are too prosaic. Magic can shorten the distance between us.”

  “At one time, yours might have. Conditions have changed since then.” His voice was surprisingly gentle.

  “That fact is never forgotten.” She felt like a sculptor whose hands had been chopped off.

  Hot anger constricted her throat. She had crossed the boundary between the living and the dead, exhausted herself time and again channeling magic into mortals and using her own power to fight. And the last, strongest Hellraiser had finally stepped into the fray. She could not allow herself to fall short, not now.

  “If you had all of your magic,” he said, “would such a thing be possible? Locating Whit and Leo, mustering them to London?”

  “Yes. The work of a few minutes.”

  “Then we’ll make use of that magic.”

  She scowled. “Already you’ve forgotten that I possess no magic.”

  “You have half. The other half resides . . . in me.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “The two of us, working magic together.” She could hardly believe him. “You said you would not attempt such a thing.”

  “The last time you made that request, you were attempting to kill me with your magic. The poles have shifted since then.”

  The wind gathered in strength, his long coat catching against his legs and billowing behind him. Strands of his hair came loose from his queue. A fierce living energy radiated from him, as though he had emerged from dormancy, his strength greater than before.

  Perhaps this war against the Dark One was not as futile as she had feared.

  Yet she had to tell Bram everything. She couldn’t lead him ignorantly toward danger. “The working of magic together has its own perils. So many ways it could go wrong, the damage it could wreak . . .”

  “The Devil doesn’t frighten me. This doesn’t, either.” She shook her head. “With a single stray thought, we could become trapped between the mortal world and the realm of magic.”

  “Every tactic has its risks.”

  She saw he would not be dissuaded. “We shouldn’t attempt anything here.” Though they were high above the city, impossible to see from the streets below, they were still exposed. To the elements. To the possibility of the Dark One’s watchful spies taking notice. Bram was new to working magic, as well. She suspected the task would need silence, privacy, and some measure of security.

  “Home, then.”

  He said the word as if it was their home, not his. A remnant of warmth filtered through her—in her life, she had led a peripatetic existence, hunting magic, searching for power. She never sought such a place. Too confining.

  It did not feel so now.

  He motioned for her to proceed him through the doorway in the cupola. She shook her head at the gesture but glided past him. A ghost required neither courtesy nor decorum. He certainly hadn’t shown her much before, and she did not expect it.

  Small though the gesture was, however, its deliberate use gave her another pulse of warmth. As though she was not a specter, but a woman. A woman who deserved respect.

  What man might believe this? Against all probability, the man turned out to be an inveterate sinner.

  They sequestered themselves in the chamber that Bram used for combat practice. Even without her magic, Livia sensed his strength imbuing the room. They needed all of his resilience for the forthcoming task, and here he was confident, focused. He paced through the chamber, pushing all the furniture and practice targets against the walls. His movements were assured and unhesitating. If he held any trepidation about attempting to work magic, none showed.

  The same could not be said for her. Outwardly, she kept herself composed, directing him to give them as much space as possible—with unknown variables, anything might happen—but inwardly, she was uneasy. She’d spoken truly. Should either of them let their concentration waver, she and Bram might become prisoners of the Ambitus. As she had been for over a millennium. A terrifying thought to be trapped there again.

  She had helped Whit cure Zora of a demon’s poison, but Whit hadn’t any magic of his own. He’d been her corporeal hands. There, the danger had been only the loss of Zora’s life. So much more hung in the balance with what she and Bram would attempt.

  It was not his skill or unfamiliarity that troubled
her. The unknown was her. During her life, she had been a student of magic, always learning, continually acquiring. She had never been a teacher, nor given to sharing. Powerful families had brought their daughters to her, hoping she would impart her knowledge, yet she hoarded everything—her power, her learning.

  The seeds of her avarice now bore fruit. She was an untried teacher, utterly green.

  Even if she could teach Bram how to invoke and use magic, the dangers were rife. How might she accomplish this? What if her own greed was their undoing?

