Scoundrel

by Zoë Archer

  Bennett had never seen two magic users battle one another, but now was not the time for spectating. He wheeled and fired on the remaining mercenaries closing in on London, then charged. Sometimes, a fist could accomplish more than a bullet.

  He swung the Eye, slamming the metal side into the face of one man reaching for London. Red spurted from a cut the Eye carved in the man’s neck, and he shrieked, clutching at the wound. The remaining mercenary dove at Bennett. They grappled, grunting, swearing, throwing punches. The man was a brute, big and strong and stupid, precisely the sort the Heirs found all over the world. He might not have been smart, but he could sure land a punch. Bennett winced as he collected bruises, but gave back as hard as he got.

  A woman’s yelp of pain distracted him. He glanced over. And all rational thought vanished.

  Everything had been going very nicely. Perhaps not nicely—she could not feel pleased to see men shot and killed, though wounding them was rather gratifying—but she’d actually loaded and fired a rifle, and the men charging up the hill toward her and Bennett were diminishing.

  Then the rifle was torn from her grasp and a blinding pain clouded her head. London fell back, her shoulders slamming into the rocky ground. Her vision hadn’t even cleared when her head was pulled back roughly by her hair, and a heavy weight settled on her chest, pinning her to the ground. Something cold and biting pressed into the center of her chest. A knife, just nicking her skin. A corset would have given her some protection, but she’d long abandoned the restrictive garment. Now, she thought better of her decision as a warm trickle dripped between her ribs.

  “This was supposed to be my mission, damn it,” snarled Fraser in her ear. “Simple. Get the Source. Get the woman. A seat in the inner circle. Everything I wanted. Mine. Then you had to send it all to hell.” The fist gripping her hair shook her head. “Damned whore.”

  “I’d never…marry you….” London gasped. She tried to kick him, but he held her down and her feet could only scrape on the ground. “You laugh…through your nose. Like a…braying donkey.”

  Fraser’s face twisted into a sneer as he pushed his knife closer into her chest. The tip of the blade slid a quarter inch beneath her skin. “Looking forward to cutting you, bitch.”

  Before London could explain that he was already cutting her, Fraser suddenly disappeared. She struggled to sit, then saw Fraser and Bennett locked in vicious combat. The mercenary lay forgotten on the ground, his breath rattling and then stopping, while Bennett’s attention turned to a new opponent. He and Fraser were savage, beating each other without cessation. Blood coated their fists. Someone, she couldn’t tell who, lost a tooth. It glinted on the ground, next to Fraser’s dropped knife.

  She picked up her rifle, but it was impossible to shoot. Not without the very real probability that she might hit Bennett.

  The men rolled together, punching and kicking, far removed from genteel fisticuffs. They wanted to kill each other. Nothing else would suffice. Awful to watch and yet London could not turn away. She looked for a way to help Bennett.

  He growled as Fraser, straddling a prone Bennett, tried to pull the Eye of the Colossus off of his arm.

  “It’s mine,” Fraser panted. “The Source is mine.”

  A dark smile curled one corner of Bennett’s mouth. “Take it.” With a grunt, Bennett shoved the Eye toward Fraser. The Source glowed, white hot. Fraser screamed as the metal burned him.

  Bennett raised up onto one knee, his other foot braced hard on the ground, and pushed Fraser with the Eye. Fraser stumbled. He rolled backward down the hill, tumbling in an unstoppable freefall, feet over head, slamming into the unyielding rocky ground. It was a long fall, but it wasn’t until Fraser reached the top of the amphitheater that he truly gained momentum. He bounced from tier to tier, cracking his head on the hard stone, limbs flailing until he was limp. When he landed at the base of the amphitheater, his body lay at an unnatural angle, his neck bent, eyes open. Dead.

  Bennett was beside her in a moment, his fingers running tenderly over her face. She flinched when he lightly brushed the growing bruise from Fraser’s slap, and Bennett swore. He cursed further to see the thin line of blood down the front of her shirt. “Maybe I’ll go down the hill and kill him all over again. Slower.”

