Demon's Curse (Imnada Brotherhood)

by Egan, Alexa

  “What kind of a name is that for a healing herb?”

  He touched the aromatic sprig of rosemary that lay pressed between the pages of the book. “It isn’t used by healers, Bianca. The Ossine burn the leaves and inhale the smoke. They say it carries them beyond their bodies and through the Gateway, where they’re reunited with the ancestors.”

  “So it’s a narcotic or an opiate. A substance that makes one see illusions.”

  “No, Bianca. There’s nothing of illusion about it. To inhale the smoke is to indeed tear free of the body and walk into death. But it’s temporary. The body remains alive to welcome the wandering soul back. To actually ingest death-bringer would be fatal. The rift would be irrevocable. The body would die, the soul left as naught more than a shade with no anchoring form to return to.”

  A chill swept over her as if a window had been thrown open, the air suddenly dank and cold like the must of a newly opened crypt. She shook off the sensation with effort, though the prickles of gooseflesh running up and down her spine remained. “Then you must have read it wrong. It can’t be the plant you know.”

  His face grew solemn, his gaze distant as if he saw something invisible to her. “No, this is the final key, the solution we’ve been searching for. I feel it as if Adam whispers it in my ear.”

  She cast a swift glance around, half prepared to catch a glimpse of an apparition. “But Adam didn’t die. He broke the curse. I saw him at night. He was himself, not a ghost or a . . . or a hallucination.”

  He focused on her again with a shrug of his shoulders. “I can’t explain how he did it. Only what I know. Death-bringer is powerful magic and, in the hands of anyone but the Ossine, poison.”

  “Then it’s as you said: there is no answer. No way to break the curse.”

  “No, Bianca. You’ve found it. Don’t you see? Without your help, I never would have known what to look for. I never would have come as far as I have. It’s just as you said, Adam broke the curse. He used the death-bringer. And so must I if I’m to finally be rid of the Fey-blood’s magics.”

  “What if something goes wrong?” She pinched her lips together in a rush of exhaled breath. “What if the poison kills you?”

  Another shrug, as if death were as trivial as a missed meal. “Then I die, Bianca. But I die knowing I made the attempt.”

  “I don’t want to lose you. Not now. Not when I’ve only just found you.”

  “You’ll not lose me.” He tipped her face to his, his mouth curled into a heartbreaking smile, though sorrow touched the corners of his eyes. “Trust me.”

  She blinked away tears. “How did I know you were going to say that?”

  * * *

  Descending the front steps, Mac met Lord Deane coming from the mews, his face drawn, his gaze grim. “Come to grovel an apology at her feet?”

  Mac collared him, nerves raw, emotions running like a river in spate. “Look, Fey-blood. I’ve no choice but to tolerate you, but don’t push it.”

  Deane’s eyes flicked to the hand on his lapel, gold flashing in his somber eyes. “Gray warned me you were the perfect soldier. Question nothing. Toe the line. Do as you’re ordered. No matter the cost to you or others. Does he paint an accurate picture?”

  “If this is your idea of a recruitment speech, you’ll have to polish your delivery. Bianca’s inside with your wife. I want you to keep her there. Do whatever you have to do, but don’t let her out of your sight.”

  “You believe Renata Froissart remains a threat to her?”

  “I’ve felt the woman’s madness, her lust for vengeance. She grows impatient and reckless. She would use any weapon against me that came to hand. Including Bianca.”

  “Is she a weapon? Or is she a tool?”

  Animal fury choked closed Mac’s throat, the panther riding just beneath his skin. “I’d take care if I were you, my lord, lest a slip of the tongue cuts your throat.”

  Instead of responding with rage or even mild alarm, Deane relaxed, amusement twitching the edges of his mouth. “Not an answer, but it will do.” He threw a swift, shuttered glance to the house. “There’s something you must know. I’ve sent a letter to de Coursy, but he rode for the north this morning.”

  “Go on.”

  “Stories are circulating. Stories of demon shifters walking among us once again. Stories of monsters bearing the forms of men, dealing blood and death and evil rivaling anything hell might bring forth.”

  “You believe Madame Froissart is the source?”

