by Zoë Archer
He had bought this place to serve as a dare to the elite. His challenge: You cannot make me disappear or slink off to the gutter. I am here. See me. Respect and fear me.
And the magic given to him by the Devil served to shore up his challenge. It made sense that this house—the emblem of his desire for approval from those he did not truly esteem—now was to be the battleground for the fight for his soul.
Anne stood beside him and also looked up at the house. Trepidation tightened her mouth. Yet she glanced over at him and seemed to sense the swirl of emotion within him. Cautiously, she reached out and took hold of his hand.
He stared at their linked hands, feeling a tightness in his chest that came not from fear but from wonder. Whatever happened in the coming minutes and hours, he had this, this shared moment that she had crafted. Even when her hand slipped from his, he continued to feel her strength resonating within.
When Whit and Zora joined them, Leo drew a breath. He mounted the stairs. A gaping Munslow opened the front door, all sense of professional demeanor gone in light of the strange vision standing at the top of the steps: the master of the house, laden with weapons and wearing another man’s clothing, the mistress in her torn and dirty gown, the errant Lord Whitney, and a Gypsy. Not precisely the sort of gathering one found in Bloomsbury minutes away from midnight.
The footman recovered enough to say, “Welcome home, sir.” He held the door open, and the group moved inside.
“You and all the other servants,” Leo said. “Gather your belongings and leave immediately.”
Munslow stared. “Sir? Have we displeased you?”
“Not at all. But this place is not safe, and in a few minutes, it will be even less so.” He handed the footman a key. “This is to my strongbox in my study. Take all the money you find there and dole it out amongst the servants. I’m trusting you to be fair in its distribution.”
“Yes, sir,” Munslow said, his face still frozen in shock.
“And if I’m still alive in the morning,” Leo added, “I’ll be happy to give anyone a character so they may find further employment. Go now,” he said when the footman could only gawp at him.
Wearing a look of utter bafflement, Munslow headed belowstairs. Presumably to tell the other servants that the master had gone mad.
“Word will get out,” murmured Anne once the footman had gone.
Leo understood. Servants told tales amongst themselves, and gossip spread from household to household. What one servant might learn would soon reach the ears of their masters. By the time lords and ladies made their morning calls the following day, everyone would know that Leo Bailey had lost his mind. Which could imperil future trade transactions. No one wanted to do business with a madman.
“I can’t find it in myself to give a damn,” he answered.
The chandelier overhead was unlit, and a single candle illuminated the entryway. Shadows engulfed the house, swallowing up the expensive trinkets and costly furnishings. A clock on a mantel measured time in relentless ticks. He thought of all the chambers in this house, chambers in which he had hardly ever ventured, rooms full of objects but empty of life. His house was a sugar sculpture that decorated the dining tables of the elite—ornate, extravagant, utterly useless. Existing only to be admired, but never truly used.
He never saw, not until this moment. “How did you stand this place?” he asked Anne now. “Hour upon hour, day upon day.”
Her eyes were dark but clear. “If I wanted the man, I endured the house.”
The things he made her suffer, the strength she had to weather it all—it was a wonder he could stand to be within his own skin.
Though his heart beat hard at the thought of the struggle to come, resolve was iron in his spine. Soon, the servants would be gone. When they were, Leo would take back what he had foolishly squandered. He might not survive, but he had never backed down from a fight. And none was so important as the battle that lay ahead.
Chapter 17
Anne’s throat was tight, as though an unseen hand gripped her, slowly constricting. There seemed not enough air, no matter how she tried to breathe it in. Yet it was only fear, and she forced herself to calm. She could not face the approaching challenges if she collapsed in a faint.
Once the servants had cleared the house, she followed Leo toward the study. Lord Whitney and Zora remained in the front hallway. As Anne trailed after Leo down the corridor, she heard the hiss of steel as Lord Whitney drew his sword. A blaze of light that meant Zora had summoned her magic. The Gypsy did that so easily—conjuring up her power and wielding it with such confidence—it was clear she had used it many times in battle.
Both Zora and Whit made ready for the fight. They would form the defense against intruders when the inevitable assault happened.
Pressing her hand against her mercilessly pounding heart, Anne could scarce believe that this elegant Bloomsbury house would soon be the site of a pitched battle. It made as much sense as calling the house a home—for it was just as ill-fitting a title. She had never been at home here. Only Leo had made it bearable.
She kept her gaze on his wide shoulders as he walked toward the study. He appeared so strong, so potent. Surely he would survive this. He had to. They could not return to how it had once been between them. Yet he meant far too much to her to lose him.
He reached the open door of the study. They did not go in, but saw that a lamp had been lit. True to Leo’s command, his strongbox sat atop his desk, the lid open. The strongbox had contained hundreds of pounds, well beyond what any servant might earn in several years. The men and women who had served him might not have employment, but they had been well compensated. Perhaps it might buy their silence.
Leo turned to her. His mouth flattened into a grim line, the angle of his jaw hard with determination. She’d never seen him more resolute. A warrior on the brink of combat.
