Soulbound

by Bec McMaster

The grandfather clock in the hallway ticked ominously. Nothing else stirred. Cleo crept through the house on Sebastian's heels, barely daring to breathe. The kitchens were far too clean, and a fine layer of dust settled over everything.

  "It feels like nobody's been here for a few days." Cleo ran a finger along a mantle in the parlor. No self-respecting parlor maid would turn a blind eye to this.

  Above them, someone's weight shifted. They both froze, looking up.

  "Upstairs."

  Sebastian moved with starling alacrity, the hem of his coat flaring as he made for the door. He took the stairs almost silently, and Cleo ghosted along behind him. Wearing a blindfold for most of her life had made her hearing startlingly acute, and she was used to moving quietly to avoid her father's notice whenever he was in one of his rages.

  No sign of movement in any of the rooms, and they carefully opened each door. The wait ate at her nerves. "Maybe the floor was settling?"

  "No, there's someone here." Sebastian eased the next door open, as Cleo kept a watch in the hallway. Sudden horror leapt along their bond, and she turned to see what had struck him so, only for him to wrap an arm around her waist and force her back, out of the room.

  "Don't look."

  Too late. A bed flashed into view, red streaks painted across the pillows and sheets, and a woman's pale leg hanging from the edge of the mattress carelessly. Dark bruising mottled the woman's skin, hinting at death.

  Sebastian shut the door in a hurry.

  "What.... Who was it?" Her mouth tasted sour, and terror set a stranglehold on her throat. That poor woman.... Cleo's mind refused to make sense of the shapes she'd seen, and the angle of the bloody gashes in the woman's side, and she was grateful for it.

  "Lady Beaumont, I think." Despite the gloom, his face seemed drained of color. It was one thing to wish a woman dead, quite another to see it done so horrifically. "That's why there weren't any bloody wards. The second she died, her wards evaporated. We're getting out of here. Now."

  A creak sounded along the hallway. And Premonition, that willful, unruly bitch, began to skate along the fine hairs of her arms.

  Cleo's fist curled in his coat.

  "What is it?" The midnight taste of his mind brushed against her own.

  "Someone's inside the house."

  Another floorboard groaned, as if something momentous tested its strength. In the gloom at the end of the hallway, a pair of glowing red embers suddenly lit up.

  "Merde." Sebastian shoved her behind him.

  "What the hell is that?" she gasped.

  "A gargoyle," he said, taking a careful step backward. "Don't move too suddenly. My mother had a house guardian once. It's been primed to take down any intruders, and if we run it will pounce."

  "Who the hell ensorcels a gargoyle?" Of all things!

  "Some sorcerers use stone constructs in place of watchdogs."

  She knew the theory behind magic constructs. The Jewish called them golem, though she'd read that a golem was created when a power word was etched upon a scroll and placed within the golem's clay casing. Constructs were resurrected by a single spoken power word, and a sorcerer could create one of the soulless, mindless automatons out of anything: stone, wood, paper, shadows....

  "If Lady Beaumont died, then all her spell work should have died with her," Cleo said, "unless she embedded the spell in a rune."

  "I can't see one. Someone else must have created this construct," he said.

  The gargoyle's head turned to face them suddenly, and Cleo took a startled step back.

  Those red eyes locked on her. Oh, mercy. She froze, but it was too late. The construct saw the small movement. "Sebastian?"

  He stepped between them, funneling energy out of the air. "When I tell you to run, then run."

  The gargoyle launched forward on all fours, it's heavy wings tucked tight against its body. Sebastian detonated one of the preprepared charges in his rings, and a wave of force unleashed. It smashed the construct back into—and through—a wall.

  "Run!"

  No need to say it twice. Cleo grabbed her skirts and raced along the hallway with Sebastian at her heels. A thunderous crash sounded behind them, sending her heart rabbiting in her chest.

  "If we can get outside the house, there's a good chance it won't follow!" Sebastian yelled.

  The front door had never seemed so far away. Growling sounds echoed behind them, hot on their heels. They'd never make it.

  "Yes, we will," Sebastian snapped.

