by Zoë Archer
“Think of the risk. The fortune you tempt, and what I am risking.” Whit’s voice was smoothly persuasive. He understood the scrupulous ways in which he essentially manipulated himself, for the geminus was fashioned of the selfsame material. The creature and he were not merely similar, but identical, and he played upon that now.
“You have something I want,” he continued. “Very badly. Is it not thrilling to watch me make this desperate gamble? To know that you hold the power here? Especially as I have no advantage.”
Dark excitement gleamed in the creature’s eyes. Like any veteran gambler, it quickly hid its emotions. “What stand I to gain by accepting this bet? There is nothing more valuable in your possession.” It added, sulky, “And you will not wager the girl.”
Here, as planned and hoped for, was his moment.
“This.” He pulled the pocket watch from his waistcoat. His fingers curled tightly around the timepiece, instinctively protecting something so precious.
Like a jackal sighting prey, the geminus’s pupils widened, its eyes darkening with greed. As Whit’s double, it knew the significance of the pocket watch, what the timepiece truly meant to him. Nothing material in his possession held as much value; it was his only true link with his family and birthright.
“Should I win,” said Whit, “I regain my soul. And should I lose, you put the pocket watch in your vault.”
The geminus raised a brow, suspicious. “You know of it?”
“We share most everything. I have seen with your eyes. Felt with your heart. Just as you have seen and felt what I have.”
“Including the Gypsy girl.” A venomous smile followed the geminus’s words. “The pocket watch in my vault. I rather like picturing that. The bright token of your soul beside that battered old watch, where no one can see it, no one can touch it. You will spend your remaining days knowing that the last of your legacy is beyond your reach. And you will also lose the chance to ever again reclaim your soul.”
Sharp pain sliced through Whit as he considered this. There was no choice, however.
“Do you agree to the terms of the wager?” His voice was rough.
“I do.”
Whit stuck out his hand. The geminus snorted at such a quaint, honorable gesture. Yet it shook Whit’s hand—an uncanny moment for Whit, shaking hands with himself. The creature was cold, so it felt as if he shook hands with his animated corpse.
The geminus released Whit’s hand. “Let us commence.”
“Call your main, my lord,” the bone demon creaked after Whit took the dice.
He considered it. “Seven.”
“The main with the greatest probability of winning,” noted the geminus.
“I am a gambler, but I take whatever advantage possible.”
“Naturally,” said the creature.
Whit blocked the sounds of the room from his mind. His sole focus became the dice in his hand. Small cubes of ivory that bore the full weight of his eternity.
This was no game with something as negligible as wealth or property at stake. This was Whit’s soul, and his future. He finally understood how much he wanted that future—with Zora.
For her, then, and himself.
He cast the dice.
As they tumbled, Whit tried once more to plunge into the swirling vortices of probability. Now, when so much depended on the outcome, he found the patterns more complex than ever, impossibly convoluted. This was no mere shifting of the odds, for if one fragile element changed, a tidal wave of unwanted outcome followed. The smallest miscalculation could cause disaster. The lacework of probability covered him, pulsating against his skin and inside his body, his mind.
Nothing would hold in his grasp. He could see probability but could effect no change upon it. It simply existed. Independent of him. What it would do, what form it might take, he could not predict or alter. It was true chance.
As Whit’s heart beat thunderously, the dice slowed. Stopped their roll.
“Three,” pronounced the bone demon. “A throw-out.”
The geminus smiled its death’s-head grin. “You lose, my lord.”
For several moments, Whit stood motionless, silent. He stared at the dice, and their markings. Two, and one. Three. By picking seven, his cast of the dice could not be three, else that meant he lost the round. And so he did.
The geminus held out its hand. “The terms were precise. Now you must forfeit.”
Whit unclenched his fingers from around the pocket watch. He had clutched it throughout the round, and it left an imprint in his palm like a memory soon to fade. His arm felt made of rusted iron as he held out the watch, and he found it strange that his muscles and bones didn’t shriek with the movement.