Words formed on her lips, yet she could not say them. They gazed at each other in silence. The candle in Leo’s hand flickered and cast shimmering shadows upon the walls. He looked both golden and dark, a terrifying figure from the depths of dreams, and it amazed her that this tough, fierce-eyed man had given her such pleasure only hours before. Not merely pleasure, but the truth of his heart.
Would it be the last time they ever made love? The dawn would have her answer, but dawn was far away.
“Ready?” Leo closed the study door, and he and Anne stood in the corridor outside. They had agreed that this place offered the right location for their needs, with few avenues for getting in or out. A battle would take place here, in this hallway covered with French silk damask.
She exhaled shakily, wiped her hands on her skirts, then nodded.
He started to speak, then stopped. He moved quickly. His arms came around her, pulling her close. And then his mouth was on hers.
Anne sank into the kiss, as hungry and demanding as he. They consumed each other, straining tight, savoring taste and sensation as those about to undertake a fast luxuriated in the flavor of the final morsel of food and last drop of wine. She tasted him and inhaled his scent and felt the hard, lean length of his body, knowing she might never experience these sensations again.
“Anne,” he rasped against her mouth. “My unexpected gift. A gift I never earned. But I’ll have you however I can, for as long as I can.”
She did not think she had pieces of her heart left that were big enough to break, yet they shattered anyway.
He ended the kiss, releasing her as if by force of will. She let him go, but the distance between them tore through her as they stepped back.
“Please,” she whispered, “do this now.” She could not stand prolonging this.
He steadied himself, standing even taller, then spoke the words that sealed their fate. “Veni, geminus.”
The candle went out, and everything became darkness.
Leo held himself still as the scent of burnt paper filled the hallway, acrid and brittle. And then there was another shadow in the corridor,
standing just behind Anne. It held his shape, his size.
Immediately, Leo placed himself between Anne and the geminus. For that’s what it was. He did not need light to identify the creature. He recognized it now with the same certainty as he knew his own handprint.
“’Tis past the time of negotiation,” the geminus spat. “My master does not look kindly upon the slaughter of his minions.”
“Then he shouldn’t have sent them to be slaughtered,” answered Leo. His eyes grew adjusted to the dark, and saw the hazy echo of his own face twisted in a sneer.
“A poor strategy on your part, summoning me,” said the creature. “We know where you are now. At this moment, hordes of demons approach. There shan’t be enough of your carcasses remaining for the night soil collector to gather.”
“We have reinforcements,” Anne said.
Leo’s heart swelled to hear the strength in her voice, no trace of the fear she surely felt.
The geminus chuckled. “A mortal man stripped of his power and a Gypsy girl with a mountebank’s skill hardly amount to reinforcements.”
An unearthly shriek echoed through the house. The windows rattled. The ground shook. It sounded as though dozens of knives were being sharpened, then Leo realized it was the scrape of talons upon stone.
Demons. Approaching.
The geminus laughed again. “For a man given the gift of prophecy, you’ve shown remarkably inferior planning.”
“There is one ally you have not considered,” said Leo.
“The other Hellraisers are not your friends.”
“Not the Hellraisers.”
“Who, then?”
“Me,” said Valeria Livia Corva.
Light exploded, filling the corridor with radiance. The Roman woman emerged from a brilliant nimbus, hands upraised and ready, hair wild, and she fixed the geminus with a hard, unrelenting stare.
Radiance from Livia threw everything into high relief. The creature recoiled, and it unsettled Leo deeply to see a look of naked hatred upon his double’s face—as though Leo himself shrank back in fearful loathing.
“We’ve more than enough power to face you,” said Leo, “and whatever else comes crawling up from Hell.”
Snarling, the geminus lifted up its hands, preparing to work its own magic. Yet whatever it attempted to do, the effort failed. It glared at Livia.
“No retreat for you,” she said. “This mortal home is your trap, until I decide otherwise.”
The geminus sneered. “You cannot harm me. Unless you seek to hurt him.” It flicked its gaze toward Leo. As it did so, it drew a poniard from inside its coat. Before Leo could stop it, the creature jabbed the point of the blade into its own left hand.
Anne cried out as Leo hissed in pain, gripping his now-bleeding hand. He moved quickly, knocking the poniard hard from the geminus’s grip so that it stuck in the wall. Even this small blow resonated in his body, the force of his own strike against the creature echoing in his hand.
Despite the loss of its weapon, the geminus chuckled. “Threaten as much as you please. The mortal and I are joined. He is my hostage.”
Much as Leo wanted to plow his fist into the creature’s smirking face, he restrained himself. Anne looked equally murderous. Yet the next move had to be Livia’s.
“You are not so protected as you believe.” The ghost moved closer to the geminus, which glowered defiantly at her approach. “To the Dark One, you are nothing but a puppet. We shall make appropriate use of you.”
Latin words streamed from her mouth, and with her hands she made complicated patterns in the air. The geminus seemed to understand her intent, for it tried to dart past Leo, but he grabbed the creature before it could flee down the hallway. He ignored the sharp pain in his own arm as he held fast to the struggling geminus. Livia had to finish her spell before the creature could be set free.
