Hexbound: Book 2 of The Dark Arts Series

by Bec McMaster

  Verity vanished.

  She slammed back into being just behind Trask as he stumbled forward, coming up with her pistol in hand. "I really don't want to hurt you," she said, drawing the hammer back as she pressed the muzzle of it against the back of his skull. "But I will, if need be."

  Trask spun, and she punched through time and space again, slamming a fist into his side as she reappeared. Then she was gone again. A kick to the back of the knee. A knee to his groin when he bellowed and spun toward her. Then behind him again, where she shoved him through the curtain, onto the counter. Trask groaned.

  Stepping through the door, she leveled the pistol in his face coolly. "Spoils of war?"

  This... this was the memory worker and she felt a sudden intense fury. Who knew what he'd taken from her? She'd faced dangerous people before, stared death right in the eye—but the idea of losing bits and pieces of herself both had her back up and sent a shiver of fear down her spine. Imagine if he'd taken Mercy from her? Or even the few faint traces she could recall of her mother?

  "Verity," Bishop warned. "Don't hurt him. We need answers."

  She stared along the barrel of the pistol and almost wanted to pull the trigger. "And I need my memories back."

  Trask panted, half curled over the counter. "You," he said, recognition gleaming in his eyes. "Murphy's little crow."

  Verity hadn't missed those memories until now, but the thought of this man in her head.... It made her feel dirty. "Don't tempt me, you filth. I can run rings around you if I so desire, and Mr. Bishop already wants to knot your intestines together."

  Trask laughed under his breath at her. "So that's how Murphy did it," he said, half to himself. His cock-eyed gaze slid over her shoulder as Bishop pushed through the curtain, pausing at her side like some lethal shadow. "Or did she fuck the Chalice out of you?"

  Bishop moved, and somehow Verity caught his arm.

  "I thought we didn't want to kill him?" she asked Bishop when he flexed beside her with fury. "Save your blows for later, if Mr. Trask grows somewhat recalcitrant with answers. His petty insults are simply not worth it."

  Trask glared back at her. "I ain't talking."

  Verity stepped to the side. "Oh, I think you will. Mr. Bishop, he's all yours."

  "Thank you," Bishop replied, looking faintly amused for some reason. He stripped off his coat and began to unbutton his sleeves at the wrists. "This won't take but a moment. Just make sure I don't get any blood on your skirts. I know how you feel about that."

  "Isn't he thoughtful?" she asked Trask, who looked green.

  "Here now," Trask muttered, his fingers curling into a fist. "No need for theatrics."

  "Flex those fingers again and I'll cut them off." Bishop's voice was pure ice as the two of them locked eyes. "Like you said: we both know what the other is capable of."

  Trask froze.

  "And I didn't like you the moment Agatha told me about you. Being impolite to Miss Hawkins only exacerbates the intensity of such an emotion. Don't tempt me."

  Verity didn't quite know when he'd appointed himself guardian of her reputation, but it was rather interesting to realize that Bishop didn't like hearing slurs against her. Interesting, and... surprising. She'd been alone for so long, just her and Mercy, fighting their own battles. The very idea of someone else trying to do it for her.... She didn't need him to—she could take care of herself—but... it gave her a strange sensation in her chest.

  Bishop stripped off his waistcoat and folded it in a neat pile atop his coat. He rolled his sleeves up, and Verity couldn't stop her gaze from sliding over him like a caress. My, my. She hadn't truly realized how large he was. Muscle rippled in his shoulders, and the shirt strained over that well-indented chest. But it was the faint hint of scars up the inside of one forearm that caught her eye.

  "Now, we know you were hired by a demon to wipe Verity's memories of a particular meeting away from her." Bishop turned his full attention to Trask, and Verity was suddenly very glad that he wasn't looking at her like that. An iceberg didn't seem as cold as Bishop right now.

  "A demon?"

  "Noah Guthrie," Bishop said, "who is currently serving as a vessel. Don't try and pretend you didn't know. Agatha's too good a teacher for you to have missed that particular lesson."

  Trask ran his tongue over his teeth, thinking. "Aye. I knew. Could smell it on him. He paid well."