  “I do. Trouble is brewing. The rumors are gaining strength like tinder before a flame. If she’s not stopped, she could throw all that our group has accomplished thus far into jeopardy.”

  “She could awaken a new Fealla Mhòr.”

  Weariness hovered in Deane’s eyes. “The Other are only a few months away from a conspiracy that brought us to the brink of war with the human world. Suspicions still run high and fear remains rife among my people. All it would take is the right spark for the bloodshed and deaths to begin all over again.”

  “Then I’ll just have to make sure that spark is snuffed, won’t I?”

  With a nod, Mac descended the last steps to the drive, Deane’s voice checking his stride. “Bianca cares for you, Flannery. Don’t make her regret it.”

  Mac squeezed his eyes shut and said a silent prayer to the goddess, his heart like lead in his chest as he walked away. One order he could not promise would be carried out.

  * * *

  A watchman called the hour of three, but the lights within the Froissart house still burned bright, the party of dark-clad men who’d entered shortly before midnight still inside. What did they do in there? What plans did they hatch? A footman had left an hour ago and had not returned. The young man had come within a breath of Mac’s hideaway, his gaze passing without seeing over the enormous dark form crouched in the gloom of the alley.

  Since then, there had been no other movement from the house, and Mac was left to stand guard in a cold, misty rain that silvered his fur, hung in droplets from his whiskers, and made a long night downright uncomfortable.

  At four, a carriage drew up to the curb, rousing Mac from a half-lidded doze to narrow his gaze on the man emerging from the town house to stand in the guttering light from the doorway, his fur-collared coat turned up around his neck, a hat standing tall upon his dark hair. He turned to speak to someone beyond Mac’s vision before entering the carriage. A few words in the clipped abruptness of Lyonnais French, but enough for Mac’s heart to race as he growled low in his throat, ears clamped against his skull, tail lashing. He knew that voice. Had heard the oozing oily viciousness of it as his flesh had been peeled off him in strips and pain had lived in every soft-spoken ruthless syllable.

  The Frenchman lived.

  The hunt was on.

  23

  Dawn barely pinked the sky when Bianca left her rooms for the library and the stack of books still to be studied. One problem solved. A greater and potentially lethal problem created. There had to be something she’d missed. Some clue among Adam’s writings overlooked in the excitement of yesterday’s success. But what?

  The house was quiet, with only a few servants up and about, starting fires, cleaning and dusting the unending maze of rooms, setting the table for breakfast.

  Worrying at her dilemma like a dog with a bone, Bianca ignored them all as she wandered through the Blue Salon, the Round Room, the gallery. Only occasionally did a whisper penetrate her concentration.

  “. . . one what done it with that dead chap in the park . . .”

  “. . . don’t look like a fancy woman . . .”

  “. . . don’t believe it . . . hurt a fly, she could . . .”

  She barely acknowledged the snatched comments, other than to note that the papers had not yet lost interest in the lurid circumstances surrounding Adam’s death. They still sought to spin tales from vicious gossip and sly innuendo. Somehow that didn’t bother her as it might have done a month ago or even a week ago. A bulwark stoo
d solid now between herself and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Mac was an anchor holding her safely in place. A net when she fell. Wings to help her fly.

  She sailed through the hushed remarks unscathed until a cleared throat and a touch upon her sleeve drew her back from her thoughts to find Donas standing at her shoulder.

  “Pardon me, mum, but a letter’s come for you.” He handed her a wrinkled folded page, the inexpensive paper thin and stained.

  Her stomach clenched as she fumbled with the simple blob of sealing wax, trying to still the slight trembling in her hands as she read the scrawled words written there. “Is His Lordship awake?” she asked.

  “He’s not here, mum. A message come last night and he left straightaway for his estates in Berkshire. None know when he’ll return.”

  Bianca barely heard him, her mind already skipping ahead as she worked out the next minutes, the next hours. Flinging the page down, she hastened for the stairs and the pistol she’d retrieved from Holles Street. “Call us a carriage, Donas. We’ve a meeting to make.”

