by Zoë Archer
He reached out and ran the back of his fingers over her cheek. His gaze was bleak. “We can make it so.”
His fingers drifted up from her cheek to wind through her hair. Oh, she loved his hands, broad and rough. She loved the strength of him, and how, when he touched her, his eyes flashed silver. Seeing her, seeing into her. A simple touch, yet with it, she felt the chaos of the city retreat, the perilous river recede.
A curl tumbled down as he tugged a ribbon free. He stroked the coil of hair, longing in his eyes, but then his gaze turned distracted as he wound the ribbon around his finger.
He seemed to visibly withdraw. His body remained precisely as it was, but his mind went elsewhere.
She recognized the look. He had appeared much the same when her father had brought him a coin. Right before Leo told her father he would not invest in the mine.
“What do you see?” she asked.
His focus returned, a sudden sharpening of awareness. He became wary, guarded—of her. As though she concealed a dagger in the folds of her skirt.
“I see my wife.” Yet he dropped his hand and the ribbon slid from his fingers. It gleamed in a satiny curve as it fell to the ground, where it lay in the mud.
“That is exactly what I am, Leo. Your wife.” She stared up at him. “The one person you should trust above all others.” Tell me, she willed him with her gaze. Whatever it is, I must know. Yet she feared his honesty.
He took several paces away from her. Then turned, and cautiously approached, as if uncertain whether or not she would bolt away. She stood her ground. They faced each other, scarce inches between them, testing each other, testing themselves. His hand came up to cup the back of her head. She tilted her face up. In slow, slow degrees, he brought his mouth to hers. With the sound of the surging river enveloping them, she felt herself slide beneath a tide of yearning, wishing life could be as simple as a kiss.
They held tight to each other, until someone shouted lewd encouragements.
“Go to Hell,” Leo snarled to the waterman on his skiff.
“Ain’t you heard, guv’nor?” The waterman chortled. “We’re all goin’ to Hell.” He poled his flat-bottomed boat on, chuckling all the while.
Leo said nothing, but it was clear that if the waterman had been within reach, Leo would have made him suffer. Her husband stared at the Thames—the boats and ships upon it, bringing his cargo and wealth, the swarms of people skimming across the surface of the water like insects, and the buildings and warehouses crouched on the banks. He gazed at it all as if he could burn everything down with only a look. Anne half expected to see flames burst to life along the masts bobbing at anchor.
He faced her. “Everything will be all right.”
Yet it was clear that even he did not believe his hollow words.
He ensconced himself in a dockside tavern, having lost his taste for commerce on this day. She had gone home—or so he imagined, for they had talked little as they returned her to the waiting carriage. Her hand had been light on his arm as they had walked, her gaze abstracted. Vast troves of unspoken words lay between them. As he had handed her into the carriage, she had slipped from his grasp like smoke. He’d watched her drive away, though he wanted to shout after her, Stay.
Now he stared at the empty tankard before him. Two men diced by the fire. Another whittled what appeared to be a piece of bone, peering at his handiwork through one eye.
“Another drink, sir?”
He waved the tapster off, but tossed him a coin for good measure. Drink would not straighten his head. Answers came scarce at the bottom of a tankard.
The geminus had spoken true. Any object now gave him access to what would be—including a ribbon belonging to his wife. Until then, he had only looked into the futures of those he sought to undermine or exploit. No longer being beholden to coins gave him an even greater advantage. And a yet larger hunger for more. He could not find satiety. A profit of a thousand pounds meant nothing. His demand refused appeasement, as though a monstrous serpent lived within him, consuming everything, including himself.
Her ribbon lay in the mud. It had shown him a future he did not want to see. Anne, speaking with the Roman ghost. The ally of Whit, and enemy of the Hellraisers. There was nothing Leo could do to stop this future from happening. He could not warn his wife. His only option was to wait, and he despised waiting.
A shadow darkened his table. Without looking up, Leo knew exactly who cast it. His body tensed.
