by Zoë Archer
“The final retreat,” Zora said, staring at the open, empty doorway.
“A wise decision.” Leo glanced at the walls.
Anne gasped. Fire crawled up the walls in a blazing webwork, catching on draperies. The banister became a line of flame leading up to the first floor.
Zora’s whip of fire immediately disappeared. “Apologies.”
Yet Leo merely shook his head. “Couldn’t be helped. But we need to get out. Now.”
Smoke filled the entryway, and Anne coughed as it saturated her lungs. She took Leo’s offered hand, and together they ran from the house. Lord Whitney and Zora followed, with Livia meeting them on the sidewalk outside. The street glowed in the lurid illumination. Soon, the fire inside the house would find its way outside.
Anne turned to Livia. “We cannot let the house burn, or it will spread to the other homes.”
“Air will merely encourage the fire to burn,” the specter answered.
“I’ve another idea.” One she was not certain would work, but she hoped the natural science lecture she had attended long ago had been accurate.
Closing her eyes, Anne focused all her energy on the power within her. She held out her hands, calling to the air. She sought not to create air, but to draw it into herself. This was a new challenge, one beyond anything she had attempted before. It took every ounce of her will, fighting to drag the air out of Leo’s house. Her teeth clenched with the effort and sweat dampened her clothing as she struggled.
She cracked open one eye. Her heart leapt to see the flames within diminish. Yet it took far more strength to smother the fire than she knew she possessed. Abruptly, the burden lessened. Anne glanced over to see Livia also working to draw out the air. The ghost’s head was thrown back, and her image flickered, taxed almost beyond endurance.
With a final, hard pull, Anne and Livia stifled the fire. The last tongue of flame guttered, then went out.
Anne sank to her knees. She felt herself carefully pulled to her feet, and she leaned back into Leo’s firm, strong body, weary beyond imagining.
He murmured her name, lips pressed against the crown of her head. She felt utterly spent, and he formed a solid wall behind her, around her. She fought against a wave of exhaustion, released in the aftermath of battle. It was over. Finally.
Leo tensed. She felt his every muscle contract into readiness. “Hell,” he growled, looking off into the darkness.
She turned her head to see what set him on edge. Her own body stiffened when she beheld the new threat.
Three silhouettes. One long and lanky. Another shorter, but ready for combat. And the third, tall and broad-shouldered, with the distinct posture of a battle-hardened warrior.
Like omens of disaster, the Hellraisers emerged from the shadows.
Here, then, was the biggest threat of all.
As Leo watched the men he once considered friends stride toward him, he understood how dangerous the Hellraisers truly were. He’d been one of their numbers, capable of anything.
All three men carried swords, and as they appeared out of the darkness, their faces wore similar expressions: hard, determined, pitiless. Even Edmund, the most affable of the Hellraisers, looked ready for violence. John appeared as though he wanted done with this pesky annoyance so he might return to more important matters. And Bram, with his cold eyes, his long dark coat flaring behind him, resembled the tough, merciless soldier he had been after returning from the brutality of war.
Leo gathered Anne close, sheltering her with his body. None of the Hellraisers would touch her. He would wet the cobblestones with their blood before he allowed any of them to hurt his wife.
Damn it, he hadn’t the time to reload his firearms, and he wasn’t trained to use a sword. Bare hands, then. He knew plenty of strategies for fighting against an armed enemy. Even enemies he once thought of as his brothers.
They faced one another in the middle of the street: Leo, Anne, Whit, Zora, and a flickering Livia standing against Bram, Edmund, and John. Yet despite the uneven numbers, it would be a fatal mistake to think the Hellraisers at a disadvantage. Leo had fought beside them enough to know the threat they presented now.
“Never believed you so weak,” Bram said on a growl.
“Not weakness, but strength,” countered Leo. “The same strength that’s in each of you.”
John snorted. “This isn’t the Exchange, Leo. You can’t wheedle your way into our favor.”
