by A. W. Exley
“We will find a way to defeat him,” Nate said as she returned the pistols to her holster.
They descended to the breakfast room with Kirill sniffing at everything along the way. He sat back to regard a suit of armour guarding one corner, then ran past as though expecting it to come to life and give chase. Downstairs, excited chatter dominated the brightly lit room and Cara did another round of hugs. She basked in the noise and press of people after so many days alone with only her mutterings and screams to break the silence. As she took her seat next to Nate, Rachel climbed into her lap for a hug.
“I’m glad to see you settling in,” Cara whispered against the girl’s riotous curls. “Not too lonely I hope, without all the other children to play with?”
Her ward shrugged one skinny shoulder. “Brick takes me every day to school, so I see them there. It was important I stayed here; Nan said I helped keep the spark alive for Uncle Nate. What does she mean? What spark?” She frowned at the fire, throwing out heat and comfort across the room.
Cara didn’t know where to start dissecting her statement; the fact Nan embraced the child without question, that Nate allowed himself to adopt the moniker Uncle Nate, or that they knew Rachel was a spark in the darkness when he needed it most. “Because you are so bright. I hear you were invaluable help for Nan in organising the search, thank you.” She kissed Rachel’s forehead.
Somewhat satisfied, she squirmed off and took her own seat with a mountainous breakfast in front of her.
“Now tell us how you survived being dragged under the Thames,” Amy asked.
Cara smiled a thank you to the butler who placed a freshly brewed coffee at her fingertips. She took a sip, then scowled at the cup. It didn’t taste right and her stomach flip-flopped at the rich aroma. She pushed the cup away. “I honestly don’t know. I remember the spout rising up, and it seemed to grow hands that reached out for me. Then when it crashed over me, everything dissolved like water. My vision shimmered and went black. I assume I passed out because when I woke up, I was in a stone cell, wet and alone.”
“The rahab kept you alive,” Amy whispered, eyes wide. “I’ve been reading your notes.”
Cara let out a sigh, relieved Nate had allowed her friend and family to invade the mansion at a time he probably wanted to shut everyone out. “The Curator has released it upon London for some purpose and the Egyptian water dragon has sucked the warmth and life from everything.”
Amy paused, about to attack her toast, buttered knife in hand. “It’s far more than a dragon. In Jewish legend, it’s a demon of the primordial abyss. A creature of cold despair, misery, and suffering.”
Nan huffed in a sharp breath of air. “Sounds like London, all right.”
“So what is he?” Nessy pointed to Kirill, who lay by the fire and chewed on a whole rabbit, the hind legs and white cottontail bobbing between his teeth. “I mean apart from hungry-looking. He’s not a demon, is he?”
Cara smiled at her saviour, or one of them. “Kirill is a fire dragon. An extremely rare beast, but a creature of flesh and blood nonetheless, unlike the rahab.”
The dragon looked up on hearing his mistress’ voice and swallowed the last of the rabbit. His gaze drifted to the buffet and a pile of sausage. Nate tossed him one, and it disappeared with a snap. Kirill closed his eyes and trilled as the savoury treat made its way to his stomach.
“We wouldn’t have found you without him,” Nate said. “Kirill knew you were on the other side of the wall and he blew fire to crumble the stones.”
Rachel took a sausage from her plate and wide-eyed, she crept up on the dragon, the sausage dangling for her fingertips.
“Lord, I hope she doesn’t lose her remaining hand,” Nessy muttered, screwing up her eyes in case the hungry creature took off Rachel’s other arm.
Conversation halted, Nate tensed beside her, in case he had to lunge and pull the child from the dragon’s vicious teeth. A long, midnight blue tongue touched the child’s fingers, snaked along her hand, and wrapped around the sausage. She giggled as his tugged the treat free of her grip and sucked it into his mouth. Much to everyone’s relief, the dragon seemed to know not to eat small girls.
“So, not only are dragons real, but there is also some sort of dragon demon that kidnapped Cara and is responsible for the frozen state of London.” Nan said.