  "What else did he want you to do?"

  "Just wipe the lass's memory, and alter Murphy's once they brought us the Chalice."

  "Murphy was killed," Bishop told him, "in a room that was locked, with a guard on the door. It's the one thing that's been bothering me for a while."

  Trask's gaze sidled sideways.

  "You were there," Bishop said, "weren't you? And you wiped the guard's memory."

  Trask said nothing, his lips pressed firmly together. But Verity went very still. She'd not thought about it. But how, precisely, had the demon killed Murphy without Conrad realizing? She set her fingers to her temple, frowning at the slight ache that grew there.

  "Trask, it's been a very vexing month for me," Bishop said, grabbing the fellow by his collar and squeezing. "Trust me when I say that I would really, really like to hit something right now. The only problem is that I'm not entirely certain I would stop if I were to begin."

  "Fine!" Trask held up his hands, starting to look nervous. "I didn't know he were going to kill him."

  "Who?"

  "Noah Guthrie," Verity said, the details beginning to fill themselves in. "Murphy would have let him in. He always thought he could handle anything. And Conrad... he's the best of the Crows. Murphy would have been too confident."

  "So Murphy hands over the Chalice, demands his coin, and gets his throat cut?" Bishop asked.

  She pressed a hand to her temples, which were suddenly aching. "No. Murphy wasn't a fool. He sent me off with the Chalice. Once the money was paid, Murphy was going to give Noah the address where I was."

  "So Murphy tells the demon he doesn't have it, and the demon kills him. Trask wipes Conrad's memory, and then...." Bishop's head turned back to Trask. "Then he goes after Verity, with Trask by his side."

  "That's when I was attacked."

  It was starting to come back to her, in flashes that skewed her perception of the world around her. Nausea rose in her stomach. She felt that knife shove itself into her side as she'd stood there in the street, so cocky while she asked the demon's henchman for the code that Murphy had told her. The one that would have indicated the Crows had been paid, and hence she could hand over the Chalice.

  Trask swallowed. "Look. I just did as I were told. He had these... men... with him that weren't really men. They were all wearing—"

  "Masks," Verity whispered, seeing it again. "One of them stabbed me when I demanded to know where Murphy was."

  "Keep talking," Bishop suggested, a muscle in his jaw ticking as his fists curled in Trask's collar.

  "We got the Chalice, but the girl vanished somehow, then ran. That's all I know, I swear it!"

  Bishop let him go, and Trask touched his throat, swallowing hard.

  "What happened to the Chalice?" Bishop demanded.

  "Don't know. I was starting to get a bad feeling about all this, so I cut out of it. Didn't need the money that bad. The demon let me go."

  "Let you go?" Bishop's gaze flattened. "That's why you have so many boys watching the shop. You think he's going to come after you?"

  "Well—" Trask cleared his throat, cutting a glance toward Verity. "—he's tying up loose ends. I didn't want to be one of them 'ends.'"

  Bishop stepped away from him. "So you have no idea where the Chalice is?"

  "None...." There was a hesitation on the end of that though.

  "You're lying," Verity said.

  "Think about it," Trask said, swallowing visibly. "The Chalice needs someone from the Grave Arts to work it. The demon can't use it."

  Thought clearly raced behind Bishop's dark eyes. "Who? Who's worki
ng with Guthrie?"

  Trask shrugged. "Don't know. My part in this was done." His gaze slid sideways toward Verity. "But if it's a Grave sorcerer at his side, then it ain't one of the Order."

  "Which leaves... five possibilities," Bishop muttered, half to himself.

  That's when a flare of red magic spat into the sky outside.

  Chapter 12

  "WHAT WAS THAT?"

  Bishop strode to the window, glancing out into the Labyrinth. Dealing with Trask had all his nerves on edge, and the flare of sputtering sparks that slowly fell back into the Labyrinth's streets made his gut knot up tight.

  "Jesus." Trask scrambled for the back door, but Verity blocked it and set her pistol right in his face. "Get out of the way, you daft woman! They're coming!"

  "Who's coming?" Verity demanded.

