Brimstone Seduction

by Barbara J. Hancock

  “I need to see Sybil,” Kat said. She whispered the entreaty over and over again as they walked down the halls. They’d come back into the part of the opera house where the walls had ears. Hundred of them. And lips to whisper and cry.

  Was it her imagination or wishful thinking that Sybil’s name was taken up in a sibilant chant across stiff wooden faces, hundreds of them, calling her name softly? Sybil. Sybil. Sybil.

  She wasn’t sure if she could trust the daemon that had cared for Severne like a mother for centuries, but she had no one else to turn to. She already owed Sybil a favor, but perhaps she could bargain another for her help. Sybil would know how to handle Grim. She would know where Eric could be found. She might even be able to get a message to Victoria.

  Again and again, Kat spoke the daemon’s name.

  She wasn’t paying attention to the walls or shadows. She blindly allowed Grim to herd her along like the German shepherd he vaguely resembled. She stopped in surprise when she rounded a corner to almost bump into Eric where he crouched at the side of the hall.

  “I found my mom. It took me a long time because they move. That scared me at first. But I’m glad now. It would be bad to be stuck on the same wall forever. I couldn’t memorize the halls. I just had to keep looking,” he said. He finished chewing on a hard roll from his pocket and dusted the crumbs from his fingers.

  Grim had stopped, too. He watched them. She didn’t have long, but she couldn’t simply pass Eric by. She gave the hellhound a stern look and quickly turned her attention back to the daemon boy.

  “That’s why you fill your pockets with food,” Kat said. “So you don’t have to stop looking to eat.”

  “Yeah. I got pretty hungry a few times. Sybil told me to rest. She’d find me and carry me to bed at first, but I learned to hide after that.” He looked up at the carving with tired eyes.

  “I’m so sorry,” Kat said.

  She came to his side. Grim didn’t protest, but she could tell he tracked her movements vigilantly with his burning coal eyes. Eric’s mother was indeed carved onto the wall. She stood with one hand stretched toward her son as if she would hold his hand. Her curved fingers extended from the wall, and Kat had to look away. Her stomach ached as if she’d been punched.

  “It’s not your fault. They’ve told me that. You were trapped like them. But you’re going to get away. We all are,” Eric said.

  He reached up to touch Kat’s face as she leaned down, and he hugged her more fiercely than he had before. Grim stepped closer. Katherine tried to ignore the giant dog. In this moment, her safety didn’t matter, and neither did Severne’s agenda. Only Eric and his mother mattered, and the fact that she hadn’t been able to save him yet.

  “I’ll save him. I’ll get him out of here,” she told the carved representation of his mother’s soul. Lavinia didn’t move, but Kat reached out and touched her wooden hand. The wooden fingers weren’t as cold as the shadow’s touch, but they did feel like ice. She began to lose feeling in her hand, but she didn’t pull it away. She endured the pain and tried to look into the daemon woman’s wooden eyes. They were blank. There were no pupils or irises. Only an empty stare. But she met them and tried to reach the soul they contained. “I won’t give up. I won’t run away.”

  The cold crept from her hand halfway up her arm.

  Grim growled deep and low in his barrel chest as if concerned that the cold might penetrate to her heart.

  “I’ve been hiding for a long time, but I know it’s time to take a stand,” Kat promised.

  The cold seeped through skin and muscle and bone. She began to shiver. Her teeth clicked together. And still she tried to communicate to whatever was left of Lavinia in the cherrywood. Had the fingers tightened on hers, or was that only ice and imagination?

  She was no longer sure she could pull her hand away.

  Eric tugged at her other hand as if to get her attention.

  Grim was now at her side. He pressed against her legs, urging her to release the daemon’s wooden hand. His heat startled her to action, and she pulled. It took more effort than she expected to break her hand free. The fingers of the wooden hand curled back on the palm as her fingers came away. The eerie reflexive action made her gasp and stumble away from the wall.

  She cradled her cold hand against her chest, but the woman in the carving didn’t leap from the wall to extract revenge. Whatever energy she had expended to hold Katherine’s hand was gone...or saved for another time.

  Eric saw her heavy breathing in response to being trapped by his mother’s wooden hand.

  “It’s okay. She doesn’t want to hurt you. She wants to help you just like you helped me,” he said.

  Unlike the ice of the shadow’s touch, the cold from Lavinia’s hand had already begun to fade away. As the cold faded, so did her fear.

  “I haven’t helped you yet, but I’m going to. I promise,” Kat said. She reached to place her stiff fingers into the ruff of Grim’s coat. He jumped as if startled by the cold, but he didn’t growl or step away. He let her warm her fingers. It wasn’t exactly like petting a dog. It was more like petting a dragon with fur. But she appreciated the movement it restored to her fingers.

  Eric still held her other hand. He was warm, as well. Gradually she felt normal again, but she still cautiously stepped farther away from the wall.

  “I’m going to save you both. I know what to do. Mom told me,” Eric said.

  “I’ve heard whispering from the walls, but I haven’t been able to make out what they say,” Kat told him. “I’m not sure they’re actually communicating.”

  “They are. They’re alive. Only trapped. It’s up to me to set them free,” Eric said.

