Lady Helen and the Dark Days Pact

by Alison Goodman

  ‘I have your pages, Louis. What is the cure?’ Carlston’s voice, strained into a rasp.

  He must have entered from the back. Three strides and Helen was upon the doorstep, pushing past the maid and dodging the Comtesse’s ample figure.

  ‘Sir!’ the maid protested.

  Helen swiftly gathered in her surroundings: a small hallway, papered in green striped silk. The only furnishing was a long hall table set against the stair casement with a large vase of pink roses upon it, their delicate perfume carrying across the air. The Comte stood on the stairs, halfway up, clad in a blue kerseymere jacket with his hat upon his head, as if he had been caught ready to descend to the coach. Lord Carlston had positioned himself a few steps below, the journal in one hand and a pistol in the other, only the barrel of the weapon in view. Road grime and sweat smeared his face, his profile set into the savagery that Helen knew only too well. Even so, he swayed upon his feet. No wonder: he held the journal tight in his bare hand. Behind him, Quinn stood with legs braced over two steps, body tensed, as if ready to catch him. Or leap upon him.

  ‘Louis!’ Helen turned at the Comtesse’s irritated call to her husband. The woman still stood in the doorway, her hands spread in outraged inquiry. ‘Where did all these men come from?’ she demanded in French. ‘What do they want?’

  She had clearly not seen the pistol.

  ‘It is all right, my love. Lord Carlston is an old acquaintance,’ the Comte answered in English, his voice measured. He dragged his eyes from the gun to glance at Helen on the floor below. ‘Do I know you, monsieur?’

  ‘It is I, Lady Helen.’

  She saw Quinn take a quick breath — relief — although he kept his eyes on his master. Carlston did not seem to register her arrival. The elderly Frenchman above him held all his attention.

  The Comte gave a forced smile. ‘Ah, Lady Helen. A most excellent disguise.’ He addressed the maid at his wife’s side. ‘Elizabeth, take your mistress outside.’

  The Comtesse hitched her hands upon her hips, rouged lips pursing. ‘But, Louis,’ she said in French, ‘we must go now if we are to make this appointment.’

  He held up his hand. ‘Antoinette. Please! Elizabeth, take your mistress out, now!’

  The Comtesse murmured a frustrated ‘sa-sa’ beneath her breath, but allowed herself to be ushered from the house.

  The Comte waited until his wife and her maid had disappeared through the door, then said, ‘So, you have discovered Benchley’s journal, Guillaume, and come to make our deal?’

  ‘What is the cure?’ Carlston rasped.

  ‘No,’ Helen said. She crossed to the balustrade and looked up through its rail. ‘Carlston, you must give me the journal.’

  He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as if trying to focus sight and mind.

  ‘What is happening?’ the Comte asked, perplexed. ‘Lady Helen, do you not wish Guillaume to be cured?’

  A clatter from the back of the house swung Helen to face the dark passage that led beyond the hall. She heard footsteps, so fast that she had only a second to register one thought — uncanny speed — and then crouch into readiness as a figure burst into the vestibule. Her vision adjusted, the speed of the man sliding from a blur into the recognisable tall, thin form of Stokes. Behind him, another figure approached, caught in the treacle-slow progress of normal momentum. Pike.

  Stokes came to a stop in front of Helen. The jarring shift of speed snapped her senses back into normality, bringing an instant of dizziness that resolved into Pike coming down the corridor at a run.

  ‘Throw the journal to me, Carlston,’ Stokes ordered. ‘You must surrender it.’

  Carlston stared at him as if he did not recognise the other Reclaimer.

  ‘Come on, man,’ Stokes urged. ‘You cannot give a Ligatus to a Deceiver!’

  ‘What?’ the Comte said, his gaze fixing upon the journal. ‘Benchley made a Ligatus?’

  Pike entered the hallway, panting. ‘Lord Carlston!’ Drawing in deep breaths, he strode past Helen and Stokes and took the first two steps, coming to an abrupt halt as Quinn turned and blocked the way.

  ‘Do not make this worse, Quinn,’ Pike snapped. He looked past the big man and jabbed the air with his forefinger. ‘Carlston, I order you to hand over that journal now. If you attempt to give it to the Comte, it is treason.’

  Carlston lifted the pistol, aiming at Pike. Did he not care that Quinn was too close?

