by Zoë Archer
Which would give him release far too soon. She lightened her touch until she stroked him with delicate, fluttering caresses.
“Ruthless.” He spoke the word half in admonishment, half in admiration.
“With you, yes.” But she didn’t want words, for they contained too much intimacy, which led in directions she dared not follow. She took his mouth again, and he both gave and took in response. She slid her foot up his calf, testing the feel of his flesh against hers.
When his large hand clasped her ankle, she shivered. When his hand stroked up her calf beneath her chemise, she gasped. When his hand moved over her knee and up her thigh, she could not stop her groan. He touched her leg boldly, possessively, as if her body had been created for him and his pleasure alone. She badly wanted his touch between her legs. She needed his fingers delving into her quim, wet and eager for him. With absolute understanding she knew that the moment he touched her there, she would come. It would take only one stroke.
He lifted his head to watch her. His hand drifted higher, closer. Yes.
His hand stopped. She urged her hips higher, encouraging, demanding.
“Now, Whit,” she commanded.
“I can’t.”
“Why the hell not?” She opened her eyes to glare at him.
His gaze was fixed on something over her shoulder. “Because there is a ghost watching us.”
She twisted around. Sure enough, a ghost was watching them. Rather avidly.
Zora released her hold on Whit. Wary, she sat up and protectively crossed her arms. “Livia.”
“Why do they stop?” The specter frowned. “Over a millennium has passed since I have seen such a magnificently carnal display. Makes me wish for a body of my own.” Her hands came up to stroke her neck, and her frown deepened into an angry grimace. “Nothing. I feel nothing. Not even the touch of my own hands.”
Zora felt Whit beside her tucking himself back into his breeches. Given his hiss of discomfort, the process was not an easy one. He’d been so thick and hard.
“The Roman ghost has a name,” said Whit. “You know the ghost’s name. And it is talking.” He eyed Livia warily as she angrily muttered, carrying on a conversation with herself in a corner of the room. Night had fallen, so she glowed whitely in the darkness, the only source of illumination.
“Unpredictable as gunpowder, too,” added Zora.
Strange how only a day had passed, but things such as demons and ghosts were almost familiar. The world had truly gone mad. Or Zora was mad, like Livia.
Zora did teeter on the edge of sanity, if from unsatisfied desire alone. In too slow increments, arousal began to fade, echoes of heat leaving her body in gradual pulses.
“Why are you here now?” Zora demanded. “You disappeared.”
Livia struggled to break from her muttered raving. Her eyes focused more clearly on Whit and Zora. “I ... am pulled. From this place of brightness into shadow. The world between worlds. Even now, I feel it. Drawing on me.” As she spoke, she guttered like a flame in a breeze.
Whit rose up from the bed. “Talking to a ghost,” he said, still amazed.
“Delicious male. A brand glowing in the darkness.” Livia eyed him, longing clearly written upon her spectral countenance. Though Zora understood to some extent that the priestess missed human contact, she still disliked the idea of Livia ogling Whit like a lioness sizing up a potential mate.
Good God, was Zora jealous? Of a ghost?
Livia’s shape flickered. “It drags me back. Too much time, now too little. They must know—before it takes me again.” Raising one ghostly hand, Livia pointed at Whit. “The glowing brand. His soul is the key.”
“Key to what?” Whit and Zora demanded in unison.
“Unleashing Hell on earth.”
Chapter 9
Zora heard Whit moving through the dark room. He seemed remarkably calm for a man who learned his soul was crucial to creating Hell on earth. Yet with his usual grace, he went to the candle stand, opened and closed a box, then struck a flint to light the candle. The glare temporarily blinded Zora, and she felt her pupils contract painfully.
Her eyes adjusted by degrees until the room came into focus. Compared to the opulence of Whit’s home, this bedchamber appeared spare and plain. It held the minimum necessary for a night’s stay: bed, table, battered clothes press. Yet it was still a gorgio room, heavy and immobile, and so she could not feel comfortable. Her gaze moved from the details of the room to something more ... not comforting, but familiar, in his way. Whit.