The pocket watch. Everything that he was and would ever be. Held out to the Devil’s eager minion.
As fast as a striking scorpion, the geminus snatched the timepiece. Once the watch was in its grasp, however, the creature took its time. It held up the watch, admiring its prize. Firelight gleamed across the metal surface, as if the flames of the underworld clamored to consume it. A circle of reflected light shimmered over the geminus’s eyes. It grinned as it stared at its new treasure.
“Another round,” said Whit.
But the geminus merely smiled. “Come now, my lord, those were not the terms of our agreement. We shook hands like gentlemen.”
“Neither of us are gentlemen.”
“Several hundred years of the Sherbournes’ selective breeding begs to disagree. And, as I am merely a part of you, the same rules apply.” The creature closed its fingers around the pocket watch. “So I will do you the honor of ignoring that insult to us both.”
Whit knew that nothing he might say could convince the geminus to give him another chance. He remained rigid and still, his every muscle coiled, ready to spring.
“Now,” said the creature, brisk and cheerful, “I will take my prize to its new home.” It strode from the table.
Whit followed, shadowing the geminus as it wove through the chamber. The heat and sound crushed down, and there were men everywhere, red-faced, riotous, lost in the morass of gambling. His head spun as he trailed after the geminus, the room awash in tumult. Faces swam toward him, twisted by darkness and firelight. Some laughed. Others shouted in rage. Demons appeared and disappeared in the chaos.
God, but he wanted to see Zora’s face. To have her beside him, brash and fierce.
The geminus left the main gaming chamber. Whit followed close behind. Yet the creature walked leisurely, its stride easy and confident, as it entered a sparsely populated corridor. It stopped beside a door, then paused, its hand on the doorknob.
“You cannot take it back from me.” Carelessly spoken, the geminus’s words. “Not by force, not by persuasion.”
“I know.”
“A final farewell, then?” The creature shrugged. “As you wish.”
It held up the watch, and even though the creature had Whit’s form, its hand identical to his, nausea billowed as he saw the precious object in its hand. He fought the impulse to try to seize the pocket watch, his body locked tight in a kind of rigor mortis.
“A last look,” smirked the geminus. It opened the door.
Whit caught a glimpse of the vault within. The chamber appeared precisely as it had when he had been the geminus: stone walls, vaulted ceiling, shelves awaiting further souls. Hunger rose in a dim surge as he felt the geminus’s demands for more and more souls, more power. Whit wanted that power for himself.
Zora would urge him to fight that hunger, and it was a fight.
Sensing this, the creature gave him a condescending smile. “Beautiful, is it not? Alas, never to be yours. Only mine, and my master’s. Your pardon, my lord, but this is the portion of the evening you are not permitted to see.”
It stepped into the vault and shut the door.
Whit opened the door immediately. He found himself in a dim parlor, where two men hunched over a game of whist. A demon with a twisted face presided over the g
ame, and it looked at him with polite disinterest.
“Shall I deal you in the next round, my lord?”
Whit closed the door.
Standing in the corridor, he envisioned very clearly what was transpiring in the vault. The geminus walked across the stone floor, passing the tokens of other souls it had won or stolen. Until it stopped beside the shelf that held Whit’s soul. It placed the pocket watch next to the token and admired the pretty picture they made, side by side. His eternal soul, and the tangible evidence of his legacy. Both now lost to him, kept in the accursed vault until the end of time.
After a last, exultant look, the geminus walked through the vault. Its shelves kept filling, and Manchester would see even more treasure added. At that very moment, nearly fifty men in the gaming hell were staking their souls, and none of them knew. The master would be very, very pleased. His power grew with each soul. Once he had acquired enough, he would be unstoppable. What a marvelous day. The final day. Eternal night ever after. Hell on earth.
The geminus was not surprised to see Whit waiting for him on the other side of the door.