  “Stop worrying.” He shoved a large musical instrument against the wall, its legs scraping on the floor.

  “I am not,” she shot back.

  He gave her a look that said her protestation failed to convince him.

  “This will be challenging,” she finally acknowledged. “Not only the perils of using magic. As a teacher, I’m . . . unpracticed.”

  “Good to know you’re inexperienced with something.” He had removed his coat to move aside the furnishings, and he wiped his forehead on the full white sleeve of his shirt. “Mind, experience in a woman is an excellent thing.”

  “Thank the gods I have your approval.” Yet his teasing strangely lessened her apprehension.

  “What else will we need?” Hands on hips like a captain surveying his troops, he glanced around the chamber. “Black candles? The blood of a goat?”

  She shuddered in distaste. “Props are for amateurs.”

  The grin he gave her would have made a mortal woman tremble with want. Fortunately, she had no pulse to race, no breath to sigh. No wonder so many females leapt into his bed. Between his smoldering gazes and raffish smiles, only a dead woman could remain immune.

  He had never smiled for her. Not until that moment.

  “Again,” he said, “I give thanks for your experience.”

  “Between the two of us, there is not a speck of innocence.” She steadied herself. “Let us begin.”

  He moved toward her, unhesitating, the black of his unbound hair as dark as the shadows. They faced one another. She did not miss the way his gaze moved over her in swift, appreciative perusal, lingering briefly on her breasts. A man could not resist looking at a woman, regardless of whether the woman was alive or dead.

  She fought the impulse to preen. After all, when she had been alive, many words praising her beauty had been spoken. She was no stranger to a man’s approving stare.

  But it was this man’s gaze that filled her cheeks with the echo of warmth.

  What she needed now was focus, not the silly flutterings of a female craving masculine attention.

  “When I had full possession of my magic,” she said, “locating someone was a simple matter. All living things have their own distinctive energy. A kind of light and sound unique to them alone. To find them, I searched for the flame of their psyche, followed it much as a ship is guided by a beacon.”

  “Sounds abstruse.”

  “Only in the telling. The doing becomes a matter of instinct.”

  He frowned. “In this, I have no instinct.”

  “We’ll create it.” She struggled to determine what she ought to do next, how to go about the utterly foreign process of developing someone else’s magic. Some people, women especially, made for gifted teachers. She was not one of them. To teach was to steal from herself, or so she’d believed. Even now, the compulsion to hoard gripped her. She had to mentally pry her fingers from their vise, clutching knowledge close.

  “To work magic, one must first find one’s own power.” She hoped her voice sounded far more confident than she felt. “Close your eyes. Let your gaze fall inward.”

  He hesitated for a brief moment, then did as she asked. She also closed her eyes. Before, her magic had always been close to the surface. She could call upon it without thought or effort. One did not tell one’s heart to beat. Now, she had to recall what it was like when she had been a young priestess in training, learning how to harness the native magic within herself, and fan the spark into a flame.

  “Deep within you resides magic,” she continued. “It’s strange, and foreign, but you oughtn’t fear it. Allow yourself to reach for it. Allow it to come into being.”

  He exhaled through his nose. “No damned soldier ever followed such a strange command.”

  “This damned soldier had better,” she growled.

  “I ought to call you Madam General rather than Madam Ghost.”

  “Concentration,” she snapped. “Do not make this more difficult than it already is.”

  “Apologies, Madam Ghost General.”

  She clenched her teeth. “Just be quiet and still your mind. Search for the gleam of magic within. It is unique to each being.”

  “Not me.”

  “Most especially you. Think of the talents you possess, the skills distinctively yours. Leading men into battle. Beguiling women into your bed. Your art with a sword. You see them now, don’t you? These gifts?”

  A pause. And then he rumbled, “I see them.”

  “Follow them. Use them to guide you toward the magic inside you. It resembles a key, shining deep within you, as though at the bottom of a well. Look for that.”

  She must guide him toward his magic as she searched for her own. Thank the goddess, he obeyed, falling silent.