  * * *

  “You let her leave? Alone?” Mac stood in the drawing room of Deane House experiencing a depressingly familiar stomach-rolling feeling. Did he need to nail Bianca’s feet to the floor to ensure she stayed put? Were his worst nightmares coming true?

  Lady Deane’s hands clenched into fists in her lap, her gold-shot gaze hardening. “Not alone. She took Donas with her.”

  The shambling muscle-bound mountain from the marketplace. Mac’s heart rate ratcheted down from terrified to merely scared witless. Then he read the hasty explanation Bianca had penned before she left, and his fear exploded back into white-hot panic. The man could be the fucking Matterhorn and he’d stand no chance against the Frenchman’s battle magic or his blade. Nor would Bianca.

  “Shit all! When did they leave?”

  By now Lady Deane had risen from her seat, her imperious gaze growing more frightened by the moment. “An hour ago.”

  Plenty of time to travel into the City. Plenty of time to fall into a cesspit of trouble.

  “Shit,” Mac snarled again as his hand fell to the hilt of his dagger, the taste of blood in his mouth where he’d bitten down hard to keep from shouting his rage. One . . . two . . . three . . . He counted the jagged spasms of fear lancing his innards.

  “What’s going on, Captain?” Lady Deane asked.

  Mac paused in his rabid pacing. “I followed one of Renata Froissart’s men last night. Where do you think the bastard went?”

  “By the murder in your gaze and the way you’re gripping that knife of yours as if you mean to lop off my head, I’d say to Mr. Ringrose’s apothecary.”

  “You got it right in one. Whether the man’s in league with Froissart or merely a dupe to her schemes, I don’t fucking care. Bianca is walking into a trap. Renata Froissart sent that message, I’m sure of it. She lured Bianca there, knowing I’d follow.”

  “Bianca went there for you, Captain. She felt there was no other way.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better? This curse has cost me my family, my clan, my friends, and nearly my sanity. I’ll not let it claim Bianca too.” He pulled himself together. Running headlong would gain him nothing but a faster death. He needed to think things through before he ran willy-nilly into the Fey-blood’s den. “Get word to your husband if you can, my lady. He’ll know what to do.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ll visit Ringrose. If Bianca’s not there, he’ll know where she’s being held.”

  “What if he doesn’t want to say?”

  “Then he dies, my lady.”

  She gripped the back of a sofa, the deep green of her gown only emphasizing the chalky pallor of her skin. “If Bianca is the bait for this trap, won’t you be giving them what they want if you simply walk right in?”

  “They’ll learn to be careful what they wish for.” His smile revealed extended fangs, his body alive with the power and precision of the panther. Lady Deane’s recoil only adding to his already keen-edged nerves. She was right to be afraid of him. Right to fear the Imnada. They suffered no enemy to live and defended their own to the last breath in their bodies.

  Bianca was his.

  He would kill for her.

  If need be, he would die for her.

  * * *

  Mac’s reconnaissance of the area around Ringrose’s shop offered him little to go on. The windows remained as crusted over with city grime as ever; the sign creaked in the fitful breeze off the river; a scrawny, half-fed dog slunk out of the yard with a dead rat in its mouth. Nothing else stirred and no voices sounded from within. Drawing his knife, he tried the door, the latch turning easily, the overloud tinkle of the bell jangling down his spine and into the pit of his stomach.

  The interior seemed even filthier and more cluttered than it had yesterday. Ignoring the buzz of Fey-blood magic skittering along his bones like nails on a slate, he traveled up and down the aisles, boot heels crunching on broken glass, liquid puddling on the floor around gobs of unidentifiable flesh. A plant lay shredded in pieces among the remnants of its shattered pot as if someone had flung it against a wall, the sweet fragrance of its torn and broken petals mingling with the acrid stench of embalming fluid and rot that clung to his nostrils and the back of his throat.

  Shadows crawled like inky wraiths over the walls as if unseen watchers followed his every move, and a draft stirred the faded curtain sealing off the shop’s back rooms. A draft that carried with it the faintest hint of orange and spice—and blood and fear.

  He’d barely put a hand upon the curtain when a shadow dropped from the ceiling in a rush of black. Instinct took over. Mac dropped to his knees, back bowed to the floor as Ringrose’s crow swooped past, talons poised to claw his eyes out, beak sharp as a razor.

