My Soul to Take

by C. J. Archer

  "While he was recovering from the shock of unleashing demons that killed his colleagues."

  "And more recently…" He shrugged. "I can only suggest that he was anxious about seeking the right sort of help."

  "The right sort?"

  "If he wanted to keep his own involvement in the Hatfields' deaths a secret, he wouldn't want to speak to me, a warrior for Purgatory. He might have been worried about what the administrators would think and do to his soul."

  "But the administrators will know what he did."

  "If the demon performed the murders, and Myer was merely duplicitous, it's not enough to blacken his soul. If he'd asked me for help, however, I would have forced him to divulge why. De Mordaunt wouldn't, nor would the administrators. They leave such choices up to the individual."

  It seemed imprecise to me. Shouldn't someone who hired a killer, for example, be considered as guilty as the killer himself? On the other hand, it did explain why de Mordaunt hadn't been sent straight to Hell.

  "I find it more likely that Myer wanted to bypass dealing with Purgatory altogether," Quin went on. "It would be safer for his soul if he went to the realm Edith's demon is from. Hence his need to find the book and use the knowledge of that realm contained within its pages."

  "Do you think he jumped into the portal on the off-chance he would land in the right realm?"

  He merely shrugged. "He couldn't know that the administrators of the different realms and final destinations all talk to one another."

  I had the ridiculous notion of a large meeting room where a group of old men with white beards sat around a circular table, an agenda of business before them. Quin gave me a curious look as I suppressed a bubble of laughter. "He's acting like a man with something to hide," I said.

  "He is. Mayhap the deaths weigh on his conscience, even now."

  "Yes. Perhaps. Even so, what does he want de Mordaunt to do? Send Edith back?"

  "Possibly."

  "After all this time? When she hasn't harmed him?"

  "Perhaps she didn’t know what he's been trying to do until yesterday."

  I had another thought. "Myer had an amulet. Samuel's father stole it from him and used it to summon a demon, bringing about his own death when he couldn't control it. Why didn't Myer just use that on her, to send her back, when it was still in his possession?"

  He thought about it for a moment. "Perhaps he tried. It's possible the demon that consumed Edith Myer was a tikama, a royal guard. They're given special powers that make them immune to amulets."

  "But not blades forged in their realm?"

  "No."

  Quin turned back to the house. He leaned one shoulder against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. "She's the one who helped Holloway's spirit possess Faraday."

  "Shape-shifting demons can be mediums too?"

  "Some. It's rare, but if she can shift shape and communicate with spirits, it means she's extremely powerful. It explains why she was chosen to be a tikama in the first place."

  I blew out a breath. "I wonder what else she's capable of."

  He said nothing to that. His pose might look casual, but I noticed the tension in his jaw and across his back. He was worried and trying not to show it. "She didn't want Myer to get the book, so she had Holloway's spirit keep him from it deliberately."

  That explained why Holloway, in possession of Nathaniel's body, didn't let Myer anywhere near the book, when he easily could have, when we had it in our hands. Holloway was directed to hinder Myer's search for the book, not help as we'd thought.

  "She wanted that portal destroyed," I said. "She was vehement about it." Her odd behavior when she'd told us to destroy it should have sent off more alarm bells than it had. She'd never been one to show any interest in the paranormal until then. Before that, she would scoff at her husband's hobby. Then, when the discovery of the book was imminent, she'd changed tactics.

  Why had none of us seen it? The others were going to be very surprised when we told them.

  Quin pushed off from the wall and stepped back, further into the shadows, taking me with him. I glanced past his shoulder to see Myer and de Mordaunt approach the house. Myer lifted his hand to knock on the door, but de Mordaunt jerked him back by the elbow. He applied his shoulder to the door and, despite the onlookers who'd stopped to watch, forced it open.

  He entered the house while Myer waited outside and kept watch. De Mordaunt reemerged a few minutes later, alone. He strode to the middle of the street and, hands on hips, looked left and right. A cart had to swerve to miss him, sending the empty barrels crashing against the tray's left side barrier.