Clad only in his breeches, he stood at the foot of the bed, his attention fixed on Livia. Zora had already seen the priestess’s specter, so for her, Whit without his shirt was the greater wonder. She had touched him, learned his form and feel and knew from this exploration that his was a body worthy of adoration. Here was visual proof.
Gorgios, she had learned over the years, were soft. Especially the wealthy ones. Some of them played at being hunters, at sportsmen, but that’s all it truly was: play. Their bodies bore the imprints of this charade. Even their young men at the height of their vigorous masculinity seemed fragile, vaguely unwell from a life deprived of air and sunlight. Looking at a partially clad Whit, Zora thought she might have underestimated gorgios.
No, she corrected herself. Whit was unique. She had known that at the encampment days ago, and she knew it for certain now.
The fire of himself had burned away everything excess. He was all lean muscle, ridged and firm, his body arranged in precise shapes, gilded by candlelight, and she wanted to stare. She needed to touch, to see and feel the beautiful masculine composition—chest, abdomen, the lines from his hips angling down, offering the most enticing shadows. He radiated physicality much like a horse bred for racing radiated speed. Truly, there was something almost animal about Whit, so that the façade was not his playing at being a sportsman, but rather a primal male playing at being a gentleman. His clothing had hinted at but not fully revealed what lay beneath costly silk and linen. Now she knew otherwise.
Surely he did more than hold dice or cards, for his arms were powerful sinew, his forearms tightly muscled, sprinkled with dark hair. The bones of his wrists formed hard, sharp juts beneath his skin. She already knew the seductive quality of his large, dexterous hands. Zora’s gaze traveled up the length of his arms to his wide shoulders. Doubtless his tailor bemoaned having such a strapping client, for it required the cutting and fitting of his expensive shirts and coats into feats of complicated design. Gentlemen didn’t have shoulders broad enough to fill a doorway.
Her gaze stopped on his left shoulder. She had seen something there when Livia had first appeared but dismissed it as a fault of her sight in a poorly lit room. Now she saw that it hadn’t been a trick of the light.
Zora rose from the bed and approached Whit. He watched her, his gaze wary, as she reached out toward him. Her fingers hovered but did not touch. She felt a vine of fear knot around the base of her skull.
An angry wound marred the back of his shoulder, evidence of their battle against the demons. He had cleaned the wound at some point, and it looked as though it might leave a faint scar. Evidence that he had fought for her.
Yet her attention was snared by something else on his body. A pattern of flames covered his shoulder and ran down to the very top of his bicep, as though someone had drawn on his flesh. The design itself deeply troubled her. The flames snaked and twisted across his skin, as if they were trying to devour him. It was only a drawing, yet a malevolence imbued each line, each shape. Zora thought the candle must be guttering in a draft, for it seemed as if the illustrated flames flickered. She half expected his skin to give off an even greater heat.
“These pictures,” she whispered.
He grabbed his shirt from the back of a chair and shrugged into it, hiding the design. “They appeared after I and the other Hellraisers made our bargain with Mr. Holliday. Since that day it has ... grown.”
She felt her jaw slacken in horrified surpr
ise.
“His mark.” Livia uttered this pronouncement bleakly. The candlelight had dimmed her own glow, and the struggle to remain fixed in this world showed as she shimmered. “Each moment the Dark One possesses the glowing brand’s soul, his mark grows.”
“And when it covers me?” Whit demanded.
“He asks for answers when I have none to give.”
“Hazard a guess,” he said tightly.
“When the flames cover him ... the glowing brand is lost. His soul will never be his.”
Zora seized the glimmer of hope that shone between Livia’s cryptic words. “Your soul might still be recovered.”
“Tell us more,” Whit urged.
A laugh like broken glass shattered from Livia. “These hot little children. Believing I have answers when the question is barely known.”
Seeing that the ghost was scarce on information, Whit turned to Zora. “How does she know any of this?”
