by A R DeClerck
Lucia looked down at Archie’s blood; it painted her beautiful green ball gown red. “Just kill me already.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Why must you be so morose? I am offering you the kind of power you never dreamed of. So much more than that man could ever offer.”
“I wasn’t in love with Archie because of what he could offer me.”
“Yes, yes, love.” Elizabeth shook her head and gave Lucia the exasperated glance of a mother to a wayward child. “But there is so much more than love at stake. Love is a fleeting emotion.”
“You’re wrong.”
“When have you ever known a love to last?” Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “A man to remain faithful and adoring when time ravages the body and steals our youth?”
“That’s not what love is about.”
“Says every young woman whilst she is young and in love.” Elizabeth clucked to the horses and sped them up.
“What happened to you? What has made you so incredibly certain that men are to be used and tossed away?”
“Things that no girl should ever face, my dear. Horrible, nasty business that proved to me over and over again why we must have power to protect ourselves.”
“And you’re willing to kill hundreds of people to get this power? You already murdered your father in law. Your housekeeper and your butler.”
“I will do what I must when I must. I thought you, of all people, would understand what must be done.”
“I understand your frustrations but I believe women’s suffrage will eventually come to pass—-“
“This isn’t about the right to vote. Or hold political office. This is not about magicals versus the Lacking. This is about the powerful holding the power. Those who deserve to rule should have control. The strong should lead and the weak should follow.”
“And that means you.”
“Once I have completed what has been put in motion no one will be able to challenge me. No one will take what I have.”
Archie groaned as a hot ache ran through his chest.
“Hold still,” a soft voice whispered as the fire in his chest began to intensify. “It will all be over soon.”
Soon was a relative term when a red-hot poker pressed against your heart. He moaned and tried to pull away, but did not have the strength.
“Hold him,” the voice said. “This is not pleasant but it will save his life.”
The world came slowly back into focus and Archie blinked the final fog away. “Was that necessary?”
Bastion’s face was paler than usual; his limpid blue eyes filled with worry and relieved tears. “I’d say it was, considering it nicked your heart and you damned near bled to death.”
“What was that blistering pain?”
“That was a bit of Dosha.” Stella’s face appeared next to Bastion’s.
“Leave off, Archie. Stella saved your life.” Bastion smiled at the Romani woman.
“Thank you for it, then.” Archie raised his arm and waved for them to help him sit up. “How many?”
“How many?” Bastion repeated.
“How many has she killed?”
“Everyone is alive.” Stella looked around the room where the Romani cared for the party guests. Most sipped tea and nibbled crackers, but they appeared mostly unharmed. “Thanks to Grayson.”
Archie looked at the center of the room, where the young man was kneeling with the brother’s body in his lap. “He broke the control?”
“He said it weakens when she’s out of a limited range. As soon as she was far enough away he was able to free himself.”
“Lucia?”
Bastion looked at Stella, and then at Archie. “Elizabeth took her.”
Archie swore. His chest burned with the remnants of the Romani magic and Bastion’s healing aether. His chest ached, but it was not his wound that pained him.
“There are four other party guests missing, along with Corrigan.”
“She took my sister.” Stella’s lips trembled.
“She has a machine from upstairs. And Machiavelli to power it.”
“What is she planning?” Bastion wondered.
“Nothing good. Help me up.”
Standing was a chore for the first few moments, but he managed it. He waved the others off and approached Grayson alone. He knelt by the young wizard.
“I am sorry for your loss.”
“He loved her. I never knew.”
Archie put his hand on the young man’s shoulder.
“This is all my fault.” Grayson turned tear-filled eyes to Archie. “I brought us here. To her.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She suffered terribly as a young girl. She had an uncle...” Grayson’s hand clenched on his brother’s jacket. “I promised I’d protect her.”
“When did she turn to dark magic?”
“I....I don’t know. Has she been controlling me all this time?”
“Most likely a sleeper spell, planted in you to be activated whenever she wished. I assume the letter was the trigger.”
“She killed my brother.”
“I am convinced she is responsible for Mr. Wicket, Justice and Mrs. Burch as well. It was she, not Del and Dooley, who was drawing power from the Romani children and the others.”
“We have to stop her.”
“Did she tell you what she is planning?”
“No. She was hurt so terribly, let down by her own family, and it has driven her a bit mad.”
“Yes, well, she’s very clever at hiding it. I must know what she is planning. We cannot afford another surprise.”
“She...she made Lucia kill you.”
“I am much harder to kill than one might imagine.” Archie rubbed his chest where a phantom sliver of pain burned still. “Lucia was awake inside. I saw it in her eyes. She will resist until we can find her and break the spell.”
“Atticus Dooley did this to her.”
“I daresay she was studying the art of black magic long before Atticus Dooley came to Kensington.”
Grayson pulled up his sleeve and the mark of his encounter with Dooley was a thin, faint line. “She let him mark us.”
“Most likely the symbol focuses her magic and amplifies it. It may explain how she managed to hide it from us, and to avoid the effects of the dielectric.”
Grayson rubbed his hand over his mark. “After it happened my magic...grew. I was more powerful than ever.”