  "I think it's time we spoke to them," I said.

  Quin's gaze slid to mine.

  I waved in the direction of Myer. "If he wants to send her back, we can offer to help. He should at least know that we won't work against him."

  "I am not disagreeing with that part," he said.

  "Then what?"

  "We won't speak to them. I will."

  "It's only talking." I looked past him and smothered my triumphant smirk. "It seems you won't have a choice. They had the same idea as us."

  Myer and de Mordaunt advanced toward us, but it wasn't until Quin stepped out of the shadowy depths of the lane that they spotted him. Myer stopped suddenly, eyes wary, but de Mordaunt hardly paused. He slipped a blade out from his sleeve in the time it took to blink. Like Quin, he'd dispensed with the sword in public.

  Quin withdrew his own dagger and settled into a fighting stance. The two men circled one another, snarls on their lips like two dogs preparing to brawl.

  "No," I said, moving closer.

  Quin put his arm out to stop me and de Mordaunt took the moment of distraction to lunge. Quin jumped back, knocking me over. My shoulder slammed into the wall and I winced as pain tore down my arm.

  Quin's lip curled and he struck out at de Mordaunt, missing him by a hair as de Mordaunt swayed out of the way. He chuckled and prepared to lunge again.

  "Stop it!" I struggled to my feet. Myer came to my aid and assisted me to stand. "Stop fighting. We're on the same side." I hoped. When de Mordaunt's knees bent slightly, preparing to lunge again, white-hot anger coursed through me. "Myer, call off your dog! This is not the way to send her back."

  A wheeze escaped Myer's parted lips. "You…know?"

  I switched my glare to him and skewered him with it.

  He swallowed. "She's right. We may need their help."

  "I don't need anyone's help," de Mordaunt snarled through clenched teeth.

  He didn't alter his stance. Nor did Quin. I stepped between them and spread my arms out, one toward each opponent. "Calm down or we'll get nowhere."

  Quin scooped me around the waist and hoisted me out of the way. Doing so meant that he was vulnerable and exposed to de Mordaunt. We both were.

  De Mordaunt chuckled. "Soft."

  Quin's gaze switched to me. I liked to think I didn't quaver, but my heart momentarily leapt into my throat. He looked like he wanted to lock me in a room somewhere to keep me out of danger.

  "That was foolish," he hissed.

  "He isn't going to harm us," I whispered. "Not when he needs us."

  My conviction did nothing to soothe the ire crackling through Quin's body. I extricated myself from his grip and addressed Myer.

  "She's a demon, isn't she?"

  Myer's gaze flicked to de Mordaunt then back to me. He nodded.

  "How did you know to find her here?" I asked.

  "When she didn't return home I wondered if she had somewhere else to go. I hypnotized her maid first, but she didn't know Edith's whereabouts. It was only this afternoon that I realized the driver might have taken her somewhere."

  "You hypnotized him too?"

  He arched a brow. "Did Gladstone?"

  I nodded toward the house. "We arrived a short time ago and learned that she wasn't in. Our methods for discovering that information were a little more subtle than yours."

  Myer's lips flatte
ned. He looked at de Mordaunt, but he and Quin were still eyeing one another with murderous intent.

  "What are you planning on doing to her?" I asked.

  Myer scrubbed his thick sideburns. "First, you tell me what you know."

  "We know she's a demon who came here over twenty years ago and took Edith's form. She killed the people who knew the original Edith best—her parents and the maids." I held my breath. "You both did."

  He took a step back as if I'd pushed him. He swallowed hard, and even in the waning light and deep shadows, the whites around his pupils were visible. "I didn't…it wasn't me!" His voice squeaked on the last word. He cleared his throat and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

  I said nothing, hoping he would fill the silence and explain out of a desire to clear his name.