“You aren’t impervious to bullets,” he said, “for all your Gypsy’s magic.”
He did glance up then to see the man he’d once called friend. It had been months since last he had seen him. Whit looked a little thinner, but not haggard. Far from it. When Leo had known Whit, he’d been indolent, indulged by birth and circumstance, finding his one real spark at the gaming tables. Now, he was sharp as vengeance, his gaze alert to everything around him.
“Nor can your gift of prophecy deflect a blade.” Whit’s hand rest lightly on the pommel of his saber, his nobleman’s privilege. “Prior history has proven so.”
Leo resisted the urge to rub the scar on his shoulder. When Whit had turned his back on the Hellraisers, there had been a fight in Oxford. The rapier that had wounded Leo had, in fact, belonged to Bram, but Whit had manipulated luck to cause the injury.
“Both of us could mortally wound the other,” said Leo softly. “But who will be first? Shall we wager on it?”
“I came to warn you,” Whit replied, resisting the lure, “not kill you.”
Leo’s chuckle was low and rueful. “Assuming that you’re faster with your sword than I am with my pistol.”
“The danger to you and your wife grows hourly, and yet you waste time with braggadocio.”
Leo shot to his feet and grabbed Whit’s neck cloth. The tavern fell silent. “Threaten her, and I will kill you.”
“Goddamn it, Leo, you are the one who threatens her, not me.” Whit shoved against him, but Leo would not release his hold.
Whit spoke, low and quick. “What the hell do you think the price of your gift was? What do you think we all bargained in exchange for that magic? Our souls.”
Leo narrowed his eyes and released Whit. “I still have a soul.” He could feel it within himself, and its bright aching resonance whenever he was near Anne.
“Every day, you lose more and more of it.” When he saw that Leo meant to contradict him, Whit continued. “The markings that appeared after we made our bargain—they are growing. From one night to the next, they spread across your skin. The more they grow, the more of you they cover, the more your soul is taken. Until there is nothing left. Until you belong to the Devil completely, and you are damned.”
The marking of flame on his calf was growing daily, and now it reached almost up to the back of his knee.
His legs urged him to move. Leo shouldered past Whit and went out into the street. Whit followed. Leo did not know where he headed, only that he must keep moving.
Whit kept pace as Leo walked, his stride equally long. “You feel it. The Devil’s hunger, constantly craving the destruction of others. As the markings grow, so does his hold on you. You will become his puppet, his minion. I know this, because it happened to me, as well. As it is happening to all of the Hellraisers.”
“Don’t know why I should trust you,” Leo said on a growl. “You’ve proven yourself a traitor already.”
They dodged heavy drays rattling down to the wharf, and dogs nosing in the heaps of rubbish.
“If not for the sake of your soul,” Whit said, “then for the sake of your wife.”
“Leave her out of this,” snarled Leo. Simply hearing Whit speak of Anne set Leo into a killing humor.
“It is you who have involved her.” Whit grabbed Leo’s shoulder and swung him around so they faced each other. “For I tell you truly, Leo, you aren’t merely losing your soul, you are losing her.”
Leo shook himself out of Whit’s grasp, but he felt as if he’d been stabbed thro
ugh. He glanced down, just to be certain that he hadn’t. It wasn’t Whit’s blade that wounded him, but his words.
“This association with the Devil will cost you everything,” continued Whit. “Your life, your fortune, your soul. Your love.” He peered closer. “You do love your wife, don’t you?”
Leo stood utterly still. His heart beat thickly in his chest.
“I do.” The realization scoured him.
“Then if you won’t fight for yourself, fight for her.” Shouting by the docks drew Whit’s attention. He glanced around, wary. “London is not safe. And the Hellraisers are to blame.”
“Mankind has always been treacherous. That isn’t the fault of the Hellraisers.”
“The Hellraisers have worsened a chronic illness,” said Whit. “Hastening society toward early collapse. And one of the first casualties will be your marriage.”