  Sebastian warded, and the gargoyle flew into the shimmering dome surrounding him. The impact drove him off his feet, and he landed on the hall runner, sliding several yards along the floor. Cleo hesitated, turning toward the creature as it regained its feet. Sebastian's ward protected him, but the fall had disorientated him enough to leave him unsteady as he rolled onto his side.

  If he dropped his ward....

  She glanced around, and snatched an urn off a nearby pedestal, hurling it toward the creature. Priceless antique porcelain shattered on the gargoyle's wings. "Over here, you ugly lump of stone!"

  Red eyes locked upon her, and the sleek muscle in its haunches gathered itself.

  Cleo sprinted toward the stairs. Snatching at the railing, she hauled herself around the corner where the staircase met the upper hallway, chancing a glance behind her. Scrabbling claws peeled small scrolls of timber off the floorboards as it tried to bank, and the gargoyle slammed into a wall, tearing the delicate Chinese wallpaper and knocking a picture frame to the floor.

  Its eyes flared red with vicious need. Cleo's heart stopped, terror choking her. She fled down the stairs, her boots catching on the last step and sending her sprawling onto the marble floors in the foyer, the sting to her palms and knees jolting her. She rolled onto her back, summoning her power and flinging up a hasty ward.

  A man stepped into the foyer, avoiding the patches of hazy sunlight that lit the floor. He flexed a hand, and sorcery filled the air, tainting it with a coppery taste.

  "Hezhrazahd." A single horrific word of command, and the gargoyle exploded into a million small shards, raining dust everywhere.

  Cleo lowered the arm she'd hastily flung in front of her face. The word seemed to pulse in her ears, as if it ate its way inside her.

  Wiping his hands and a cutthroat razor upon what appeared to be an old shirt, Drake de Wynter looked down at her, his lips thinning and his eyes no longer the pale gray they'd once been, but a demon's merciless obsidian depths.

  "I truly wish the pair of you hadn't walked in here," it said.

  Chapter 25

  THE SIGHT OF the man who'd sired him punched through Sebastian's chest, shocking the breath from his lungs.

  The duke might have been his mirror image if he were thirty years younger. The duke's shoulders and chest were broader than Sebastian's, his build solid and filled with a quiet menacing strength. The faint cleft of both their chins matched, and he recognized his mouth in his father's face, though the shape of his eyes was more like Morgana's.

  They'd only met in the flesh once, and several times upon an astral plane Drake had dragged him to when he was trapped in a cell in his mother's house. Drake had been trying to rescue him then, begging him to hold on and not unleash the almighty powers brewing within him like a thunderstorm.

  But there was no sign of his father anymore.

  Sebastian rose to a crouch, and then froze when the demon stared at him. Any sudden movement.... He glanced at Cleo. She was far too close to it. He'd never reach her in time.

  The demon cast the bloody rag aside, its eyes unblinking as it took in the debris from the ruined gargoyle. "That took me over an hour to create."

  Cleo scooted backward on the floor, her back meeting the wall. "What do we do?"

  "Keep it talking." He didn't take his eyes off the demon.

  "How did you find me?" Its lips quirked. "I've made arrangements to befuddle young Verity Bishop's talents, and no scrying device can track me on this plane." Its head turn
ed sinuously toward Cleo. "And I've accounted for you."

  Pure bad luck. Sebastian slowly placed his foot on the stair below him. "We wanted to question Lady Beaumont."

  "If you move suddenly, I will gut her," the demon said, turning back to him.

  He froze, putting his hands in the air.

  "Tsk, tsk, Sebastian." His father's voice, but it sounded wrong coming from that throat. "You've found yourself another weakness."

  "She's not a weakness."

  "A pressure point then." It smiled, a thumb running along the edge of the razor. "All you have to do is know the right place to press."

  "You look better than you did in Noah Guthrie's body." He eased down another step. Another.

  "This body is stronger than Guthrie." The demon seemed pleased. "No matter how much your father screams at me inside."

  Merde. He'd housed this creature within his own body once. A desperate, unthinking ploy when he'd lost all hope, and the only escape he could see was to work with it. Barely a single day with it inside him, feeding upon him, knowing his every thought.... Hearing its thoughts, or the ones it allowed him to hear. Sebastian swallowed hard. He'd blocked that day from his memory, but seeing it now brought everything back to the surface.