“Leo does not wheedle,” Anne said, rousing. Strength gained in her, and though she kept close, she stood upright on her own. “He is trying to save your cursed souls.”
Edmund started, as if suddenly becoming aware of her presence. “You ... know about everything? And yet you remain at your husband’s side?”
“Where else should she be?” rumbled Leo. Yet he knew that Anne’s continued presence next to him counted as one of the greatest marvels of his life—if not the greatest marvel. “It was she who finally managed to reclaim my soul.”
He turned slightly and pulled at one of the tears running along the back of his coat. The tear went all the way down, through his shirt, to his flesh beneath. Tugging on the slashed fabric, he revealed his shoulder.
Anne gave a small inhalation, Whit chuckled lowly, and Bram muttered a curse. For the skin on Leo’s back was unmarked. The images of flames were gone. He knew he would find the same on his calf.
“A soul is a very little thing.” John sounded unimpressed. “Compared to what we might have, the power we can wield, who requires a soul?”
“Even the greatest emperor has one,” Whit said. “Without it, he becomes nothing more than a tyrant.”
“I’m certain I’ve no soul to save,” countered Bram. “What I do have is pleasure in abundance, and that is my only necessity.”
“Bodily pleasure,” said Leo, “but what of your heart?”
John made another dismissive sound. “Marriage has transformed you into the veriest weakling.”
Gazing at Anne, he saw the ferocity in her face despite the exhaustion beneath her eyes, her torn and dirty gown. And her arm, around his waist. “It has made me far stronger than I could have ever dreamed.”
Her grip tightened, sending another pulse of energy through him.
Bram rolled his eyes. “Enough of this maudlin twaddle.” He raised his sword. “You have chosen your allegiance just in time to die.” Assured as an officer, he commanded, “Hellraisers, advance.”
Leo braced his feet wide, making himself ready. Whit brandished his saber, and the fiery whip reappeared in Zora’s hand. Anne, weary as he knew her to be, still prepared herself for battle, her chin tilted and hands upraised as she stood beside him.
Edmund’s gaze continued to move back and forth between Leo and Anne, and Whit and Zora. Leo saw what Edmund saw: men willing to fight and die for their women, and women just as ready to do the same for their men. A pained look crossed Edmund’s face.
Both John and Bram edged forward. But Edmund remained where he stood. “I ... I cannot.”
“Edmund,” snapped Bram over his shoulder. “This is no time for tender sentiment. Move. Now.”
Leo watched, warily amazed, as Edmund slowly lowered his sword. He wore an almost baffled expression. “No. This must stop.”
Clever as always, John said, “Do you want to lose Rosalind? For surely you will if these traitors have their way.”
Yet Edmund shook his head. “I never truly had Rosalind. Since I received my gift, she has not been the woman I wanted, the woman I loved. Merely an empty shell that looked like Rosalind.” He stared at Whit and Zora, and then Leo and Anne, his gaze hollow with longing. “I merely own a thing. But I do not have love. And I know ...” His voice thickened. “I know that the Rosalind I love would hate the life I’ve given her.”
“Edmund,” said Leo, but he did not know what he could tell his friend. If Leo were in Edmund’s place, if he had Anne but not Anne, missing the crucial essence of who she undeniably was ... Leo could not endure
it.
“You mean to turn traitor, just like these two?” John snarled. “Take up arms against us?”
Carefully, as though releasing an adder, Edmund set his sword upon the ground. “I’ve no wish to fight you. All I seek is to relinquish my gift that I might set Rosalind free.”
Bram and John hissed in frustration and anger, but Leo felt the blossoming of true hope. With Edmund as an ally, surely they could defeat the Devil. He might wish to retire from the battle, but Leo knew that Edmund was too gallant to turn away from such an important fight. It might take a little while, yet he would come to their aid. In this war, they needed every ally, every advantage.
And Edmund was far too good a man to be damned. Of all the Hellraisers, he had been the one who preferred laughter to rowdiness, friendship over debauchery.
Edmund moved toward Leo. “I will need your guidance.”
“You have it.” Leo held out a hand.