  Her own minor injuries didn’t concern her. “Are you hurt badly?” Her hands hovered over the bleeding scrapes on his cheekbones, the drop of crimson in the corner of his mouth. He was covered in dust, clothes torn. But so beautiful, her paladin.

  “Another day at the office.” He grinned, then winced. “Ouch. No smiling.”

  London, at least, was relieved to see that the lost tooth didn’t belong to him. Fraser wouldn’t care about his damaged smile. Not anymore.

  She thought she should feel sadness or horror at Fraser’s death and was surprised to feel nothing at all.

  “What did you do with the Eye?” she asked. “You made it burn him.”

  Bennett looked slightly abashed. “I tried not to.”

  “Why can’t you use it?”

  “Because it doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the Greek people.”

  “Bennett,” she said, touching her fingertips to his chin, commanding his attention, “didn’t you tell me you’re part Greek?”

  He went very still. “One eighth. On my mother’s side.”

  They both glanced at the Eye, still strapped to his arm. She almost swore that it winked at them.

  “Help Athena,” London urged.

  Below, in the amphitheater, the witch and the sorcerer hurled spells at one another, conjuring up clouds of magic that raked each other like storms. Athena swayed on her feet, unused to channeling such potent magic, but she remained standing, pushing back against Chernock with the power of generations of Galanos women. London thought she saw, in the swirling nebulae over the amphitheater, the forms of helmeted warrior women, Amazons and witches, battling against misshapen beasts. The air was thick with the sounds of combat.

  Bennett rose and helped London up. He started down the hill, toward the amphitheater, but rocks exploded near his feet. He shoved her behind him, then pulled her toward an outcropping of rock. They both hunkered in the shelter, ducking down when more debris rained down on them. He peered around the rock, then whipped back, scowling.

  “Damn, they’ve turned the cannons on us.” Rocks exploded behind them. The Heirs were adjusting their aim. The next shot would likely be on target.

  A little smile curved her mouth. “You can use the Eye against them.”

  He grinned in response, then winced again. “Ow. I can, can’t I?”

  Raising into a crouch, he angled toward the Heirs’ ship. Then muttered, “Hell. Kallas, you heroic idiot.”

  The captain had sailed the caique around the island and was now barreling toward the steamship at top speed. The men on the deck of the steamship didn’t see him. Yet.

  “He’s going to ram them,” London whispered. “To provide a distraction.”

  “And sink himself in the process.” Bennett surged to his feet, his expression set and determined.

  A screech rent the air. London and Bennett whirled to see the demon, bloodied but alive, hurtling toward them, maddened savagery burning in its eyes like coals. Before Bennett could raise the Eye, the demon plunged straight at them.

  She scampered aside, trying to draw it away from Bennett. One of its hands swiped at her, ripping a hank of hair from her head. Her scalp burned, but she wouldn’t stop moving, dodging its grasping claws and snapping teeth.

  London acted instinctively. She dove for a nearby rifle. The rifle’s bolt flew in her hands as she ejected the spent shell and reloaded. Then, steeling herself, she aimed and fired.

  Another scream as she hit the rakshasa square in its abdomen. The beast reared back, splattering black blood. Such a wound might kill or stop a man—but the demon was no man, and its directive was clear. Kill London. Kill Bennett. Do not stop until they were dead.

  London flung an arm ov
er her face as a blazing beam of light streamed from the Eye of the Colossus. Light poured from the Eye. London could barely look at it. The beam of light burned with a terrible radiance, spreading outward. It threatened to consume Bennett, and he groaned, pushing back, fighting the incandescent power.

  She ran to Bennett. The Source would kill him. She moved to pull the Eye from his arm, the heat surrounding man and Source stronger than anything she had ever felt before.

  “Get back,” he gritted. “It’ll burn you.”

  “Don’t care,” she shot back. “You’ll be hurt.”

  “No.”

  The demon charged once more, and Bennett turned the light of the Eye on it. The beast’s howl echoed, half-finished, as it turned to ash. Charred flakes caught on the wind and blew out to sea. The air smelled of burnt carrion. All that was left of the demon were its talons, glinting points stuck into the side of the hill.