“Livia summoned Wafodu guero long ago,” Zora said. “He tempted her with power, and she yielded.”
A humorless echo of a smile canted Whit’s mouth. He rubbed at his marked shoulder. “Not an uncommon occurrence.”
And the reason why Zora was here in the first place. Why her whole life had become a Guy Fawkes bonfire. She did not return Whit’s smile, looking away toward the window, and the night beyond.
“The Dark One feeds,” said Livia. “His chosen fare is not bread nor meat. Souls. They strengthen him, give him power. Those souls capable of good ... they are the most potent. The Dark One gobbles them up and grows in strength. Too late. I learned this too late.” Her form quavered, fading in and out as her agitation grew. “Are we lost before we have begun? How can it be stopped?”
“Calm yourself,” Zora urged. “Tell us what needs to be stopped.”
Livia stared down at the ground as if the flames of Hell licked at her hovering feet. “Darkness from below. Drinks the light. Steals the brightness. This world shall become his own. The underworld no longer beneath but all around.”
“What happened at my family’s camp is a taste of what may come.” Zora’s head whirled at the possibility, and she leaned against the wall to support herself.
Concerned, Whit moved toward her, but she held him back with an outstretched hand. She needed her own strength just now, for she could not yet rely on him, not when he had been the unwitting agent of future calamity.
Whit kept his distance, though the tension in his body revealed how difficult it was for him to do so. Tormentor or solace—he was both.
“I see it.” Livia looked up, but her horrified gaze was distant. “Each soul makes him stronger. His armies massing. Marching. The world covered in flame and darkness. Misery without end. Eternal suffering.”
Hell on earth, thought Zora, shuddering.
“Then I have to stop it,” replied Whit at once. “Stop Mr. Holliday.”
“The glowing brand thinks it a simple matter.” Livia broke from her trance to stare at the scrapes and cuts on Whit and Zora, cuts made by the demons. “Already blood is spilled. My life lost.”
“We battled his minions and won,” Zora noted.
The priestess made a very unholy sound of derision. “A trifle, a tame little dance. He is a strategist. Player of games. The glowing brand knows games, how to win. Everything is not learned with the first roll of the dice.”
“Mr. Holliday is just testing us,” said a grim-faced Whit. “Discovering our strengths, our weaknesses. For the next time.”
So much certainty in that statement. Next time. It would happen. More of those awful beasts. More chances to fail, to die.
More chances to win, Zora told herself. She had to believe that she and Whit could succeed. Or else she would give in to despair. Precisely what Wafodu guero wanted.
“What do we need to do?” Zora asked.
“The tokens are taken,” said Livia, “but not lost.”
“Brilliant. More puzzles.” Zora clenched her fists in frustration. “This ghost has all the makings of a fortune-teller.”
Yet it seemed to make sense to Whit, for he nodded with understanding. He spoke lowly, though steel and anger threaded his voice. “The geminus showed me a token for a soul it had won. It must have mine, as well. It mentioned something about a vault.”
He began dressing quickly, lacing his shirt and shoving it into his breeches, pulling on his boots, shrugging into his waistcoat and coat. He gathered his unbound hair to tie it back.
“I know how to find the geminus,” Whit said. “I have the means to summon it. All I must say is, Veni—”
“Silence!” Livia darted forward, floating above the ground, with her hand outstretched. She moved to cover Whit’s mouth, but she passed right through him. For a moment, both stood motionless in surprise. The ghost whirled away, staring angrily at her spectral hand. Her eyes flashed enraged, pure white. “Taken from me. It is so cold. So blasted cold.” A seething ball of light took form above her open palm.
Zora grabbed Whit’s arm and pulled him back the moment that Livia, shouting in fury, hurled the glowing orb at the far wall. It slammed into the timber and plaster with the noise and force of a thrown boulder, narrowly missing Whit. Chunks of wall fell to the floor.
He raised his brows at the close call.
“Mad ghost,” Zora snapped. “Allies don’t throw deadly magic at one another like footballs.”