  ‘Look out!’ Helen yelled.

  The Terrene slammed his back against the wall as Carlston pulled the trigger. The blast cracked through the air, pushing Helen into a reflexive duck. The ball whirred and hit the stringboard of the staircase with a dull thud. A plume of acrid smoke rolled across the hallway.

  ‘Did you see that?’ Pike demanded, lurching back down the steps. ‘He tried to kill me!’

  Carlston dropped the spent pistol. It bounced down the steps past Quinn. The Terrene stared at its trajectory, his face pale.

  Above them, the Comte declared, ‘Guillaume, get out! I want no part of this.’

  ‘You promised me a cure,’ Carlston said.

  He advanced upon the Comte, forcing him back up the stairs. With a desperate glance at Helen, Quinn followed.

  ‘Stokes, get the journal,’ Pike ordered. ‘Whatever way you can!’

  Stokes started towards the staircase, but Helen grabbed his arm, stopping him. ‘I will get it.’ She rounded on Pike. ‘Let me try. He will give it to me.’

  ‘Too late. He nearly killed me!’

  ‘He does not know what he is doing! The journal brings on madness. It is making him worse.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Pike jerked his chin at Stokes. ‘Get going.’

  Stokes pulled his arm from Helen’s grasp. ‘I’m sorry, it has to be destroyed, Lady Helen.’

  ‘Lawrence! Lawrence!’ The yell came from outside. A woman’s voice: the maid. ‘Murder, murder!’

  Helen whirled around to face the open doorway. The maid was on her knees beside her mistress. The Comtesse had collapsed to the ground in a crumpled heap of royal blue silk, her vivid face drained of colour, a red stain blossoming through the lace above her left breast.

  Helen’s view of the two women was suddenly blocked as Lawrence, the Comte’s valet, ran into the hall, dark face intent, body angled, a coppery tang of blood on his body.

  Stokes clearly smelled it too, for he charged at the smaller man at Reclaimer speed. Helen followed, a step behind, catching sight of a dagger in Lawrence’s hand as it flashed upward in a lethal arc.

  ‘Watch out!’ she yelled.

  Stokes recoiled, his reflexes saving him from the slash at his throat. Instead, the knife connected with his chin, slicing along his jaw in a hot spray of blood. He staggered back into Helen, his desperate grab at her shoulders for support slamming both of them into the wall. The brutal impact punched the air from Helen’s lungs. Gulping, she clutched Stokes’s jacket, struggling to keep upright, her hands wet with his blood.

  She reached out wildly with her other senses — searching for the taste, shape, sound of an energy whip around Lawrence — but found nothing. He’d not had a chance to glut. He only had the knife, yet that was deadly enough.

  Opposite them, she saw Pike turning slowly to look out of the doorway at the Comtesse, locked into human momentum.

  ‘Antoinette!’ the Comte screamed. He started to descend the stairs at Deceiver speed, blocked by Carlston. ‘Get out of my way!’

  Lawrence accelerated across the vestibule and leaped onto the hall table. The vase of roses smashed to the floor as he vaulted over the banister and landed on the step above the Comte, using the momentum to plunge his knife into the old man’s shoulder. Helen heard the hilt thud against the Comte’s body.

  The old man gasped and buckled to the steps as Lawrence wrenched out the knife and met Carlston’s attack. He held the high-ground advantage and as Carlston lunged — journal still clasped in one hand, glass knife in the other — Lawrence aimed a vicious sid
e-kick at his lordship’s chest. As his foot connected, Carlston stabbed down with the glass knife, the blade finding purchase in the Deceiver’s leg. The momentum of the kick rammed Carlston backward, the glass blade ripping through flesh and muscle.

  Lawrence screamed, falling back against the wall. Carlston staggered down two steps, the journal dropping from his hand and landing against the balustrade.

  Quinn charged past him and launched himself at Lawrence. The Deceiver slashed upward with his knife, ripping across Quinn’s gut. Blood surged through white shirt and green waistcoat into a bright scarlet crescent. The Terrene gasped and doubled over, teetering for a moment before stumbling backward and landing on Carlston.

  ‘Quinn!’ Helen yelled. She started towards the stairs, her impetus abruptly stopped by a bloodied hand on her shoulder.

  ‘No, you’re not ready for this,’ Stokes panted, his other hand clamped over the gash along his jaw. ‘You’ll get in the way. Stay here.’