  "Miss Moreau, you must understand…she was the driving force behind the plot to…get rid of them. I wasn't expecting that. But once it happened, it was too late to back away. I knew I would have been implicated in their deaths if I spoke out."

  If he suspected that, then he wasn't innocent at all. Not in my book. He had something to hide. Perhaps he didn't have actual blood on his hands but metaphorically speaking, he did.

  "Did you know what she was from the beginning?"

  He shook his head. "Not until after we married."

  "Why did she marry you?"

  "She—the demon—was confused when it first arrived here. I'm still not certain if Edith was chosen specifically or it was her poor luck. She was at a ball, you see, at a country estate."

  "Frakingham?"

  "Windamere Manor."

  "Windamere! That's Lord Wade's house." The same Lord Wade who'd held Hannah captive in his attic when her aptitude for fire became apparent—and dangerous. The same Lord Wade who fathered Jack Langley. Windamere wasn't all that distant from Frakingham, but the two great estates had little to do with one another. It wouldn't take long for a fast demon to leave the portal at Frakingham Abbey and travel to Windamere. A confused and hungry creature could do it in a day. I shuddered to think of the damage it had wreaked along the way.

  Another thought struck me. One that chilled me. "Is…is she Jack's mother?"

  He shook his head. "She's the demon that Jack's mother came here to find and return to their own realm. Jack's mother was…diverted, by Wade and her pregnancy, before she could succeed."

  And her death. "Jack's mother was sent to hunt down the other demon—Edith's demon—because of the crimes committed there, wasn't she?"

  Myer held up his hands. "I didn't know that, of course. Not then! If I had…"

  "Tell us what happened when she—it— arrived at Windamere."

  He lowered his hands to his sides. "It saw Edith outside in the garden. With a gentleman." It was difficult to tell in the fading light, but his face seemed to flush. "She was quite the flirt in her youth. The demon waited for the suitor to leave then…you can guess what happened."

  I could. The demon shifted into her form, killing her in the process. The old Edith Hatfield ceased to exist and the new one was now in control of her body. It was such a horrid process, and I couldn't quell the shiver that crawled down my spine at the thought.

  "The demon continued to live as Edith, albeit reclusively, for a little while."

  "So I heard."

  He frowned. "From whom?"

  "Never mind. Go on."

  "I continued to visit her house during those weeks, although she refused to see me. Her other suitors became less enamored when she wouldn't see them, but I was more determined. Despite her singular lack of encouragement, I visited every day. Her parents confided their concerns to me, speculating that she'd become ill. Or worse."

  "Worse?"

  "That she'd been…compromised at the ball and was hiding away until she knew whether her condition would show."

  Oh. That sort of compromised.

  "She wasn't impregnated, however. She was merely…not herself. It was around that time that she began to ask questions about her parents, her inheritance and rights."

  "She became aware of the vast wealth at her disposal if she removed her parents."

  He nodded. "The demon was very intelligent but not particularly subtle. The maids began to wonder why she was asking but they were also not very clever. The legalities of inheritance laws were above them. Edith came to me next. I was the only person outside the household she had access to. It wasn't that she trusted me; it was more that she had nobody else to ask. By then, she could pass as the real Edith, albeit somewhat changed in character. The demon had learned to live as a human. I had no idea. She asked me all sorts of questions about women's roles in English society, the law, economics… Her questions were endless. I answered them as best I could."

  "Did you guess that she was planning to murder her parents?"

  He swallowed. "I…had some notion, just before it happened."

  I took that to be a definitive yes, and that he was unwilling to implicate himself in the crime. "At what point did you suggest marriage?"

  "We had a long discussion one day, at the end of which she told me she wanted her father's vast wealth for herself. I told her the only way to secure it and ensure some distant cousin didn't get it was to marry. She said she didn't like the thought of being subject to a husband's will. I joked that she ought to choose a weak fellow, one she could easily manipulate." His laugh was high and nervous.

  "Did she know you could hypnotize at this point?"