“Is it wise to ally ourselves with her?” Whit asked under his breath.
“For good or ill,” answered Zora, “she’s all we have.”
Livia calmed herself, though the cost of summoning the ball of light sapped her, and she faded even more, as did her voice. “The geminus ... will not come alone. The double’s face ... holds his master’s eyes. Sees what he sees. If it is summoned by the glowing brand, the Dark One will find him.”
“Then we must find the geminus,” said Zora.
Whit looked thunderous. “If the geminus keeps company with the Devil, you are going nowhere near that damned creature.”
“My fate is knotted with yours. You tied the knot that bound us together.” When she saw that Whit meant to object again, she added, “Wafodu guero knows I’m a threat. That is why he sent those demons to my camp. If I threaten him, I can fight him.”
“And die.” He crossed his arms over his chest, a forbidding sight.
“Or live.” She planted her hands on her hips. “The answer is me, is you and I together. We’ve always known it to be so, else you wouldn’t have chased me from one end of London to the other.”
Time stretched out, as tense as wire, as Whit glowered at her. She had no doubt that he had used the same glower on lesser aristocrats and at the gaming table with great effectiveness. Were she not so deucedly stubborn, she might have crumbled under such a look. But, she reminded herself, she was Zora Grey, a Gypsy vixen. She had willingly given up married life so she could honor her own judgment, make her own decisions and even her own mistakes. They were hers to make, and no one else’s.
Many times, she had gotten into arguments with Jem, or her parents or other members of her family. They wanted her to obey, yet if she disagreed with their logic, she could not comply. No one ever tried to use reason. They shouted, or, in Jem’s case, bullied. Her attempts at discussion were roundly ignored. Daughters and wives—women—obeyed. That was all she was supposed to know, or so the Rom believed.
Would Whit be the same? Would he listen to her when no one else did?
Whit’s gaze held hers, and she beheld the swirl of conflicting thoughts and emotions there, as intricate as a constellation. Gambler’s eyes: assessing, weighing, examining every outcome and possibility. Most astonishing, he was truly considering what she had said. He might not agree with her stance, still, he did not dismiss her or shoulder her aside.
She felt a strange lift of gladness, too, realizing that he did not immediately capitulate. He was not a weak-willed man, instead meeting her strength with his own. It might not make for a peaceful
association, yet it certainly made things more interesting. More ... exciting.
At last, he drew in a long breath and slowly let it out. “As we pursue the geminus, will you do as I say?”
“No,” she answered immediately. “Blind obedience is for horses and children.”
A corner of his mouth turned up, a rueful smile.
“You are neither,” he said.
They stared at one another, finding their way toward a new understanding, no less complicated than anything that had come before. Each of them resisted neat definitions, both within their worlds and to each other. Yet things that were neat and easily understood were often dull. Nothing had been dull since Whit swept into her life, and she had the distinct impression that nothing ever would be again.
Before he had met Mr. Holliday, and Zora, Whit’s life had settled into a kind of routine. Admittedly, what he deemed routine found a different definition in the scandal sheets: the wild revelries engineered by Bram, midnight brawls, fortunes won and lost at the gaming tables. Yet for Whit, such things had long ago lost their sheen. His hours in sundry clubs and gaming hells proved the only aspect of his life that gave him any exhilaration. Even that could develop a pall. He had begun to wager larger and larger sums to seize a measure of excitement.
Since that night almost a week ago, nothing in Whit’s life had been standard. The discovery of magic, of supernatural beings, of demons and ghosts and sinister twins and the Devil himself—it tended to recontextualize one’s old perspective, so that what had been thought of as the entire world was, in fact, a child’s marble. Easily displaced, knocked aside by something larger, with the potential to roll away and be entirely lost.
The past twenty-four hours destroyed any sense of stability. He was no longer James Sherbourne, Lord Whitney. His title meant nothing. His estates and their vast incomes did not matter. No one cared if he attended Parliament. He was only a man. Battling for his very soul, trying to prevent the Devil from creating a literal Hell on earth.