  In the way? Before she could protest, he shoved her back and ran for the stairs.

  Lawrence, seeing him coming, grabbed the journal and hobbled up the last few steps, his injured leg dragging. The Comte made a feeble grab at his ankle as he passed, but he shook off the old man’s grip and pulled himself by the banister around to the next set of steps, disappearing from view.

  With a roar of frustration, Carlston pushed Quinn off him. Helen gasped as the big Islander rolled down a few steps, landing in a sprawled heap. Sweet heaven: even Quinn’s peril did not penetrate the savage madness in Carlston’s face. He levered himself up and climbed the stairs after Lawrence, Stokes close behind him.

  ‘Stay with the Comtesse, Lady Helen,’ Pike said, his voice slow and slurred. Helen blinked, her senses shifting back to normal speed. ‘Stokes will get the journal.’

  Above them came the crash of furniture, the sound of yells and grunts. On the staircase, Quinn pulled himself upright and, bent over his wound, followed the sounds of the battle.

  ‘Lady Helen,’ the Comte rasped from the steps. Blood trickled from his sleeve, pooling on the carpet runner. ‘The cure for Carlston … the Grand Deceiver. Do you still want to know?’

  Helen ran up the stairs and stopped on the step below the old Comte. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Help me kill Lawrence … before this body expires. I will tell you all when he is dead.’

  ‘Tell me now!’

  The Comte hauled himself up a step towards the landing. ‘He has killed my Antoinette. Help me avenge her, then I will tell you.’

  Helen grabbed the Comte’s arm and pulled him to his feet.

  Pike looked up through the balustrades. ‘Do not help him!’ he ordered. ‘He is a Deceiver. You cannot trust him.’

  ‘I trust him more than I trust you.’ More to the point, she trusted the Comte’s desire for revenge. She ducked under the old Deceiver’s arm, taking his sagging weight. ‘Is Lawrence the Grand Deceiver?’

  The Comte gave a ghastly wet laugh. ‘No. He is a Cruor. I hired him to protect us … should have known he is a creature of the Grand Deceiver.’

  ‘Do you hear that?’ she said, addressing Pike over her shoulder. ‘The Grand Deceiver is real!’

  ‘Hurry,’ the Comte panted. ‘This body does not have long.’

  Helen gathered her Reclaimer strength and steered the Comte rapidly up the stairs, half dragging, half carrying him. She grabbed the balustrade and pulled them both around onto the first floor. From the sounds above, the fight was on the next level. Hauling the Comte with her, she took the steps, pausing for a moment at the top. The sound of bodies hitting walls and smashing wood came from the second room along the corridor.

  ‘They are in my dressing room,’ the Comte gasped in her ear. ‘Take me.’

  ‘No! You cannot fight Lawrence.’ She could not risk the Comte dying before she got the cure. ‘I will get him for you.’

  She had a small hope that if she touched Lawrence, she would drain him, like last time.

  She dragged the Comte to the next room, the connecting bedchamber, and wrenched open the door. Wood-panelled walls and bright patterned yellow paper barely registered; all her focus was upon the large bed set against the wall. She crossed to it and twisted her body to swing the old Deceiver down upon its yellow cover, the action prompting a hiss of pain from him.

  He reached for the wound in his shoulder, the blue wool of his jacket sodden with blood. ‘Be quick, or we shall both lose our chance.’

  The door to the dressing room was still closed. Helen ran to it and flung it open. The room was shifting between blurs of velocity and moments of distinct bodies in the space: Carlston, Stokes, Quinn and Lawrence. She blinked, her Reclaimer sight coalescing the whole into a heaving battle scene.

  Carlston clearly did not know, or perhaps care, who he was fighting. He had jammed the journal in his waistcoat and was defending it with brutal kicks and punches that were, for the moment, driving back Stokes. Helen’s skin tightened with fear. There was no sign of sanity in Carlston’s eyes. Only pitiless savagery. Had the Ligatus already consumed him?

  ‘Lord Carlston!’ she yelled.

  He did not even look up. Stokes, however, checked for a moment. A costly moment: Carlston slammed his head against the wall. Stokes managed to block the next hit, driving Carlston back with a kick to the stomach.