  The bird squawked, wheeling around for another dive, but Mac was faster. He grabbed up a piece of the broken clay pot, firing the missile as the crow plunged. The shard struck the bird’s outstretched left wing, causing it to tumble in a ruffled ball of feathers and feet end over end to the floor, where it skidded beneath a cabinet and lay unmoving.

  “Badb!” Ringrose charged through the curtain to scoop up the bird the way a mother would cradle a child. “Look what you’ve gone and done. She’d not hurt a soul and you’ve killed her. Speak to me, Badb. Speak to Papa.”

  Reaffirming the grip on his knife, Mac regained his feet, noting the tear in his jacket where the bird’s claws had raked the cloth on a path to his jugular. “Where’s Mrs. Parrino?”

  The old man continued stroking the dead bird, murmuring under his breath, his bent shoulders and skinny fingers shaking as he struggled with his emotions.

  “How much did Renata Froissart pay you to write that note?” Mac growled. “Where is she? What has she done with Bianca?”

  Ringrose lifted his head, tears streaming from red-rimmed eyes, his face twisted in anguish. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve not seen Mrs. Parrino since yesterday when the two of you rudely interrupted my luncheon.”

  “And the man who came here last night? A tall fellow. Dark hair. French.”

  Again Ringrose shook his head. “You’re mistaken. No one came last night. You must have this shop confused with another. Now go away.” His gaze narrowed. “Go away. Leave before it’s too late.”

  Small chance of that. There weren’t two such magic-heavy rabbit warrens in all of London. He knew what he’d seen and he’d seen the Frenchman entering this shop. He felt Ringrose’s deception in the sour stench of sweat and fear rolling off him. He knew more than he was telling.

  Mac grabbed him by the shirt, only the veriest thread keeping him from wringing the scrawny man’s neck as he’d broken his bird’s. “Tell me what you know, old man.”

  “Mac? You got the note I left with Sarah. You came.”

  Her voice. Her scent.

  Releasing Ringrose, Mac spun round to see Bianca standing at the curtain, her golden hair tumbling lo
ose from its pins, a smudge high on a cheekbone that looked all too much like a bruise, but other than that she appeared to be unharmed. His immediate terror abated, though he remained on his guard.

  He crossed the room toward her outstretched arms, wanting to touch her, hold her, assure himself this wasn’t some cunning hallucination. “Are you hurt? What’s the old man done to you? Where’s Froissart?”

  He’d made it only halfway when a second figure emerged from behind the curtain, dragging Bianca back against his brawny chest, his other hand holding a pistol to her temple.

  “Are you in such a rush to meet death, shifter?” the Frenchman asked. “For that is what Renata has planned for you. A slow and very gruesome death.”

  Fey-blood magic pulsed the air like a dissonant chord. It jolted along Mac’s nerve endings like a constant strike at his funny bone. How much of it was attributable to the Frenchman, Ringrose, or the hidden presence of Froissart was impossible to determine from the cacophony blurring his vision and making his head throb. “You tried and failed once. What makes you think this time you’ll be any more successful?”

  The Frenchman’s lips curled in a cruel rictus of a smile, his eyes empty as death, the grip on his pistol unwavering. “Her.”

  Bianca lifted her chin as the barrel of the pistol dug into her neck.

  Mac’s hands curled to fists, his body aflame. Every ounce of fear and sorrow and guilt accompanied the ribbon of his pathing. I’ll not let him harm you, Bianca.

  Bianca’s gaze clouded, and she answered with a barely perceptible shake of her head.

  “Throw down your weapons, shifter. Now.”

  Mac tossed his dagger to the floor with a clang, pushing it forward with the toe of his boot. Then he pulled his brace of pistols from under his coat, laying each one down, shoving them one by one toward the Frenchman’s feet.

  “And the blade you’ve hidden away in your boot.”

  Mac hesitated until the Frenchman pressed his gun into Bianca’s neck once more. Kneeling, he drew a second slim blade from his boot, adding it to the pile. “Let her go. She’s not part of this.”