  "Good God, no. It was several months before I revealed that. Not until I…grew concerned that she was something non-human."

  "She threatened you?"

  His swallow was loud in the still air of the lane. "Not quite. But once I learned her secret, she looked as if she would remove me on more than one occasion."

  "Why didn't she, do you think?"

  "I suspected I wasn't a big enough threat to her. By then she could easily pass as human. She must have decided she wanted to stay here and continue to be Edith. She became involved in bank affairs and wielded some power through it. I think she decided that removing me would only bring close scrutiny. Scrutiny she wanted to avoid by then."

  "But you wanted to remove her," Quin said, speaking for the first time since Myer had begun his story. "You wanted to reopen the portal."

  Myer nodded. "She told me that she was a rogue demon the first time I hypnotized her. After that, I became concerned that I might be in danger because I alone knew about the murders. I thought it best to get rid of her, by sending her back to her realm."

  "But she never hurt you," I said.

  He looked down at his feet. "She wasn't a good wife."

  I wanted to tell him he'd made his own bed and now had to lie in it, but if he spoke the truth, he hadn't known Edith was a demon upon their marriage. Nobody should be forced to lie in that bed.

  "You were worried that she would implicate you in the deaths of her parents and those maids," I suggested.

  He inclined his head in a nod. "That crossed my mind, yes. I could be in a great deal of trouble if suspicions were raised. It was in her power to point the authorities in my direction. Our relationship was…uneasy from the beginning, and I suspected that one day she would grow tired of me and end my life."

  "Why not just hypnotize her into not doing that?"

  "I tried, but I'm not sure it ever worked." He frowned again, this time harder. "Hypnosis seems to be somewhat erratic on her. I suppose it's something to do with her demonic nature."

  I nodded, thoughtful. "I believe Jack isn’t affected, and he is only half demon."

  "Demons have different capabilities," Quin said. "Jack's and hers won't necessarily be alike."

  I saw de Mordaunt move out of the corner of my eye. He simply shifted his weight and leaned back against the wall, no longer looking as if he expected Quin to attack. He did, however, keep him in his sights. The powerful figure and sharp eyes reminded me that he too had demon blood. I wondered if he had any special capabilities,
aside from shape-shifting, or if they'd been bred out of him. His connection to the full-blooded demon that had taken over Gilbert de Mordaunt's body was a few generations in his past.

  "I delved further into the supernatural after learning of her true nature," Myer went on. "It became my passion. I found out about the book and the portal, but had no idea where either were located until Lord Frakingham brought that torn piece of paper to the society."

  "In sixty-seven," I said.

  "In sixty-seven. You already know how that excursion went."

  We did indeed. Two men from the society had been killed by the demons that had escaped through the portal when Myer opened it. Demons that Quin had sent back when summoned.

  "I experimented with summoning another demon, hoping that bringing one here from that realm would get word back there. But that was a spectacular failure."

  Quin blinked at him. "You summoned a demon here as an experiment?"

  Myer touched the tie at his throat. "Langley didn't tell you?"

  "I knew," I said. "The others told me about the first demon Tommy and Jack had to fight off. You couldn't control it."

  "Yes, well. It was a learning experience. After that episode, I decided the book could help me. I thought the best solution would be to send Edith back through the portal, but I had no idea how to open it when that piece of parchment went missing."

  "When you did open it, you jumped through it instead."

  "I would have opened it sooner if you hadn't kept the book from me," he growled.

  Quin bristled at the accusation flung at me. "If you'd told me what you needed to do, I could have helped." He pointed his chin at de Mordaunt. "Why him?"

  "I wanted help, but not from any…sources that might condemn my soul for actions that weren't my fault."

  "You mean for your involvement in killing the Hatfields."

  His lips flattened, but he didn't deny it. So his involvement had been more than he'd implied. Perhaps it had been his suggestion to kill them after all, as we'd originally thought. I decided not to pursue the issue. If we wanted answers, we had to keep him on our side and willing to talk.