“Yes, although the Curator said freezing London was a consequence, not an intention, whatever that means.” Cara tackled her soft-boiled egg. For some reason, she again found herself maudlin at the potential life lost. Blasted Mary Tudor. She shook off the feeling and scraped the inside with a toast soldier. “Malachi and I were working on a tale from the bible that featured the rahab before he went off to sunnier climes on holiday. Did his notes arrive?”
Nate shook his head. “No word from him, Amy has laboured alone.”
“The rahab was involved in saving the slaves from the pharaoh’s army,” Amy said. “I have the full translation; I added the missing bits for you. God chained the rahab to Mošeh’s staff, so it would be compelled to do his bidding. That’s how he parted the Red Sea, he commanded the rahab and it obeyed and then crashed over the Egyptian soldiers.”
“Well done, Amy.” Cara resisted the urge to poke her tongue out at her friend, always the far better scholar than her. One word rocketed around her brain. “The staff! The Curator has a tall walking stick with a carved serpent climbing up it. He told me he found something that prolonged his life, but that he was trapped within the same aged form. We will need to keep researching but my tingles tell me that by using the staff controlling the rahab, and therefore its power, is how he’s doing it.”
Nate made a noise in his throat. “We need to remove him from the staff then, otherwise he’s impossible to kill. I skewered him with a roman short blade and opened his gut and he just coughed politely into a handkerchief.”
The women stared at Nate’s calm admission. Amy looked on the brink of swooning. Cara wondered how long Csenger took to heal himself from such a wound, and Nan had a slightly envious gleam to her eyes, as though she wished she had wielded the sword.
“Should have carved him like a turkey for taking our girl,” Nessy muttered into her tea.
Nate gifted Nessy his rare smile. “Exactly. I intend to do far more once I figure out how to hurt him.”
Amy looked from one to the other, her brown eyes wide with horror. Cara decided to head off the conversation before it got too graphic or she got too involved in her own Curator torturing scenarios. “So what do we know so far? He uses the rahab to prolong his life, and for some reason, he let it loose on London before Christmas. The demon runs through his veins and that of his men. It’s why he can’t be killed and why they bleed water. It’s also why winter will not lift from the city. It most probably lives under the Thames and uses the ring route of the underground to encircle us. The longer it is in our realm, the more despair it brings to our world. Have I missed anything out?”
“You’re dead,” Amy said, sipping her tea with a delicate pinkie extended.
“What?” She glanced at Nate, who tightened his grip on his coffee cup until the china vibrated in his grip, on the brink of shattering. She laid a hand over his and stroked her thumb along his flesh. Little by little, the tension left his fist.
Oblivious, Amy continued. “The coroner declared you dead. You have a fancy death certificate and everything. Society is poised to attend your memorial service as soon as Nate sets the date.”
Cara’s mind seized on an immediate bright side to her deceased state; she no longer had to attend boring social events. I’d love to come, except I’m dead could now be offered as a viable excuse. The large warm hand under hers made her think of another implication as she met Nate’s storm-cloud gaze. “Does this mean you’re back on the marriage market and have to propose again?”
The tease fell short, her absence still too raw and Nate ground his jaw.
“Actually you still owe us a wedding.” Nan fixed Cara with h
er stern gaze.
“Quite right, Lady Morton, a wedding is long overdue,” Nate said, the tension easing from his shoulders now the conversation headed in a direction he approved of.
“Traitor,” Cara whispered.
“Summer weddings are lovely,” Amy chipped in, smirking over the rim of her teacup.
“A wedding is overdue for both of you.” Nan raised an eyebrow at Amy.
Amy’s giggle died in her throat. “What? I’m not even engaged.”
“You bloody are,” Jackson growled from the doorway. “I will tie you down, princess.”
Cara swallowed a laugh, her friend certainly wasn’t thinking about nuptials, the way her eyes widened at Jackson’s promise.