“No need to look so dour, my lord.” The creature shut the door behind it. “The night has only just begun, and there are so many marvelous games to play.” It held out a directing hand, urging Whit back into the main gambling room.
If Whit opened the door again, he would find exactly what he had seen before. A parlor, with men playing whist. Not the vault. Only the geminus could enter it.
“Yes,” he heard himself say. “There are many games to play.”
He followed the geminus, casting one last, lingering glance at the door. Behind it lay everything he’d ever valued.
Chapter 19
Within the vault, everything was quiet, suspended in eternal silence. No one ever walked upon its floor save the creature who had built the structure. The souls contained within it existed in solitude, feeding the Devil’s ravenous appetite. When the time came and they were fully consumed, no one would witness their final fading. There was power here, and despair.
And stillness.
Yet not everything was still. On one shelf, beside a particularly radiant soul, sat a pocket watch. Old and battered. A perfectly ordinary pocket watch, hardly worthy of being in the vault.
The watch moved. At first, the movement was small. Barely more than a vibration. But then it began to rattle. It moved as if something were trapped inside trying to break free. The metal casing glowed. The pocket watch jolted as its case opened. Light poured out of the timepiece, pooling on the shelf and moving down to the floor. The gleaming light grew and coalesced into the height and shape of a woman. The glow faded, but the woman remained. In her hand, she held a heavy cavalry saber.
Zora stood in a large stone chamber. Its ceilings curved up high above her head. Tables ran down the length of the room, and shelves bearing small, glowing objects lined the walls. She recognized the objects without ever seeing them before. Souls.
This was the geminus’s vault.
Her gaze immediately flew to the shelf closest to her. What she saw there made her gasp. Whit’s soul shone like the rarest of gems, casting a radiance so beautiful her eyes grew hot and damp. How lovely it was. How precious. No wonder Wafodu guero wanted it. The power and beauty of Whit’s soul would make anyone covetous.
Beside the gleaming soul sat the pocket watch. Her means of transportation. It worked. Livia’s spell had truly worked, as had Whit’s plan to lose to the geminus. Granting Zora means of entry to the vault. It had been a strange sensation to be suspended in magic within the watch, able to see and hear everything outside as if from a great distance. The world felt very bright and close after she had emerged.
She had little time to lose. She took the watch and tucked it safely into her pocket. Whit’s soul remained. Gently, with utmost care, she took hold of the radiant token. Living energy shimmered through her, filled her. Incredible. Touching the soul of her lover, holding it in the palm of her hand. She felt alive yet profoundly peaceful as Whit’s wild, passionate spirit enveloped her. Even making love with him had not brought them so close. From this moment on, she would know him as she knew her own soul.
Yet his had to be returned to him. At once.
Making a pouch of her skirts, she quickly ran through the vault and gathered souls. Every one. And they were plentiful. In the brief time the geminus had walked the earth, it had been busy. Touching all these souls filled her with power, so much that she grew dizzy with it. Easy to understand why Wafodu guero coveted them for himself. Precisely why she had to take them back.
She hurried to the door and opened it. As the door opened, the souls’ brightness grew. Her eyes widened as the souls dissolved into pure light, flying down the corridor in streaks of radiance. They flew out a window at the end of the hallway and disappeared into the night.
The souls were free, returning to their rightful owners. Her own heart soared. Yet her joy did not last long. A horrible, terrifying scream came from all around her. It shook the walls and froze her blood. The sound of demons shrieking in rage.
They knew. The demons knew what she had done. They would demand vengeance.
Instinctively knowing where she needed to be, she ran down the corridor, sword in hand.
Whit watched a group of men at the hazard table, barely feigning interest in their play as he waited for Zora to enact the next stage of the plan. Tension pulsed through him. He felt ready to put his fists through the walls. Giving the geminus his pocket watch was the most difficult thing he had ever done. If anything went awry, Zora would be trapped—either within the watch itself or in the vault. Yet he’d had to hand over the timepiece, and he had died by degrees as the geminus took it, and Zora, away.