  "Something! I don't know! That's a warning sign from one of my boys." Trask shoved her aside, careless of the pistol. "I ain't staying around to find out what it is."

  "Let him go," Bishop told her, and Trask snatched a carpetbag off the floor and bolted toward the back.

  "He wiped my memories," Verity said, glaring after him.

  "Did you want him to dabble in your head again and bring them back?" Her expression said it all. "I thought not. Trask is a coward, and he'll meet a bad end one day. But not at our hands. Let's get out of here."

  "Exactly what I was thinking," Verity replied.

  They were halfway to the door when a second flare of magic went up. It burst just below the glass panes above that shielded the quarter from normal eyes.

  "Get moving," Bishop barked, pushing her through the door and out into the streets.

  People screamed from the direction in which they'd come. Magic washed the walls and cast a bluish glow over the entrance to the Labyrinth.

  "How do we get out?" Verity gasped.

  "This way." He shoved her toward the right, and the back of the cramped quarter. They started running, Verity cursing her skirts under her breath as he tugged her along.

  Arum. The guttural cry didn't come from any throat he'd ever heard.

  "What the hell is that?" Verity cried, glancing over her shoulder.

  His skin was crawling along his arms, sorcery thrilling through his veins and stirring the dark pulse that lay at the heart of him. "Grave magic."

  Verity shot him a sharp look, her green eyes meeting his. "The Chalice?"

  "Possibly," he said, and ducked to the left, down a narrow alley where the walls brushed against his shoulders. "We're not prepared to face it right now. Not if some Grave Arts sorcerer is wielding the Chalice."

  The memory of coming up against that mind in the Seven Dials stirred within him. Whoever it was, they'd blocked Bishop's thrust with ease, threatening to roll his mind over like a bug and squash it. A nervous sweat broke out along his lip. He wasn't used to meeting his match. The vulnerability unnerved him.

  "There!" he said, pushing her toward an apothecary. Slamming both hands into the double doors, he strode inside.

  Three men turned, icy-blue mage globes springing into form just above their hands.

  "Stand down," he told them, flashing his Order rings.

  One of them paled.

  "I just want passage out of the Labyrinth," he added, ushering Verity inside at his heels.

  The leader vanished his mage globes, and the other followed him, thank goodness. "How much is it worth to you?" the man asked, his eyes glinting with sudden avarice.

  "The question is: how much is it worth to you?" Bishop replied coolly, staring the bearded man down.

  He could have heard a pin drop in the sudden silence.

  "Creedy," one of the fellows muttered, the white of his eyes showing as he tried to peer past Bishop. "Probably ain't the time for it. He's Order, man."

  Creedy scratched at his beard, then sighed. "What's out there?"

  "Flesh constructs. The streets are crawling with them."

  That earned another breath-catching silence.

  "Jesus," a smaller lad blurted. "What are we going to do?"

  "Let me and my companion out, and they'll most likely go away," Bishop replied, moving fast toward the back of the shop. "It's this way?"

  "Where are we going?" Verity muttered, following on his heels.

  "Aye." Creedy scrambled after them. "How'd you know I got passage out?"

  Because it's how I get into the Labyrinth when I don't want to be seen.

  Bishop merely shot him a bland look. "The Order knows everything." And then he jerked the wardrobe in the back room open and gestured Verity inside. "After you."

  Her nose wrinkled. "It stinks of mothballs."

  "Trust me," he said, stepping inside after her. "It could be worse."

  Much worse.

  * * *

  The press of her body was distracting.

  Bishop hunched inside the wardrobe, waiting for Creedy to fire the runes that linked the wardrobe with a locker in Marylebone Station. The other half of the wardrobe was filled with boxes, and he was forced to rest his elbows on the timbers on either side of her head, even as he tried not to sink into the warmth of her embrace.

  Soft breasts pressed against his chest. His vision was slowly becoming accustomed to the dark, and he could almost see the tip of her nose thanks to the light gleaming through the cracks in the door. It was a pert little nose, much like her.

  And right below it was her mouth.

  Bishop swallowed. He could hear her heartbeat, whispering in conjunction with the call of his power. He was always acutely aware of others and their bodies, but this was the first time that he'd felt the stir of his own in response.