Leo inhaled sharply. “If that is true ...” His jaw tightened. “I have to find a cure.”
Whit backed toward an alley. “I cannot stay longer. But when you are ready, you will find me.”
“Whit, damn it—”
“Hurry,” was all Whit said, and then ducked into the alley.
Leo ran after him, but there was no one in the passageway. He stood alone.
Chapter 13
She did not go straight home. Thinking about returning there, with its hollow chambers and shadowed corners, reminded Anne too much of the emptiness of her marriage. What could have been a warm, welcoming place became instead an unfulfilled promise. So she asked the coachman to drive around London, circling aimlessly.
At one point, the carriage drove past her parents’ townhome on Portland Street. A faded little building tucked between grander structures, an impoverished relative at an elegant dinner. She immediately discarded the idea of going to see her mother and father, taking shelter with them from the chaos of her life. They could offer no solace, no haven. Even if she did go in and confess everything—her fears, her frantic, dying hope—they would never believe her. She, herself, could not believe the thoughts she now entertained.
Leo cannot be in league with the Devil. The Devil is not real. Magic is not real.
Yet her faith in the world as she knew it crumbled away, with each day, with each hour.
The carriage drove on.
Everything spun out of control. She watched the streets roll past—Saint Martin’s Lane, Oxford Street, the Knightsbridge Turnpike as they headed west and out toward the new development of Kensington—seeing only a world off its axis, and her unable to right it, to stop the mad whirl.
“Sun’s going down, madam,” the coachman called from his seat. “Don’t think the master would want you out after dark.”
There was nowhere to go but home. It wasn’t home, in truth, but a house she occupied. “Very well.”
By the time she reached Bloomsbury, dusk lay in hazy folds, and the few lamps that had been lit threw flickering shadows across the streets.
Inside, the house held light, but little warmth.
She handed her cloak to a nearby footman. “Is my husband home?”
“Not yet, madam. Dinner is nearly ready, so Cook tells me.”
She had no appetite. “Excellent. Tell him to serve as soon as my husband returns.”
The footman bowed. “Very good, madam.”
Inwardly, she cringed. Making dinner plans, as though she and Leo could sit together at table and converse over Whitstable oysters and seed cakes like any married couple. The thought of the plates, the cutlery, the meaningless exchanges she and Leo would make when the weight of greater questions bore down with a relentless, killing force—it made something inside her curl up and shudder.
She could not sit in a parlor and occupy herself with a book or pore over her trove of maps and globes. She could not spend a moment within these ornate walls. Yet she could not go out. Only one place offered a degree of relief.
Her footsteps took her out into the garden. The time of year was still too early for any growth, everything remained barren and bare, but at the least she had no walls around her, no roof threatening to crush her. She paced quickly up and down the paths, feeling like an animal in a menagerie.
She pressed back farther into the recesses of the garden, where the shadows deepened in the twilight gloom. A small arbor formed a dark cove, hidden from view, and she sat down upon a stone bench tucked within it, determined to gather her thoughts.
She stared at the thorned branches of what would be roses. Nothing could coalesce in her mind, for every time she sought to understand what was truly happening, staunch reason tried to assert itself. All that remained were fleeting impressions, half-glimpsed truths, and thwarted hopes. With a violent intensity, she wished she and Leo could go back to those days leading up to and just after the consummation of their marriage. For she saw what they could be together—were it not for the darkness that gathered around him like a mantle.
A shimmering radiance drew her attention. It appeared as no more than a flicker of light beside the empty flower bed. And then grew larger, like a spark becoming a flame.
Anne dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. She must be tired, having slept hardly at all these past nights, and her vision played her false.
Yet as she took her hands from her eyes, the light remained. Grew even larger. Until it was the height of a person. It coalesced from a nebulous radiance into ... a woman’s hazy form.
Anne shot to her feet. Her heart thudded in her chest. Yet she could not run. She simply gaped as the woman sharpened, grew focused, her limbs and facial features emerging from the light.