All he could do now was wait—and it was killing him.
Then he felt it. A surge of energy moved through the gaming hell, as strong as a tidal wave. All of the demons stopped in the midst of motion. Dealing cards, serving wine, collecting winnings. As one, the monsters looked up and froze. Even the geminus paused as it urged a man toward the Pope Joan table. The creature looked baffled and then ... enraged.
“Whit.” Zora’s voice.
He spun around and saw her, standing at the entrance to the gaming room. Their gazes locked. Something wild and fierce broke open within him.
In one hand, she held his saber. The other held a glowing object. He knew what it was. It flew up from her hand and headed straight toward Whit.
He saw the geminus move to intercept the light. Instinctively, Whit threw out a punch, slamming his fist into the creature’s jaw. Pain blossomed through his own jaw, but it was enough force to stagger the geminus. It reeled back just as the light hit Whit in the center of his chest.
As the light spread through him, the feeling was unlike anything he had experienced. No—that was not true. When he had held Zora, when he loved her, the feeling was the same. Completeness. An aligning of self. The darkness within shrinking away. Not gone entirely, for that would always be a part of him, but it no longer corroded him from the inside out.
She had done it. Zora had freed his soul.
As his soul filled him, a black cord within him snapped. A dark, glimmering power. The control over the odds broke away, dissolving into a shadowed miasma. It was gone. The power for which he had traded his soul was no more.
He waited for the sensation of loss he thought inevitable. It did not come. He had his soul. He had Zora. He needed nothing more.
The air filled with demons’ shrieks. The geminus threw back its head and screamed, its face contorting with wrath.
Men in the gaming chamber trembled at the screams, throwing their arms around their heads, cowering under the tables. The noise seemed to wake them from a trance, for they suddenly looked around and saw themselves in the company of monsters. Their terrified shrieks joined the demons’ howls of rage. Panicked, the men shoved one another in a mad flight to the door. Whit struggled to remain standing as he was buffeted by fleeing men.
“Tricks and deceptions!” The geminus’s wild, maddened gaze locked on Whit. “Your doing.”
“Only a fool goes up against the Devil without a plan. I’ve grown much wiser these past weeks.”
Snarling, the geminus stepped back, then shouted in an unknown language to the demons in the room. Moving in unison, half the demons turned to face Whit. The other faced Zora, readying to attack.
He had no weapons. Not even his pistol. But he had his soul. And the knowledge that he must fight his way to Zora, protect her.
A trio of demons rushed him, talons out. He grabbed a heavy chair and swung it. The demons staggered, dazed, and the chair broke apart, precisely as he wanted it to. In each hand, he now held pointed wooden stakes. They weren’t much as weapons, but to reach Zora and get her to safety, he would battle with his bare hands—and God help anyone who got in his way.
Zora admired the sight Whit made, fending off attacking demons with only two wooden stakes. He swung and parried, struck out and blocked blows, all swift motion and deadly purpose. With unerring skill, he found the demons’ weaknesses, their vulnerabilities. The fiends fought and fell, yet more kept coming. He could not hold them off forever. She winced as one demon caught him across the back with a well-aimed claw. Whit spun and stabbed the fiend in the juncture between its neck and shoulder. Black blood arced up as the demon collapsed.
But there were more, and more. The geminus stood in the corner urging the fiends on. She had to help, reach him. Dozens of demons stood between her and Whit.
She did not need to draw on the blaze that burned in the fireplace. She had her own fire, stronger now that she was with Whit, and his soul restored. The flames leapt from her hand, forming into a whip. It snapped against a cluster of demons. The fiends howled and fell as she raked them with fire.
Three small, flying demons hurtled toward her. She lashed out with her whip of fire. They were reduced to cinders instantly, black dust scattering over the floor.