  Her breath whispered against his mouth. "What are we waiting for?"

  A shiver of power stirred over his skin, as Creedy chanted outside. "That," Bishop said softly, as golden lines streamed suddenly all over the interior of the wardrobe.

  The pair of them slammed together as the golden lines suddenly collapsed over them like a net. He wrapped his arms around her, driving her head into the protective curl of his chest and arms, as the world spun out of alignment.

  —falling, tumbling, head over heels, his stomach punching up through his throat, and then back down again, as if it rebounded into his lower abdomen—

  —and then they became solid again, Bishop shaking with the force of the translocation as he landed hard, slamming back into his body.

  There was even less room in here, in the locker. He was practically wrapped around Verity, and the air was still and humid, tasting of old socks.

  "I think I'm going to be ill," Verity said with a gasp, trying to push away from him.

  He slammed the locker door open with his shoulder, the pair of them tripping as they tumbled out. Verity fell to her knees, pressing her hands to her mouth.

  "Sorry, I should have warned you." He felt like joining her on his knees, but this wasn't his first trip. He just needed... a moment. "I thought you'd know what to expect."

  Verity looked up after a long moment, shuddering as a train whistle echoed through the corridor. "That," she said, "was nothing like what I do. I feel like I've been pulled apart and then put back together again, but not quite properly."

  He offered her a hand. "But... no flesh constructs here."

  Verity dragged herself to her feet, and shuddered. "Small gains."

  * * *

  Bishop slammed the journal down on the reading table and flipped it open.

  "What are you reading?" Verity murmured, rubbing her wet hair with a towel. She'd taken a bath to try and wash off the slimy feeling that coated her skin from the translocation, whilst he'd been hunting through his library.

  He couldn't help noticing that the midnight blue robe she wore was extremely thin, and molded to her body. What was Agatha thinking, to give her that? "Relics of the Order, a compilation by Josiah Whitmore."

  He ran his finger down the contents page, trying to find the chapter he needed. It was the third time he'd done it since she'd entered t
he room.

  "Why?" Verity tossed the towel aside, sitting on the edge of one of his stuffed armchairs near the fire and withdrawing an ivory-backed brush from her pocket.

  "Because it has occurred to me that we need to know precisely what we're dealing with, and what the Chalice can do.

  "Together the three Relics Infernal can be used to summon a demon through into this world in the flesh. They can also vanquish one. However, separately they all have powerful properties of their own. My father created them, along with his ex-wife, Morgana, and the Earl of Tremayne. I didn't have much time to study the Chalice when it was in my possession." He swallowed, remembering the smoky lure of it, the way it called to him. Perhaps it hadn't been lack of time, but fear in the strength of his own willpower. "I was too busy trying to help recover the Blade of Altarrh. The Blade was destroyed when we sought to recover it, which makes the other two unable to control a demon, though they still have mysterious powers on their own. I think we need to know precisely what the Chalice is capable of so that we can work out who wants it, and why."

  He found what he was looking for and flipped forward to the twelfth chapter while she brushed out her hair. Steam lifted off the ends of it as the fire set to work drying it, and he was surprised to realize it curled at the ends. "There's a treatise on the Grave Arts on the third shelf. Once you're finished, do you think you could look through it?"

  He looked down at the book. "The Ankh of Set," the chapter headline read. Clearly not what he needed. Bishop flipped back to the start. His mind was all over the place.

  Most notably on the way her breasts shifted behind the robe as she reached up to knot her hair into a tight chignon, and then stabbed a pin through it.

  Hell.

  He was rock-hard, his cock straining against his breeches. Anyone would be able to see it. Thank God for the reading table.

  "Third shelf?" Verity asked, setting the brush aside and circling the library. "Which one?"

  He pointed to her left. "No. Next one, and another shelf up... there. Yes."

  Verity reached up, and he cursed under his breath. Her robe clung to the rounded contours of her breasts as she tugged the thick treatise off the shelf. And despite the fact that he knew better, he couldn't look away. "We know the Chalice can raise the dead," she said. "In vast quantities, if today was any indication."