“No,” growled Bram.
“He is our enemy,” John snarled. Swift as a viper, he lunged forward, sword upraised and aimed at Leo.
Leo moved to dodge the blow, but it never came. Instead, the tip of John’s blade protruded from Edmund’s chest. Edmund had leapt in front of John, blocking him from running Leo through. And had taken the sword strike intended for Leo.
Anne gasped in horror, and flung out her hands. A blast of wind tossed John backward. Both Leo and Whit ran forward. But they were too late. Edmund stumbled for a step and sank to his knees. John got to his feet, still holding his sword. Blood streaked the metal, and he gazed at it dispassionately.
Gently, Leo lowered Edmund to the ground, careful to support his head. Edmund’s wig slid off, revealing his closely shorn hair. Leo tore off his coat and wadded it up to press against the wound, but blood spilled from Edmund’s chest and back, coming up in pulses as his heart beat out his life. Already, Edmund turned ashen, his eyes glassy.
“Help him,” Leo shouted to Livia. Out of all of them, the ghost possessed the most power.
Yet Livia only shook her head as she hovered near. “Were my strength not so diminished, even then I could do nothing. I’ve no authority over life and death.”
“He’s not dying,” Whit insisted.
“And you ... call yourself a ... gambler,” gasped Edmund. “Terrible at ... bluffing.”
“I’ll fetch a surgeon.” Leo started to rise, but Edmund gripped his hand with surprising strength.
“Give me this ... one favor.”
“Anything.”
Edmund fumbled weakly to pull his shirt up from his breeches. Helping him, Leo tugged on the fabric when his friend’s strength failed.
“On my ... right hip,” Edmund whispered.
Leo examined his hip. “You are not wounded.”
“And the ... marks?”
He saw only pale flesh. “If they were there, they have gone now.” Edmund’s sacrifice had done that, restored his soul.
A small smile appeared on Edmund’s mouth. “She is ... free. Make certain ... she is ... cared for.”
“I swear it.”
“And I,” added Whit.
“Tell her I ...” Edmund’s words trailed off, and his chest went motionless. His hand fell away from Leo’s, lying on the blood-slick cobblestones, the wedding band on his finger gleaming dully.
Only when he had closed his friend’s sightless eyes did Leo surge to his feet. John stared back at him, his expression tight. Bram was a dark, motionless figure, his face wreathed in shadows.
“You damned coward,” snarled Leo. He hardly believed what had just happened. Only a few weeks ago, they had all sat around his table, taking a meal together. And now Edmund lay dead in the street, murdered by his friend.
“I take all threats seriously,” said John.
“He was no damned threat to you.” Leo’s hands were wet with Edmund’s blood.
“Everyone is a threat. Especially you.”
Leo dove for Edmund’s sword. He hadn’t training in the weapon, but the need for retaliation would make him a quick study. All that mattered was avenging Edmund.
Seeing the fury in Leo’s face, John edged backward. For the first time that night, John seemed uncertain, his gaze flicking between Leo and the others. All of them, even Anne, stood ready to fight.
Everyone jumped back when a thick column of smoke suddenly appeared in the middle of the road. Not smoke, Leo realized, but a concentration of darkness, drawing in all light as if consuming it. The shadows swirled, then collected into the form of a man.
The darkness dissipated. A figure stood between the Hellraisers and Leo. Though Leo had seen this man only once before, he recognized him immediately. Immaculately groomed, he wore a gentleman’s suit of ash gray satin, his dark red waistcoat covered in rich embroidery and gems. He wore a fashionable bag wig, tied with black silk. A ring, topped with a large, black stone, adorned one of his slim white hands. In every way, even in his upright posture, he looked an elegant, wealthy gentleman.
But he was no gentleman. He was not a man at all.
“My dear Hellraisers,” he drawled, his diamond white gaze glancing down at Edmund’s body, “this was not how I envisioned our reunion.”
The Devil had returned.