  Including a hint of what it wanted.

  The demon hauled Cleo to her feet, his hand manacling her upper arm tight enough to make her cry out.

  "If you hurt her," he warned, finally reaching the foyer floor. "You won't get out of here alive. I promise you that."

  "You wouldn't dare."

  "I think you're the one who wouldn't dare," he said softly, advancing one step at a time.

  Interest flickered in the demon's eyes. "You and I worked together once, to trap your father into his bargain. I have no wish to kill you, unless you get in my way."

  I was desperate to escape my mother. I never meant to cause any of this.... "I don't think you can kill me."

  Definitely interest. Cleo cried out as its grip on her arm tightened. "How so?"

  "You made a bargain with my father when he traded his life for mine," Sebastian said. "You can't harm any of us, or he'll be able to take control of his body again. Demons can't lie."

  Its nostrils flared. "True. Unless you attack first and I am forced to defend myself."

  "Then I won't."

  Dragging Cleo back against its chest, it put the razor to her throat. "Are you certain of that, Sebastian?"

  His heart stopped, and the whirlpool of emotion threatened to suck him under. Cleo. There was no magic in the world that could stop the demon from hurting her if it willed it. He'd never felt so powerless. "Let her go."

  "You shouldn't make threats you can't keep."

  "She's included in the bargain," he replied. "Drake said you couldn't harm any of us or our wives."

  "Ah, Drake. That constant thorn in my foot...." The demon smiled. "I didn't lie. He can try to take his body back if I hurt you. I never said I wouldn't fight him for it."

  The razor slid lower, slicing through the thin lace at Cleo's décolletage. She sucked in a shallow breath, and he felt her trying not to look down.

  "And there are things I can do to your wife that have nothing to do with hurting her."

  "Don't react," Cleo babbled in his mind. "It wants you to react."

  There were hands pawing at him, leaving his skin feeling oily, stained, dirty.... "No." Sebastian shook his head, unable to bear it as the razor parted the silk covering her breast. Only her corset remained, thin protection against the world. Cleo trembled, and he felt it within. "If you fucking touch her...."

  Not her. He could bear the pain, but he never wanted her to know what the world was truly like.

  "How are you going to stop me?" The demon laughed.

  He couldn't attack it, not with Cleo in its arms.

  He couldn't defeat it with his sorcery, for demons were creatures of pure magic....

  Only one card left to play. Sebastian stared into the demon's eyes, trying to find any trace of the man he barely knew. "If you're in there, then you need to fight it now. I need you."

  And he threw himself forward, capturing the demon's wrist and slamming the pair of them into the wall. Tendons strained in Drake's arm, and Sebastian forced the razor away from Cleo.

  A hand locked around his throat, squeezing with inhuman force, but it wasn't the first time he'd been breathless. He remembered a belt around his throat, choking him as Lady Beaumont kissed her way down his torso. He slammed the bastard's hand back into the wall, trying to force him to drop the razor. Couldn't breathe. His face tightened, blood pounding in his ears. All he had to do was hold on just a little longer.

  "Sebastian, let him go!"

  He danced back, just as Cleo hurled something at the demon. A mage globe of white, barely a threat, and yet it was enough to distract the demon. The demon brushed it aside contemptuously, and white light splashed up the walls as it exploded.

  Then it was slashing with economic grace, and Sebastian had to duck and weave, slamming a fist into its ribs as he went.... A punch strong enough to fell a mortal man, but the demon barely flinched. Did it not feel the blow?

  Pain was an old friend as the razor kissed his cheek, splattering blood across the walls....

  Sebastian clapped a hand to his cheek, yanking Cleo out of its grasp, and summoning all his power to bear. Energy thrummed through his veins, but the demon paused, hunching over, choking a little....

  "What's it doing?" Cleo cried.

  The demon's face rippled, and it snarled at him. The darkness drained out of its eyes, replaced by pure silver.

  It went to its knees, one hand splayed over the marble floor tiles and its entire body shaking until... a man knelt there, slumping as if he'd fought a mighty battle.