“What is she up to?” Archie growled, impatient with the inaction. “I must know!”
“She took the sleigh,” Bastion said as he came back into the ballroom shaking show off his coat. “And the wagon is gone as well.”
“She’s going a fair distance then.” Archie rubbed his jaw. Worry pulsed through his veins with each beat of his newly repaired heart. A man could only escape death so many times, he figured, but he had at least one more adventure in him. “Bessemer.”
“What was that?” Grayson let the burly Romani men take away his brother’s body and then he stood next to Archie.
“Bessemer, the tenant farmer. He told us that a convergence of ley lines rests directly in the center of his property.”
“I remember that place.” Grayson narrowed his eyes as he thought. “My grandmother warned us never to go there. The aether is said to be so concentrated that it can drive a wizard mad.”
“Shall we gather the other wagon?” Bastion asked, as Stella approached with their coats.
“This will be dangerous...”
“We are going,” Stella said with a shake of her head. She would not be denied. “That scroafa has my sister and I want her back!”
“We’ll get the wagon,” Bastion told Archie with a grin. He pulled Stella along behind him even as she cursed inventively in Romani.
“We still have no idea what the machine does or why she wants to use it out there,” Archie told Grayson as they pulled on their coats. “We’ll need to be ready for anything.”
Static crackled in the air as the aether re
sponded to Grayson’s clenched hands. A buzz of white electrical energy charged the air around him. “I should have stopped her long ago, before this got out of hand. Before she killed my brother.”
Bastion whistled from the doorway to signal the wagon was ready, and Archie clapped the young wizard on the shoulder as the aether sent tiny jolts of electricity over his skin. “We’re off, then. We must stop Elizabeth before she can do any more damage.”
LUCIA’S TEETH WERE chattering. She had that much control over herself, at least. Elizabeth had been silent the last half mile, and as the sleigh crested over the last hill they were overlooking the old farmer’s land.
“This is a place of great power. I’m sure you felt it when you came here.”
“His magic dampens the press of the aether.”
“Ah yes. His granny’s magic. Piddling.”
“It felt strong enough to me.”
Elizabeth glared at Lucia. “In the light of the kind of power we are about to obtain, all magic will seem piddling.”
“I want nothing to do with whatever you’re planning. When Lucan Orrin returns—-“
“When the Grand Master returns I will have already toppled all he has built. I will squelch this preposterous uprising and there will be no need for a truce. All who oppose me will die.”
“Like poor Mr. Wicket? Mrs. Burch and Justice? Your loyal servants.”
“Poor Mr. Wicket, as you call him, was nothing but a mean-spirited blackguard with no love of magic or wizards. He’d have seen us all burn if he could.”
“So you killed him. After you tried to drive him mad with black magic.”
“You cannot drive someone mad who is already mad.” Elizabeth snapped the reigns and took them over the rise toward Bessemer’s cottage. Smoke rose from his chimney and a candle lit the window. The old man was awake, then. Lucia hoped he would do whatever Elizabeth asked, lest he be the next in line to meet her ugly wrath.
“You killed Atraxas. Was he not loyal enough for you?” Lucia asked.
“A pity. He and Grayson were my oldest friends. But I cannot chance that his jealousy would make him turn against me.”
“You used his love for you to make him hurt people.”
“Darling, Lucia.” Elizabeth looked at her with a shake of her head. “Atraxas did not love me beyond some childish infatuation. I assured his devotion with magic, as with Grayson and Del. I needed them, you see, and I could not have them leave me for some other woman when their ardor cooled.”
“You remind me of someone.”
“Oh really? Who?”
“A man named Victor Kane.”
“I’ve heard the name, of course. Once Grand Master, until he was ousted and revealed a black magician. The most powerful black magician, if I recall the rumors.”
“They’re more than rumors. They were truth. Until his son killed him.”
“Is this a threat? A warning that what happened to Victor will happen to me as well?” Elizabeth chuckled. “Save your breath, Lucia. I rely on more than magic to see my plans through.”
“The machine.”
“Science is a tool, like magic. Never say I was too shortsighted to use everything at my disposal to get what I wanted.”
Elizabeth stopped the sleigh at the entrance to Bessemer’s little stone fence. She marched up to it, but stumbled back at the boundary of stones.
“His magic is more powerful than you believe,” Lucia called.
“It means nothing.” Elizabeth waved a hand, knocking over the pile of stones. As she crossed into his yard, the old man came out onto his porch puffing his pipe.
“Evenin’ Mrs. Wicket.”
“Cram the niceties, Bessemer. You know why I’m here.”
“Reckon I do.” He turned his narrowed eye to the sleigh and to Lucia sitting there. “All right, Ms. Lucia?”
“She’s fine.” Elizabeth raised her hand, crackling dark magic in her palm. “I’d ask you nicely to abandon the land, Bessemer, but I know you better than that, I think.”
“Reckon you do.” He puffed the pipe and leaned against the rail of the porch. “I been expectin’ something like this.”
“You can’t protect a font of power like this forever, old man. I’d have taken it long ago.”