Anne had not yet recovered from the shock of seeing Sir Edmund Fawley-Smith murdered by the Honorable John Godfrey. The poor man had surrendered his life trying to protect his friends. He had been run through like meat upon a skewer. His blood was everywhere. And there had been nothing she could do to help.
Now his lifeless body sprawled upon the ground, and someone, something had appeared. Her every nerve tensed, and chill spread through her body. For she knew instinctively who stood before her, wearing the guise of a nobleman. She had seen too much to be astounded, and yet there was no way to prevent the shock that froze her in place. To have heard so many times about the Devil, and now, to see him made real ... If Anne lived to see the dawn, she doubted she would ever forget this sight, burned as it was into her mind.
She sidled closer to Leo, threading her fingers with his.
“Two of my Hellraisers gone in a single night.” The Devil shook his head, a disappointed tutor. “Edmund offered me little, but you, Leo, you could have been such a wonder.”
“I’ll live with the disappointment,” he answered flatly.
The Devil offered a chill smile. “Not for much longer.”
Anne stiffened. She did not care for those ominous words.
“I believe it was one of your natural philosophers who said, Actioni contrariam semper et æqualem esse reactionem. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The loss of two Hellraisers, and their power, means that the two remaining Hellraisers shall have more power.” The Devil curled his fingers as he turned to face Bram and John. Black energy gathered in his hands, seemingly drawn from the night itself.
Both men drew upright, as though preparing themselves. John looked eager. Bram’s expression was opaque. He had not spoken since Edmund’s death, and continued to maintain his silence. Yet he did not turn away from the Devil’s offer.
Good God, Anne already felt Bram’s menace. She could not begin to fathom what he might become if further corrupted. And John had already proved himself a villain. With more power at his disposal, he would transform into a monster.
Sensing this, both Leo and Lord Whitney sprang forward, swords upraised as if they meant to strike down the Devil. Yet before either could land a blow, energy poured from the Devil’s hands, directed toward Bram and John. At that same moment, a flash of light streaked in front of Bram.
It was Livia, crying out, “Stop!”
Her cry cut off abruptly as the dark energy pierced her. The energy pulled her into a small, single point of light, shrinking to almost nothing. Momentum carried this tiny gleam back, and into Bram. It sank into his chest, then vanished. Bram staggered back, his hand pressed between his ribs, looking down with a bewildered glower.
Livia was gone.
&
nbsp; But Anne could not wonder at the ghost’s disappearance. Though somehow Livia had managed to deflect the Devil’s magic from going into Bram, John had not the same protection. He would not want it, for he wore a rapturous expression as dark energy coursed into him. The Devil was imbuing him with greater power—and he gloried in it.
Leo cursed and started forward again, sword upraised. The Devil snapped his fingers, and the sword spun out of Leo’s hand.
Seeing this, Lord Whitney also moved to strike, but the Devil flung him back with a flick of his wrist. Zora cried out and ran to him, sprawled on the sidewalk nearly fifty yards away. Anne breathed out in relief when she saw him stagger to his feet, though he favored one leg as Zora helped him stand.
Shouts sounded down the street. As if coming out of a trance, the city finally roused. Men’s voices called out, and feet and hoofbeats pounded against the cobblestones.
The Devil lowered his hands, and gave an irritated growl. “Do what you must,” he barked at John. “See my work come to fruition. And you.” He turned to Bram. “I will see you again very soon. As I will all of you.”
With that, shadows engulfed him, and then he was gone.
The sounds of approaching men, and the rumbling of the wheels of fire wagons, drew closer.
“We must go,” Bram said on a growl to John.
Yet John seemed reluctant to leave. A sinister smile crossed his lean face. “I can take them. The things I can do now ...”
“Immediately, John.” The order in Bram’s voice could not be disobeyed, not even by John. Both men turned and hastened down the street, away from the oncoming commotion. Before he disappeared into the darkness, Bram turned and stared back at where Anne and Leo stood. His hand lingered on his chest, over his heart—the place into which Livia had seemingly disappeared. And then he sped off, melting into the shadows.