  "Run," Drake rasped at him. "I can't... hold it for long."

  His father. Sebastian's heart leaped into his throat, guilt searing his nerves.

  "Drake!" Cleo gasped as she staggered free, sliding to her knees beside the duke and trying to help him up.

  Color mottled Drake's face as if he were still choking. "Not much time." He pushed her away from him, and looked toward Sebastian. "Eleanor?"

  He couldn't take another step forward. His father. His father. They'd spoken only a handful of times, but this man had set him on a path toward freedom, toward Cleo. And he couldn't even answer him.

  "She's fine," Cleo said, squeezing Drake's hand. "Ianthe's had her healers in to see to her, and she's almost as good as new."

  "You don't have... much time." Saliva dripped from Drake's mouth. He hunched in upon himself. "It's setting everything... into motion."

  "When?" Cleo demanded.

  "Tomorrow." Drake shuddered. "It needs the full... moon."

  "What for? What is it planning?"

  Drake looked up. "It wants to tear a hole in the Veil between worlds. It wants to bring forth... its brethren."

  Demons. Imps. All the monsters and beasts within the Shadow Dimensions. This was how London would be destroyed, and all Cleo's Visions had him at the center of it. The cause of it.

  "How do we use the Relics against it?" Sebastian demanded.

  Drake's teeth gritted together, and his entire face screwed up in strain. Gasping, he ground out, "Use the Blade.... Only Cleo can wield it. Sink it.... Sink it into my heart."

  "No." There had to be another way.

  "Only Cleo," Drake stressed, gasping again. A wild ripple of movement slithered inside his cheek, and the veins on his temples stood out. "Agatha knows what to do with the rest of it."

  "Stay with us!" Sebastian called, suddenly feeling like he could move again. Please. There was so much he wanted to say.

  "It's too... late."

  Drake shuddered on his hands and knees, sucking in breath. Those things were moving beneath his skin now in angry waves. Drake screamed, his knuckles straining white. "Run!"

  The sound of his scream cut off so abruptly, Sebastian froze. Drake's body began to still, and slowl
y he looked up, bringing his breathing under control.

  It wasn't his father. Not anymore. Even though the demon tried to hide it, Sebastian could see the frustration and rage turning those silver eyes to liquid obsidian.

  It laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "He's stronger than I thought." And it pushed to its feet, locking murderous eyes upon the pair of them. "And I am done playing by his rules."

  Flinging a hand toward Cleo, it hooked its fingers and yanked its hand close to its chest. Cleo soared across the room, clutching her throat and choking as she sank into a pile of ruffled skirts at its feet.

  "No!"

  Sebastian darted forward, but the demon hauled her to her feet, and yanked her back against its chest.

  "Oh, I wouldn't," it warned in a dark voice, its hand sliding up her throat and forcing her chin high. Silver glinted as it flicked its wrist and set the edge of the razor to the pulsing beat of her carotid artery.

  A single red bead of blood formed, and Cleo sucked in a wild breath, her spine arching to alleviate the press of the razor. Her wild eyes met his.

  "Pressure points, Sebastian. Don't forget that."

  His hand lowered, and he didn't dare reach for his sorcery. Pressure points. He knew a little about pressure points. His mother had taught him the price of having them all his life. "What do you want?" he demanded flatly.

  The demon laughed. "Now you're starting to play the true game." Its laughter shut off abruptly, as if it had never been. "You've been very busy, haven't you? You have my pawn. You have my Relics. I want them all back."

  "Your pawn?"

  "Morgana."

  It had wanted to kill his mother last month. Sebastian's mind raced. Cleo had said something about chess pieces.

  "Don't," she whispered, clinging to the demon's sleeve. "Don't give them to him."

  The demon caressed her throat with the razor, dragging the tip of it down to rest in the hollow of her collarbone. It slowly looked up. "You have twenty-four hours to deliver what I want, or I'll do to your lovely wife what I did to Lady Beaumont. I'd suggest you take a good long look at Lady Beaumont before you make your decision."

  It was no decision. "Where am I to deliver them to?" he asked hoarsely.