  Kat wasn’t expecting the boy at her side to turn and run away. She called to him, but she couldn’t follow. Grim had stepped between her and the boy’s retreating figure. The hellhound’s large body pressed against her legs, holding her in place. She was caught. Trapped by Severne’s orders to his enormous and loyal beast.

  “I thought we’d become friends,” she complained to the hellhound.

  He looked up at her with an inscrutable quirk of his head as if to say he had no friends. Only unbreakable ties to John Severne.

  She had no choice. She could only hope the daemons trapped in the walls could communicate and that they would pass her message on to Sybil. Her mother had stood against Reynard and the Council with no help by her side. Kat needed to learn from her mother’s mistake. She didn’t intend for her stand to have the same outcome as her mother’s.

  When she made it to her room, Grim watched with his head down and his forelegs braced until she slipped inside.

  To wait.

  Chapter 26

  Katherine paced the confines of her room. There was a hush around her. It settled against her skin. Expectation caused the fine hairs along her arms to quiver to attention. The walls didn’t make a sound. The etched designs on her mirrors were still. Her colorful walls waited. The roses and their thorns. The birds and the petals were frozen in flight and fall.

  Had her message reached Sybil? Would the daemon so long a denizen of l’Opéra Severne come to her aid, or did she see Kat as a flitting fancy, too soon gone for her concern?

  Eric.

  She had to find him.

  He couldn’t stay in the place. Not with the horror of its walls and its potential for malevolent shadows. And Severne’s obsessive quest. His drive to save his father was as dangerous as Reynard at his pious worst.

  Grim was outside her door. Severne had set him to guard. She didn’t think the hellhound would hurt her, but he wouldn’t let her pass. He was a massive physical obstacle even without teeth and jaw. The one time she’d turned the handle of her door to check on his position, he’d growled loud and low again, and this time it had been a more serious warning.

 
If Sybil didn’t show up, Kat would risk it. She would force Grim to attack or move aside and let her free.

  While she bolstered her nerve, she changed into jeans, T-shirt and a thick leather jacket. She’d bought the jacket because it was great with jeans on cool nights when practice ran late and dinner even later. Or for those times when Reynard stalked her until dawn before she could slip away. But the leather was also sturdy and protective. It covered her arms and fell to her thighs in a belted blazer cut. It would have provided cover and protection against a regular dog.

  She thought it would probably melt like butter in Grim’s mouth.

  She pulled tall boots on even as she acknowledged a suit of armor wouldn’t be enough. The hellhound outside her door had nightmare teeth that responded with size and ferocity in proportion to his needs. But she had to try.

  The morning was only a few hours away. Crowds on the streets would mean more watching eyes and a greater possibility that she and Eric would be seen by someone who would alert the Order of Samuel or Severne to their whereabouts.

  A light knock on the door interrupted her as she was wondering what she should use to cover her face and hands. She paused. The sense of relief that tried to rush through her was unjustified. Even if Sybil had responded, there was no guarantee her help wouldn’t come with a price too high for Kat to pay.

  Never trust a daemon.

  And she was already in debt to the daemon she was preparing to ask for help.

  Kat firmed her shoulders and tightened her belt. She walked to the door, taking a deep breath to prepare for negotiations. When she opened it, Sybil stood in the hallway. For the first time, she wasn’t wearing a dress. She also wore a jacket and boots, though hers were vintage. And blue. She wore blue from head to toe including a white scarf with a blue floral design.

  Hydrangeas.

  The softness of the watercolor silk print didn’t match her eyes.

  “You called. I have come,” Sybil said.

  Her words sounded too formal. As if she was stating something for the record.

  Grim stood behind her, still stiff, still at the ready. He looked as if he might jump on the daemon at Kat’s door rather than let her come inside. Sybil ignored the massive beast as if he was of no concern.

  Her nonchalance didn’t matter. Kat was concerned enough for both of them.

  “I’d invite you inside, but Grim might eat you before you cross the threshold,” she said.

  “I have known him since he was a tiny puppy no bigger than a German shepherd. I’m not afraid,” Sybil said. “Cautious. But not afraid.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Kat said, matching the daemon’s formality.

  She stepped back and held the door, ready to slam it in Grim’s snout if he sprang. He would splinter the heavy wood into toothpicks, of course, but at least she might slow him down.

  “He isn’t going to harm us. He’s only trying to impress upon us that his master is very serious about saving his father,” Sybil said.

  She walked into the bedroom. As she stepped forward, she began to remove her smooth blue velvet gloves by loosening one finger at a time. First from one hand and then the other.

  “These were a gift to me, as was my scarf,” she continued.

  Gifts to daemons were more than thoughtful keepsakes. They represented bargains. Kat looked at the pretty scarf and soft gloves with more caution than she had seconds before.

  “I made a promise in return. One I have kept for longer than you’ve been alive,” Sybil said.

  Kat backed away. She hoped it didn’t look like a retreat, but the daemon was different than she’d been before. The wise, helpful costume matron was gone. Though her keys still hung at her waist, she was less maternal. Her face held a cold, inhuman expression.