  Quinn was caught in a low grapple with Lawrence — both injured and bleeding profusely — but the Terrene was barely able to land a blow against the vicious Cruor. Even so, he did not let go, grittily taking the Deceiver’s vicious punches. His shirt and waistcoat were sodden with bright blood, the black tattoos stark against the pallor of his skin.

  Helen lunged for Lawrence and grabbed a handful of the man’s hair, hauling him off Quinn. She held her breath, but no, there was no draw of glorious energy like last time. It must only happen when they had whips.

  The valet twisted, breaking her hold, landing on his knees. She half pivoted, gaining momentum, and rammed the edge of her boot into the soft connection between his neck and shoulder. She felt the crunch of bone and ligament. He collapsed onto his side gasping, then rolled and scrabbled onto his feet.

  ‘Non vi combatto,’ he said, backing away. I do not fight you.

  The declaration checked her for an instant — why would none of them fight her? — but right then it was an advantage she would take. She gathered her strength again and spun, driving her foot into his gut, the impact doubling him over. Regaining balance, she shifted her weight forward, hooking her arm around his throat into a headlock. He grabbed at the choking hold, fingers ripping at her arm. She dragged him towards the dressing room door, the fight between Carlston and Stokes still raging in a punishing trade of blows.

  Quinn hauled himself upright, his body bent over the ominous gut wound. ‘Do you need help, my lady?’ he panted.

  ‘No. Help Stokes contain Lord Carlston.’

  ‘Stokes is not trying to contain him, my lady,’ Quinn said.

  Helen sent a wild glance over her shoulder, keeping her arm locked tightly around Lawrence’s neck. Quinn was right: Stokes was not holding back.

  ‘Stokes!’ she yelled. ‘Do not kill him.’

  ‘I have my orders, Lady Helen!’ Stokes yelled back, ducking a vicious punch aimed at his throat. ‘And he is trying to kill me!’

  There was no time to argue. ‘Quinn, protect your master,’ she ordered and heaved Lawrence another few steps towards the door.

  The Deceiver grabbed for the doorframe, abruptly stopping their progress, straining against her momentum. She rammed his injured leg against the frame, his flinching pain giving her the moment to rip his hands free and drag him into the bedchamber.

  Quinn slammed the door behind them. She knew she was delivering Lawrence to his death, but it was the only path to Carlston’s cure.

  ‘Here,’ the Comte gasped. He held a pistol — retrieved from a brace on the table — the weight of it making his hands shake. ‘Bring him here!’

&
nbsp; Yells and footsteps ascended the stairs to the third floor; the fight had shifted upstairs. She had to get the cure and get it up there as soon as possible.

  ‘Traditore!’ Lawrence yelled at the Comte. Traitor.

  He lunged, his body weight rocking Helen forward. She tried to tighten her hold upon his neck, but pain exploded through her foot as he rammed his heel onto her bones, then jabbed his elbow into the soft apex of her diaphragm. She doubled over, breath locked into a choking gasp, her hold loosening enough for him to leap for the gun. He was trying to finish his task.

  He clamped his hands over the Comte’s bony grip and slowly turned the barrel towards the old Deceiver’s face.

  Gulping for air, Helen lunged for the wildly weaving gun, finding a handhold around the top. She yanked, but could not pull the gun free; Lawrence’s strength matched her own. All three of them grappled for control, straining to point the barrel. To find the trigger.

  The Comte was all but spent, the hollows of his face greyed by the shadows of death, but perhaps he would have enough to tip the balance in her favour.

  ‘Comte, together,’ she gasped.

  The old Deceiver’s eyes hardened with intent as she focused all of her Reclaimer strength.

  Inch by inch she felt the barrel turn, its aim slowly shifting to Lawrence’s face. His hot, panting breath smelled of sharp alcohol and juniper, and his dark eyes bulged from the strain of fighting against their combined effort.

  Helen slid her finger down, feeling for the rounded shape of the trigger guard. There! She jabbed her finger through, finding the smooth curve of the trigger. A little more to the right and … The blast boomed in her ears, juddering through her bones. The brutal recoil threw her back against the bed table, and flung the Comte against the bedhead, his skull connecting with a sickening crack.

  The lead ball smashed through Lawrence, the force sending out a spray of blood and bone, twisting him upon his feet so that for a moment he faced Helen. She caught a nightmare vision of blood and bone and teeth where his mouth should have been, and then he crumpled face first to the floor.