  The light from the Source disappeared, and London and Bennett stared at each other, panting.

  They dove apart when a shot from the cannon slammed into the ground between them. She clung to her rifle, hoping she could use it to distract the cannons.

  Bennett leapt to his feet. He aimed the Eye of the Colossus at the steamship, then sucked in a breath. He struggled, his eyes squeezed shut, all his concentration focused inward. “I see the trick. Don’t try to master the Source. Give it room to exercise its own power.” Then his face grew calm, his breath easy.

  At once, the light receded around him, then coalesced into a beam shooting from the Eye. The light struck the water around the steamship. Fire sprung up on the surface of the water, giant flames reaching higher than the smokestacks. The fire raced up the hull of the steamship. Within moments, the ship was engulfed in flames, black smoke pouring up into the perfect blue sky. An explosion rocked the ship, sending waves of percussion in widening circles as the bodies of mercenaries were flung into the water.

  Kallas quickly adjusted his course, pulling the caique away from the blazing steamship.

  Getting to her feet, London said, her voice trembling only a little, “Be sure to thank your Greek great-grandparent, whoever he or she is.”

  Shaking his head and smiling, he reached for her. His hand stopped, hovering in midair, his attention fixed at something just beyond her shoulder. London spun around, and felt herself turn to ice.

  Her father stood right behind her, the barrel of his revolver pointed at her head.

  For a moment, London thought she might be able to speak with him, reason with him, but the complete and utter lack of emotion in his eyes told her such efforts would be fruitless. She was nothing to him. A body in his way. There was no kinship, no blood between them. Tears sprang to her eyes. She blinked them back.

  “This is for your own good,” he said flatly, cocking his gun. “And the good of England.”

  Her rifle was empty, but that didn’t mean she could not use it. She leapt toward him, using the rifle barrel like a bayonet to jab at his chest. Clearly, he wasn’t anticipating any sort of counterattack. The daughter he had raised would never think to do such a thing. But she was no longer Joseph Edgeworth’s daughter. At the same time, Bennett also sprang toward her father, so that they both collided with him.

  The blow was just enough to knock her father’s aim slightly. The revolver went off. Her shoulder caught fire. London stumbled to her knees, pressing her hand to her shoulder and seeing red seep between her fingers. An irrational thought flitted through her mind—Athena’s shirtwaist was ruined.

  Then her father and Bennett rolled on the ground. If London had thought the combat between Bennett and Fraser had been fierce, it looked like puppies playing compared to this brutality. She scarcely believed there was at least a thirty-year difference separating the men. Each fought with an ageless savagery, eyes blazing, naked hatred singeing the air around them. Even when Bennett slammed his fist into her father’s ribs, making them audibly crack, her father did not stop his own assault, ramming his elbow into Bennett’s chin. Bennett’s head snapped back, but he shook himself into consciousness before continuing his assault.

  But her father possessed an advantage. Two advantages. Bennett had been fighting for some time this day, already taking down several mercenaries and Fraser and implementing the Eye of the Colossus. He was younger, stronger, but drained. And the Eye, still strapped to his arm, hampered his movements. He didn’t have the freedom of motion her father did.

  London tried to lurch to her feet, desperate to help, but the pain radiated out, numbing her limbs. She watched as the man she loved and her father locked in lethal battle.

  Her father, growing even more frenzied, pulled a knife from a hidden sheath. Bennett grunted as the blade slashed at the arm bearing the Eye. It was as if her father meant to cut Bennett’s very arm away to get to the Source. Bennett gripped the hand holding the knife, attempting to pry it from her father’s fingers. They grappled for the knife, but Bennett couldn’t quite stop a gash along his forearm. He bent her father’s fingers back until they snapped. The older man howled, then punched at the wound on Bennett’s forearm.

  “No!” London shouted.

  Bennett’s fingers loosened just a fraction from the handle on the back of the Eye. It was enough of a window for her father. He leapt to his feet and kicked several times at Bennett’s injured arm. When Bennett’s hand spasmed involuntarily, her father grabbed the Source and wrenched it off Bennett’s arm, then landed a few solid kicks into Bennett’s side.