“Aye, I suppose so, if you’re father in law woulda let ya. But we both know the old man had more integrity in him than that.”
“He’s dead now, and I am the true owner of Summer Ridge. I’ll take what’s mine by right and by power.”
“You think you fooled everyone, little miss, but you never fooled me.” Bessemer stepped onto the top step. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Without warning, Elizabeth unleashed the dark aether in her hand, throwing it at Bessemer. Lucia cried out, expecting to see the old man fall, but the energy rebounded from his chest and slammed into Elizabeth with full force, making her stumble back.
“We knew one like you would come one day. My mother, my grandmother, they taught me well how to put you down like the mutt ye are, Elizabeth Wicket.”
Elizabeth gathered a larger ball of dark energy, wielding it masterfully in her fingers. Lucia had never witness such ability at controlling the corrupted aether.
“I am no mutt, old man. I am the darkness. I am the power.”
“Have at it, then.” He moved to the next step as the energy ball struck his chest. Lucia gasped, but it shattered, the dark aether particles caught by the wind and carried away.
Lucia sat forward in fear for the old man, and then realized with belated joy that she had sat forward, of her own accord. With Elizabeth’s attention focused on the old farmer, and her reserves of dark aether being used to batter at him, her hold over Lucia had loosened.
Come on, now, she thought to the aether surrounding her, there must be a smaller amount in my system with her using it all. Clear the rest!
We are able to comply at this time. Shall we proceed?
Yes!
The aether inside her body was fire. It burned through her veins, but she clamped down on her lips and bit hard to keep the screams inside. Though she was sure the aether would not kill her, it certainly wasn’t dampening her pain receptors either. There was a blessed moment of relief, when all the dark aether left her, and all she felt inside her body was light. She could not see the aether as it evaporated from her body and returned to the night air, but she felt the warmth of it as it left.
Lucia looked at the old man, who was now in the yard facing off directly with Elizabeth. He was pale, but determination darkened his eyes. Elizabeth struck at him again with dark aether, but it shimmered over his shield and dissolved again. She let out a fierce shriek and began to gather more aether from the air around her.
“This place is mine!” Elizabeth screamed. “It calls to me! It wants me! Not you! Me!” With each word she battered the old farmer with her magic.
Lucia heard the clatter of the wagon on the road and saw Corrigan in the driver’s seat, the horses at a quick canter. He stopped the wagon next to the sleigh and did not look her way as he climbed down.
“Captain!” Lucia whispered to him, but he did not turn back. “Captain Levisque! Corrigan!”
Lucia crouched in the sleigh, her legs weak from the stiffness of her muscles. Bessemer seemed to be holding Elizabeth off, but Lucia knew it would not last forever. He already looked tired, and could not keep up his shields for much longer.
“Captain!” Elizabeth smiled when she saw the Captain coming towards them. “Kill him!”
Without hesitation, Corrigan removed his pistol from the holster and took aim at the old farmer.
“Captain, no!” Lucia screamed, but her words were too late as the blast from the pistol took the old man in the chest. He had protection against magic, but not against the blast of the halogen pistol. He fell, his shirt and coat smoking.
“Excellent shot!” Elizabeth kissed the captain’s cheek. “Now come along. We’ve much to do!”
Lucia returned to her seat and t
ook up her stiff posture again. It was best, she decided, to pretend she was still under Elizabeth’s control until the time was right to stop her nefarious plans.
She turned her head to glare at Elizabeth as the other woman climbed into the sleigh and picked up the reigns.
“Oh do stop glaring at me Lucia! The man was a nuisance and he stood in our way. Now he’s gone and we have what we want.”
“The convergence point.”
“Exactly! A negative space between this world and the world of the aether. A doorway. Without his magic to protect it, the doorway is ours.”
“It’s impossible to unlock the door between the worlds. The aether sealed themselves from us for a reason.”
“Hiddly piddly! The light aether sealed themselves away, but the dark aether yearns for freedom. I hear it, you know. Calling my name, begging to be set free.” Elizabeth leaned closer. “Icarus Kane had no idea what kind of power he had when he was branded with the key. Such a shame he wasted it all.”
“Icarus did the right thing! That kind of power will destroy the world.”
“That kind of power will remake this world. Funneled into machines that can destroy nations and sack kingdoms, the dark aether will be my army. I will put them all at my feet, and you will sit at my side. The only other woman I have ever met who has faced the darkness and come out stronger. I need that strength.”
Elizabeth clicked the reigns and the sleigh took off toward the far corner of Bessemer’s property. Corrigan, in the wagon, was not far behind. Lucia looked up at the moon and saw that it was waxing toward full and the press of the aether grew heavier with each breath. Light and dark swarmed them, and Lucia gasped at the weight of it around her. Elizabeth’s eyes were sparkling with excitement and her bosom heaved as she breathed it in.
“See? So much power!” She urged the horses faster and Lucia gripped her bloodstained skirts with clawed fingers. She would stop this woman, and Elizabeth would pay for every moment of sadness she had wrought from those around her. As if understanding her silent vow the light aether pressed closer, and Lucia could feel it, feather-light, against her skin. Lucia would not let Elizabeth open that door.