He felt the change, an echo of her magic threading through his body, but the geminus felt it even more strongly. Its movements grew stiff, mechanical. In slow increments, its struggles against Leo’s hold quieted. It stared down at its body as if it were a strange, phantom limb.
“What iniquity is this?” it cried.
“A taste of your own poison,” answered Livia. “During my living years, I learned my own share of dark magic. You and your master seek to command others against their will. Now you share the same experience.” She nodded at Leo. “Release it.”
Leo uncurled his fingers from around the geminus’s arm, careful to stay close lest the thing make another attempt to flee. But it did not run. Instead, limbs moving with sharp jerks, it turned to the study door. Its hand curled around the doorknob.
“Reconsider,” it said over its shoulder, words growing thin with panic. “All is not yet lost. There is still time—”
“We know already how trustworthy your master is,” Leo spat, hating to hear the geminus using his own voice to bleat like a coward. “Do as you’re commanded.”
The geminus made another sound of protest, but it opened the door to the study. Yet the room that lay just across the threshold was not Leo’s study. It was a stonewalled chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling. The books were gone; his desk was gone. In their place were rows and rows of heavy wooden shelves, and trestle tables running the length of the long chamber. On the shelves and the tabletops were objects the size of oranges. They each cast light, some more brilliantly than others.
Leo knew without being told that what he saw were souls. Human souls. All of them held captive in this chamber. The cold stone walls formed a grim prison, pitilessly enclosing the radiance of the souls’ humanity. Yet as Leo looked upon them, greed stirred. Shimmering and precious, the souls were rare prizes that inspired covetousness—even within him.
Leo had been one of the reckless. Somewhere in that impossible room, his own soul waited.
Anne stared, hardly believing what she saw. Here was the vault of souls that Lord Whitney had described. The souls themselves were beautiful and shimmering, far lovelier than any gem torn from deep within the ground. Even standing some distance from them, she could feel their power and potential radiating outward, sending flickers of energy through her body.
The sight of so many souls trapped within the gloomy, oppressive chamber made her heart wilt. Already, a few of the souls faded, their light dimming. She did not know what would happen when their brilliance disappeared entirely, but it must certainly mean disaster.
“How did you come by so many?” she could not help asking the geminus.
It forgot its momentary horror, and looked smug. “Mortals are such fallible, gullible things. I learned this well during my profitable visits to the Exchange. They throw their souls away for mere trifles. Money, power. Love.”
She stared at the shelves and shelves of souls, fighting despair. If this was the handiwork of a single geminus in only a few short months, imagine what many more of the things it could do in the span of a year. Hardly a person would walk the earth who still possessed their soul. And if the Devil could harness the power of all of these souls, power that Anne herself could feel ... no wonder he must be stopped.
Leo strode toward the door to the vault, but could not move into it. He seemed to face an invisible barrier; his hand pressed empty air as though pushing against glass. Curling his hand into a fist, he threw a punch. The blow simply glanced away.
The geminus laughed. “Another excellent scheme. The vault is there, but what of it? You cannot go inside.”
“We knew that much,” muttered Leo. Yet it was in his nature to try anyway.
“Then you know no mortal may enter.”
“Conversely,” Livia said, “I am not mortal.”
Anne held her breath as the ghost darted toward the vault. For this had been their intent, what they had planned beside the river in Richmond. When Lord Whitney had retrieved his soul, it had taken Livia’s magic to gain Zora entry into the vault. That spell had cost Livia much of her power, but now they had a simpler option. She herself would gain
entrance into the vault, and secure Leo’s soul.
Yet when the ghost tried to pass across the threshold, she actually stumbled back. A look of bafflement crossed her face. She attempted to enter once more. Again, she met an invisible barrier. She stared down at her hands and body in confusion.
The geminus gave another ugly laugh. “Perhaps I ought to have made myself more clear. No human may enter the vault, be they living or dead. Ever since the Gypsy’s essence was smuggled into another vault, alterations have been made.”
Anne’s heart sank, and Leo bared his teeth in frustration.
The Roman was not deterred. “No solid surface has yet barred me,” she said, eyes hard and determined. “Not since my imprisonment between the realms. This night shall be no different.” She rushed toward the wall beside the open door, and passed right through.
Anne anxiously looked into the vault for Livia’s reappearance on the other side of the wall. The ghost did not materialize.
“Where is she?”
Livia appeared a moment later, emerging from the wall. Her face was set in a dark scowl. “All I find beyond that wall is a library. No vault. No souls. Merely useless books. If there is a way in, I cannot find it.”
As the geminus continued to laugh, Leo cursed, long and floridly, and even Livia looked crestfallen. Desolation was a crushing weight in Anne’s chest. For all their plans and hopes, for everything they had been willing to sacrifice, everything that had been lost—Leo’s soul still belonged to the Devil, and there was nothing any of them could do to get it back. He was lost. They had failed.
They could not fail.
“Almost admirable,” the geminus chuckled, wiping its eyes. “A fiasco, of course, but extremely inventive. ’Tis a shame that none of you shall serve my master. He would make excellent use of you.”