  Slipping his own arm through the leather straps and grasping the handle, her father’s face gleamed with demonic joy. So delirious with exultation was he, that he didn’t notice London crawling toward Bennett.

  She kept her weight off her wounded shoulder, cradling her arm against herself, but she had to reach him where he lay on the ground. His face was white as he fiercely fought against pain. London helped prop him up so that he leaned against her, and his expression was murderous when he saw the bloom of blood seeping from her shoulder. No doubt she looked the same way, taking in the bruises, scrapes, and gashes that marked him all over, especially his beautiful face and hands. She didn’t care if he was scarred forever, but she hated seeing him hurt, in pain.

  “Your shoulder,” Bennett growled. He carefully turned her so he could examine her back, and his expression slightly eased. “The bullet went all the way through. That’s good.”

  It didn’t feel particularly good—in truth, the pain was unlike anything she’d experienced—but she nodded, lips pressed tight.

  “Greek Fire,” her father crowed. “I have it. The Source is mine. It belongs to England now, for the glory of England.” He held the Eye aloft.

  “You don’t want it, Edgeworth,” Bennett muttered. “Dangerous.”

  “Of course it’s dangerous,” her father snapped. “I saw what it did to my ship, to the demon. That’s why it’s the perfect weapon. An unstoppable fire.”

  Bennett shook his head. “Dangerous to the bearer. Put it down. Save yourself.”

  “Listen to him, Father,” London said.

  “Shut up, bitch,” her father barked. “You cannot call me that anymore. You lost that privilege when you spread your legs for this bastard. Stupid woman.”

  His words were ugly, yet London didn’t flinch from them. All she felt was a dull sadness. Her father didn’t understand her at all. He never did. And she could not recognize the man she had known her whole life within this glassy-eyed beast.

  Bennett growled and moved as if to lunge at her father, a gesture that made her father laugh.

  “Give it up, Day. You failed. And,” her father added, tipping his head to indicate the amphitheater behind him, “my sorcerer will soon make mince of your pathetic witch.”

  Indeed, even as he spoke, the battle between Chernock and Athena raged on. Athena seemed to be weakening, spells uncoiling from her hands at a slower rate. The creatures within the nebula were growing more numerous than the warrior women. If Athena did not rally, a
nd soon, Chernock would overcome her.

  “Now I’ll truly claim the Source,” her father sneered. He raised the Eye, directing it at London and Bennett. “Cleanse the earth with fire. Erase all evidence of my mistakes.”

  “I’m warning you,” Bennett said. “Last chance.”

  “Enough,” her father roared. He narrowed his eyes in concentration, then gave a yelp of glee when a glow suffused from the surface of the Eye. It grew, widening, a furious burning, spreading outward. From where she knelt, several feet away, London felt the heat sizzling over her skin.

  Her father groaned, squeezing his eyes shut as sweat poured down his face. He fought the Eye, grimacing.

  “No,” he gasped. “You’re mine. Mine to command. You must obey.”

  But the harder he pushed against it, the larger the radiance grew. It rippled the air with its heat.

  At Bennett’s silent order, he and London edged back along the ground, putting distance between themselves and her father. Their hands brushed over something metal, and they both flicked their eyes down. A pistol.

  The atmosphere around her father turned incandescent, white. His skin blistered. “Bend to my will,” he snarled. “Do as I command you.”

  Bennett rose to face her father. Only she saw how Bennett swayed a little, fighting his injuries, and the pallor of his skin.

  “Get down,” London hissed, but Bennett’s attention was fixed solely on her father. An expression entirely unlike Bennett settled across his face. He smirked, gloating and smug, the picture of a self-satisfied child.

  “Looks like you’re having a spot of trouble controlling the Source,” Bennett sneered. “Just like you couldn’t control your daughter. She leapt into my bed, practically begged me to ravish her. Did you know that? Just couldn’t wait to have a Blade take her and spoil the pride of England. She was wild for it.”

  London gaped at him, at the hurtful words he said. Her father’s face purpled with rage.