  “I owe you,” Katherine said. “For the dress.”

  It seemed a more horrible debt than before, now that she needed another favor. Now that Sybil was harder to read. Who had given her the scarf and the gloves? Who owned her promises?

  The daemon paused in the center of the room. Her blue reflections were all around them in the etched glass on the wall. She tucked her gloves into the belt at her waist where her keys hung on their iron ring. Her movements were distorted in the glass, broken into a thousand jagged pieces by the birds and thorny vines.

  And that’s when Kat saw it. Sybil was as hard as Severne. She could have been perfectly carved of marble standing there. Untouched. Serene. But only because the long life she’d lived had chipped all else away.

  “I’m extremely old by your standards, Katherine D’Arcy. I am old by John Severne’s. In all that time, I’ve loved only once. Unwise to love a human, even a damned one. Especially a damned one. Too easy to grow too attached when their meager lives are extended by Brimstone. But it wasn’t a choice any more than the wind chooses to blow or the rain to fall,” Sybil said.

  “Severne,” Kat said. She’d fought her own feelings for the damned man she’d thought was a daemon.

  “Yes, but not the one you’re referring to. I care for John as anyone would care for a foundling. It was his father I loved. And even though I’ve lost him, I love him still,” Sybil said.

  The daemon was not here to help her.

  Katherine’s chest tightened. She was in more danger than she’d been before. Severne had feelings for her. They softened him. Just barely. Almost indiscernibly. But still...softened. His feelings lessened the threat of the hellhound outside her door. Grim wouldn’t have harmed her. She was sure of it now.

  Because she saw the real threat of harm burning in Sybil’s eyes.

  “Levi Severne is dying. He doesn’t have much time. If he dies without full possession of his soul, he will experience an infinity of hideous burning pain, and then he’ll cease to exist. That is damnation. Nothingness. The end,” Sybil said.

  She stepped toward Kat. There was nowhere left for her to retreat. Kat could only stand her ground.

  “You can save him,” Sybil said.

  “How can I betray one man for another?” Kat asked.

  “Not one man for another. One daemon for a mortal man. Michael will exist to fight another day. Levi will end. After tortuous pain, he will end. As if he had never lived. And so will John. If you love him, you can’t let them come to that,” Sybil said.

  “I can’t love him,” Kat protested.

  There was nothing in the room she could use as a weapon. Her cello was no defense against a daemon. Severne had shown her how the Brimstone responded to her playing. All the years when she’d thought she’d been hiding, she’d only been communing with the very creatures Reynard wanted her to hate.

  “Severne’s father is senile. He doesn’t know me. He’ll never know me again. To him now, I would be a monster with my marble skin and my nightglow eyes,” Sybil said. “I can’t love him. But I do. And I always will.”

  Kat could hardly breathe. She struggled to expand her lungs with every inhalation. Severne had done horrible things. He had imprisoned hundreds of daemons in a wooden purgatory for cruelly ambitious masters.

  For his father. To save his father.

  She couldn’t love him. But she did. His torturously hard, lean body he had starved of ease for decades was now a revelation. His dependence on a monstrous daemon dog for companionship most would shun for gentler things had been a confession she had refused to see. His considerate touch had been almost worshipful of her softness, as if it was sacrosanct. Too holy for him to taste.

  If Sybil cared for him because he had been lost, Kat loved him because, in her, he was found.

  They were a pair destined to be apart. But that didn’t make her love impossible. It only made it unbearably painful.

  It wasn’t safe. He couldn’t be trusted. His obsession with saving his father and completing the bargain his grandfather had
signed in Severne blood was absolute. It both revealed his heart and showed her that their love could never be.

  He’d been driven by it to do horrible things. The contract he was determined to honor to save his father stood between them. Irrevocably. He had tried to use her in the same way Reynard had used her.

  And just as she dealt with Reynard, she could only run away. Refuse. Reject. Abstain.

  “The dress for Michael. Save our Severnes and in return I will help you save Eric and your sister. You can take them away from his haunted place,” Sybil said.

  Did her sister love the daemon Michael? Was that why she had run away? Was she protecting him or was he threatening her in some way? If she led Sybil to Michael, she would pay for the dress. That was one bargain. If she allowed Michael to be killed, banished to the walls of l’Opéra Severne, she would give John Severne and his father their souls back. The contract John Severne’s grandfather had forged with the Council would be fulfilled. That was the second bargain. In return, Sybil would help her save Victoria and Eric.

  Terrible and fair.

  Her painful love for John Severne sat like a scorching knot in her chest, tightening around her heart.

  Michael would be imprisoned. Not dead.

  She and Victoria could take Eric into hiding with them. Somehow they could try to protect him from the Order of Samuel.

  “And what will you do?” Kat asked.

  “I made a promise to Levi Severne. It will be fulfilled. I could be free. But I will stay. I will watch over them. Until they die natural deaths. Until l’Opéra Severne crumbles to the ground and all the souls within it,” Sybil said simply, honestly. “That’s the price I pay for loving a human.”

  Silence was suddenly broken by thousands of whispers. The corridors and hallways of Severne echoed with the sound of voices too trapped in wood to be fully heard.