“Oh, God,” Anne rasped. For the woman wore ancient Roman clothing. She had proud, aristocratic features and cunning dark eyes. And she stared directly at Anne.
The same woman from her dream.
Anne dug her nails into her palms, and fissures of pain threaded up her arms. She was truly awake. The ghostly woman who shimmered in the garden was real.
Which meant that everything else—Lord Whitney’s accusations, the existence of the Devil, Leo’s use of magic—all of it was real, too.
“You believe now.” The specter’s words sounded as though they came from a great distance. The ghost was talking. “At last you believe.”
“Who ... are you?” Anne hoped that the ghost would not answer, for that meant it was not sentient, and did not truly converse with her.
“Valeria Livia Corva,” said the specter, killing Anne’s hope. “Livia, as I am known. We have met before, as well you know. Now my strength has grown. Thus, I appear before you—though time is fleeting.” She took a step—or rather, floated—closer. “Come, there is much to do.”
Anne edged backward. “Leave. Go away. I don’t want you here.”
The ghost frowned. “What is this delay? The battle is nigh, I have given you the weapons you need. We must act. Now.”
“None of this makes sense.” Moving farther back, Anne felt the edge of the stone bench against her legs. It was all so similar to her dream, but she was assuredly not asleep, much as she wished that to be so. “Whatever it is you want of me, I won’t do it.”
Livia scowled. “Are you his, then?”
“I’m no one’s.”
“There is no neutrality. A side must be chosen.” Her hands made patterns in the air, and Anne bit back a yelp of surprise when a glowing image appeared, hovering in the space between her and the ghost.
She stared at the image, eyes wide. There stood Leo, and all of the Hellraisers, in the same temple of which Anne had dreamt. And there was the elegant, diamond-eyed man, receiving small objects from each of the men, including her husband.
“Reckless men.” Livia’s mouth twisted. “They transformed themselves from merely debauched to truly wicked, the enemies of virtue and honor. Gained magic, yet lost their souls.”
The same magic of which Lord Whitney spoke.
“The pact is written upon your husband’s flesh,” said the ghost.
“Leo k
eeps his skin covered.” She had foolishly thought the cause was discomfiture over birthmarks or disfigurement.
Livia’s smile was pitiless. “Hiding evidence of his crime.”
Anne assembled the pieces: Leo’s infallibility with investments, everything that had transpired with her father. His refusal to let her see his bare skin. She felt ill. More than an illness of her body, but a sickness down to the depths of her soul. The only man she ever loved was a fiend.
“Leo is ... damned?”
The ghost spoke brutally, coldly. “The world is damned with him. Gaining souls, the Dark One’s power strengthens. His influence spreads like plague.”
“The riot,” Anne murmured to herself. She had seen creatures in the theater, demonic beasts. Leo must have seen them, too, for he had tried to get them out of the theater before the creatures could strike. He knew. He knew. He was part of that madness, perhaps even the engineer.
“A foretaste of what is to come,” answered Livia. The image of the Hellraisers shifted, becoming a hellish landscape of flame and destruction. It was London. Fire engulfed the city, consuming Saint Paul’s Cathedral, Buckingham House, Westminster Bridge. People ran to flee the inferno, whilst others looted and committed horrible acts. And demonic creatures swarmed the streets and skies, turning London into a true hell on earth.
Leo would make that happen.
The specter waved a hand, and the images of a destroyed London mercifully vanished. “Our magic is the fortification, but we must take up arms at once. I have given you the power once belonging to the Druid sorceress. Her magic I stole for my own selfish use, but it is yours now.”
Anne did not know anything of Druid sorceresses. Shaking her head, she said, “I’ve no magic.”
Livia’s mouth curved. “You make this assertion? Daily, you have seen evidence.”
“The candles,” Anne whispered. “The fire.” It had begun the morning after her dream. When alone, she could not keep a fire lit. Candles guttered and went out. Because ... she possessed magic. She stared down at her hands.