“It’s been ages since someone last tied me up,” Nessy sighed. “I do love a man who knows his knots.” She fixed a speculative gaze on Jackson, the one she normally reserved for Loki.
The henchman frowned, took the offered coffee from Amy’s hands, and retreated to the far wall. He preferred his chances with the dragon over being within Nessy’s reach.
“A double wedding would be lovely, and the garden always looks exquisite in June when the roses are in full bloom,” Nan said and both Cara and Amy exchanged the glum looks of condemned prisoners as the older women discussed the placement of the altar and the musicians. “Although that doesn’t give us long to plan since May has nearly disappeared. July, perhaps?”
In her peripheral vision, Cara found the corners of Nate’s mouth twitching. At least, someone was enjoying the awkward discussion of nuptials, but then, the infuriating man plotted to marry her years ago. She wondered how on Earth she found herself in these predicaments, basements looked more appealing than the breakfast table. “Perhaps we should refocus on our current mission?”
“Quite,” Amy said. “How do we reverse the winter covering the city?”
Cara followed the tingle of instinct as it lit up a path in her brain. “We need to research the history of the staff to be certain, but I’m guessing if the rahab being free caused the big freeze, then we simply need it recalled to the staff. With the creature gone, normal spring time weather should return to London.”
“Rain?” Nessy quipped.
“What if the demon doesn’t want to go back in the staff?” Jackson asked from his spot by the fireplace. With arms crossed over his chest, he watched and listened. “What if it likes being free? That’s a big creature to stuff into a little piece of wood.”
Cara exchanged a glance with Nate. There was that slight potential problem. If the rahab spent hundreds, or even thousands, of years chained to the staff, would it be eager to return to its prison?
“I assume we make that the Curator’s problem, not ours,” he answered for her. “You have a plan.” A statement, not a question.
Kirill stood and shook himself out, then walked over to Cara and laid his head in her lap.
“Yes.” She scratched the dragon’s eye ridges, and he trilled in pleasure. “We make him an offer he can’t refuse. We will give him what he longs for, the phoenix feather and a dragon in exchange for Moseh’s staff, with the rahab contained.” She hoped that would satisfy him, although she feared she may have to offer herself as houseguest again.
A frown settled between Nate’s brows. “Apart from the fact you would never hand over Kirill, you don’t know where the feather is located. It’s not in Soho, and your father never wrote about it.”
Cara smiled. “He never wrote about it because he didn’t have to, my family had it all along. Nan is sitting on quite a few family secrets.”
All eyes turned to Nan, who fidgeted in her chair as though the family secrets were wriggling under the embroidered cushion.
Cara continued with her explanation. “Having stuck me in that horrid room for days, the Curator was kind enough to supply me with his books to read. I learned about the legends surrounding the phoenix and the healing abilities of its feathers. There was one particularly interesting tale from the sixteenth century. It concerned an English peer called Morton, who befriended the Emperor and stole something most precious from his hidden garden, earning the wrath of the Emperor on him and all his kin until the item is returned.”
Nate foresaw the end of the story first and burst into laughter. “Your ancestor stole a phoenix feather. And people mutter about my illegal dealings when your family have been nicking stuff for much longer.”
Who knew what else Nan was sitting on? Cara figured a full and frank discussion might be long overdue. “We do seem to have more skeletons in our closet than a Parisian catacomb.”
“So, you know where it is?” Amy asked.
Cara fixed her grandmother under her gaze. “Where is it, Nan?”
She took a drink of her tea before setting down the cup. “I never believed the stories Gideon would tell about why the family must never travel to China. I thought it a load of old nonsense. But Lucas believed, passionately. How he argued one night with Gideon, demanding he hand over the feather. Telling him he could use it to bring Bella back to us.”
Cara took a deep breath. What would a man do to recover his lost love? She knew how far Lucas travelled, what would Nate have done if he hadn’t found her? Fraser flashed through her mind, a man who walked the same path. Fierce, intelligent, determined men who succumbed to the dark while trying to recover their women. Fraser could be saved; he’s not lost in that forest. Not yet. She pushed the stray thought aside as Nan spoke.