  Now she had to heed her own directive. Finding one’s magic meant utilizing magic, a painful irony. At the least, she possessed enough power for that. When she had been a girl first learning the mysteries of serving in the temple, the head priestess had revealed to her the existence of true magic. It was a secret hidden from most of the world. But the true magic dwelt within her, and she must train herself to find it, calling upon her native power to guide the magic within her to greater strength. She summoned that power now.

  There—just as she had said to Bram. A gleaming key. It didn’t possess the same strength as it had before, however, its radiance dimmed.

  “I see it.” Surprise threaded through Bram’s voice.

  “Hold onto it,” she said, urgent. “Hold it tight.” She must combine their energy, something she had never truly attempted before. The Druid priestess and Egyptian slave had been her victims, their magic stripped away forcibly, and by her greater power. Now she must find another way, a gentler means.

  Gentle was foreign to her. Yet she reached out to Bram with softer, searching hands. A careful coaxing forward. She wanted to touch his flesh, but could not. His psyche, his energy, these she could touch. A strange hesitancy danced through her, slowing her movement. Never had she shared such a communion. Always, she had been solitary, proud. This would not leave her unaffected.

  She almost recoiled when she came up against the shimmering edge of his psyche—they had shared memories, thoughts, but this was even more intimate.

  He hissed in a breath.

  “Am I hurting you?”

  “No, only . . . it feels . . . strange.”

  “For me, as well.” She pressed onward, delving within him. His psyche held a dark edge, yet it glimmered, like a mirror made of black glass, taking in light and reflecting it back with its own illumination. She felt him everywhere within her, a closeness greater than sex. She could lose herself within him. A purpose brought her here, however.

  Ah, now she found it. The key of his own magic. Of her magic, broken apart and residing in him.

  She utilized a Thracian joining spell, softly chanting as she brought the two halves of their magic together. It flared brightly, light and sensation flooding her.

  Both she and Bram gasped.

  “Thought I’d felt damned near everything,” he murmured. “But this is . . . new.”

  “It’s . . .”

  “. . . Good.”

  Radiance and strength. An expanding. Of power. Of self. Even greater than she had ever experienced before. How could it be thus? She’d been such a powerful sorceress, capable of the greatest magic. This, though, was stronger.

  Because of him.

  It was an intoxication. Sh
e had been so long without magic, having it again made her head spin and the shade of her heart pound. Together, they were equal to anything. Any spell, any show of force. Her old hunger returned, its lupine teeth bright in the moonlight. Where to start? They could set the whole of London afire. They might turn the river Thames to ice. The possibilities spread out like a banquet.

  “Madam Ghost,” he murmured, summoning back her spiraling mind. “Livia. We’ve an objective.”

  She huffed out a startled laugh. “Now you become the voice of reason?”

  “More proof that the world’s turned upside down.”

  “You feel this, though. The power. The possibility.”

  “I assuredly do.” Husky and low, his voice stroked through her.

  They could be capable of a great many things together—powerful things, devastating things. Fortunate that her ghostly state created an impediment, for had she flesh, even his reasoning and gravity would not restrain her.

  “Leo and Whit,” he said.

  Yes—she and Bram must find them. “Say these words with me: kidbará kunu satu de. A locating spell from vast deserts of Sumer.”

  He repeated the words, stumbling over the pronunciation. He said them again, the words smoothing out, and together, they began to chant. Their voices blended together, harmonizing in the darkness. The chant threaded around them, spinning outward, dissolving the walls of the chamber. The huge house faded, the street outside melted away, and the city itself dissipated like smoke in the rain.

  Bram cursed.

  She opened her eyes to find him staring at the bright mists now surrounding them. “This is the place of Ambitus, the In Between. The sphere through which all magic travels. The realm between life and death.” She gave a rueful laugh. “So long I’ve been in this place, but I’d forgotten that you are a stranger here.”

  The Ambitus crackled with energy and potential. An eddying conduit of magic. Abstruse yet quick. That energy had been all that had sustained her during her long imprisonment. Yet it hadn’t been enough to keep her from madness.