“Leicester.” She stared at her teacup, then raised her gaze to Cara. “You must understand, none of us believed all these”―she waved her hand around and at Kirill―“fairy tales. Gideon passed on the story, but we gave it no credence. Dragons, phoenixes. All so fantastical and beyond our ordinary country lives. I thought Lucas’ tirade was just the rant of a bereaved husband, wanting to grasp anything to bring back his love.”
All eyes in the room turned to Nate. He rose and moved to behind Cara. His hand stroked the back of her neck, and he held a deadly look in his gaze. “We lay a trap. We offer Csenger a trade, which just leaves one question. How do I kill him, cara mia?”
She reached up to take his hand. “He seeks immortality. The rahab extends his life, but can’t make him young. It’s why I see both versions of him; he is trapped within himself. To be truly reborn, he needs to relinquish the rahab’s power that courses through his body.”
His hand stilled on her skin. “He will have to risk vulnerability.”
She nodded. “Once the rahab returns to the staff, he will be mortal. But I’m not sure what happens when he arises; he is planning something with Henry. He will be young and possibly more powerful.” His younger brother tied to the painting hinted at their plan. By offering him Kirill and the feather, they might create an enemy they couldn’t defeat.
“I don’t want him to simply die, Cara; he must suffer.”
No one disagreed with him. Even the dragon snorted at the role he would play.
She squeezed his hand but she nibbled her bottom lip. “I have a plan, I just don’t know if it will work.”
ate stood on the doorstep of the Southwark house and ran through his plan one more time. He still fought every instinct to shred the man like a piece of paper for the sheer pleasure of having him crumple between his fingers. Cara’s recent absence remained an open wound in his heart. He worried if she was safe even as her life force pulsed through him, a split second behind his own beat due to the expanse of Thames separating them.
The door swung inward at the hand of a grey drone, and Nate elbowed him out of the way and strode over the slate floor toward the door to the cavernous parlour.
“Master is in the library.” The servant enunciated each syllable exactly the same as the other, no tone or inflection shaded his words and no emotion crossed his face as he waited.
Nate swung his head and the man gestured to another set of doors. At least they learned it was pointless to stop him. He changed direction and barged into the only blast of colour in the mausoleum
. Grey carpets still blanketed a slate floor and steel framing held aloft the books, but Csenger could not control the artisans who had created the priceless tomes. The spines revealed a subtle rainbow of leather dyed a range of hues from deep red to midnight blue. Gold and silver lettering caught the overhead candle light and shimmered like tiny stars.
His target sat before a fire with an open book on his lap. His gaze focused on the fire rather than the reading material. He turned at the intrusion and laid aside the book.
“Ah, Nathaniel. We must address a few basic conventions of polite society, like waiting to be announced.”
He stopped a few feet from the noble, out of reach in case instinct got the better of him and his hand sought out a knife to reopen the Curator’s gut. “Or we could jump straight to bigger issues like don’t kidnap another man’s wife.”
The Curator huffed a soft chuckle. “All a matter of perspective. You say kidnap, I say secure a valuable artifact.”
That made Nate pause. Cara was a woman of flesh and blood, not an ancient relic to be locked away in a vault. Or was there something about the woman he loved, something that would explain her affinity to artifacts, perhaps another Morton family secret? He shook his head, or the man simply tried to redirect his attention by tossing out red herrings. “Not so secure; she escaped.”
The Curator kept a cold smile plastered on his face as he rose and glided over the smooth floor. “Yes, such resourcefulness. A rather curious escape. The stonework appeared burned, it crumbled under my hand.”
Nate snarled, the beast within wanted revenge. “I told you, you wouldn’t break her.”
A shrug of one shoulder under his silken robe. “My collection is diminished by her absence, but no gem is ever lost forever.”
Nate’s top lip pulled back. He’d not lay his hands on her again, he would see to that.