The Deepest Well

by Juliette Cross

  “Oh, what fun,” said Jane, smiling gleefully.

  Penelope sidled closer to George. “Please stay close to me, Lord Thornton, for I am afraid of minotaurs.”

  Katherine refrained from laughing. “You do realize minotaurs don’t actually exist.”

  Jane piped up before Penelope could serve her a smart remark in reply. “Who is our minotaur?”

  Jude gave a small bow. “I am, of course.” His playful grin and dark countenance cloaked him in a fiend-like aura. He would play the beast quite well.

  “All right, everyone,” said George. “Follow me to the center of the maze.”

  Penelope and Marjorie flanked George, smothering him with girlish giggles. Mr. Parsons tried to distract them with a story of when he saw the matadors in Spain.

  Katherine and Jane walked on either side of Mr. Langley.

  “Mr. Langley, did you play this game when you were abroad in Italy?” asked Katherine.

  “Afraid not. I’ve never heard of it. But it promises to be entertaining.”

  Penelope burst into another fit of laughter.

  “Very,” said Jane. “I hope he frightens them half to death.”

  “Now that’s unkind,” said Katherine.

  “No,” interjected Mr. Langley. “What’s unkind is our being tortured with high-pitched squeals for the next few days.”

  Katherine was liking Henry Langley more and more by the moment. They had just reached the center when a monstrous roar bellowed into the night. Marjorie squeaked like a frightened mouse.

  “What was that?” asked Penelope with an expression of exaggerated fear, squeezing closer to George.

  “That was only our fearsome minotaur,” said George. “Now we need to venture out. We must split up, or he’ll catch us all together.”

  George glanced over at Katherine, but it was no use. Penelope had sealed herself to his side. Katherine shrugged and followed Jane and Mr. Langley. Another roar bellowed into the night, but closer and from the direction they were headed. Squeals and giggles erupted right after.

  “This way,” said Mr. Langley, leading them down another path away from the noise.

  They rounded a corner with a familiar trellis arching above the hedge. A trickling fountain gurgled nearby. Another roar farther off. This time Mr. Parsons’ frightened yell joined the giddy girls. Katherine trailed behind, noting that Mr. Langley took Jane’s hand. She let him as he guided her around the next bend. Better she let these two wander off alone.

  Backtracking a few steps, Katherine followed the winding path till she was outside the maze, but in the back of the garden, standing on the pebbled rock of the outer path. Curiously, there was a semicircle of bright torches lit around the fountain and underneath the tunnel of vines leading to the gazebo. She paused, wondering whether all of this was within the wards of protection George had spoken of. Then she wondered for the hundredth time whether she was mad for believing such outrageous tales.

  Someone grabbed her from behind and pressed close to her ear. “It’s me. Don’t scream.”

  Letting out the breath that was lodged in her throat, she spun and whacked George on the arm. “Stop sneaking up on me like that.”

  He smiled wickedly. “We don’t have much time. Come with me.”

  Taking her hand, he led her through the trellis tunnel and up the gazebo steps. There was no torchlight beyond the path, so they stood in the dark, with only the moon above them.

  “How did you possibly get away from your admirers?”

  “It wasn’t easy. Jude will steer them clear for a while. But we don’t have much time.” He pulled her toward a bench. “Please sit.”

  She did. He paced a few steps.

  “I know that you are confused and possibly still in disbelief.”

  “You’d be surprised how much that isn’t true.” She set her hands in her lap, calmly assessing his nervous movements. He appeared afraid. “I accept what you have told me as truth. But there is so much more I don’t understand. What is your part in all this? And Mr. Delacroix?”

  A great roar and screams from within the maze paused their conversation. George stood in front of her, apparently unable to take a seat.

  “Please listen to me. All that I must confess will sound more unbelievable than what you heard earlier today.”

  Katherine swallowed hard, not entirely happy with the sound of that.

  “I was once a soldier, fighting for my king in a distant land. Judaea. We had fought a battle against both men and what I discovered later to be an army of demons.”

  He inhaled a deep breath then launched into his story.

  “After the battle and our victory, the soldiers I’d fought alongside for years seemed to be taken over by violence, a bloodlust that drove them into the village filled with only helpless women and children. It was the essence of demons filling their souls and driving them to madness, murdering and violating the innocent. I stepped forward to protect a mother with three small children huddled in a hut. Before I knew it, I was standing against my own legati, my lieutenant. He ordered me to step aside so that the massacre could continue. I refused.

  “This was not done, you must understand. His order was as good as one from the king himself. But I”—he shook his head as if to wipe the horrific memory away—“I couldn’t submit. Rather than simply kill me, my legati said my fate was in their hands. He ordered the soldiers to round the rest of the villagers together. While still held by my own brothers of war, he told me my life depended upon their immediate conversion. He demanded that the villagers recant their God and pledge allegiance to their new god of Rome, to Caesar. Of course, the Judaeans would not. Those helpless innocents with swords at their throats did not waver under the threat of death. Remarkably, I saw hope shining in their eyes, not despair or fear. At that moment, I joined them in their belief and told my legati, I’d rather stand with their God and die with them than live under the yoke of evil and tyranny.

  “I tried to remain strong as I was forced to watch the soldiers cut the throats of mothers, daughters, sisters and sons. When it finally came to me, the legati used my own gladius to stab me through the heart.”

  By now, Katherine was frozen, wringing her hands together to keep them from shaking as she listened to his fearful tale.

  “Observing all this was an angel named Uriel. An archangel. As I lay there bleeding on the ground, he knelt over me, raised my head and asked if I would serve him in all the years to come. I was close to death. I remember his voice sounding far away, like an echo. I actually believed I was in heaven.”

  He laughed, a hollow sound, then sat next to Katherine, keeping his hands clasped between his knees.

  “Uriel glowed with a fierce power. I could feel it humming against my skin, even as I slipped further away. He asked me once more if I would serve him on earth, fighting other demon hordes, if I were spared from death, to right this wrong done to me and to the innocents of the world. I thought he meant metaphorical demon hordes, of course. I said yes. So I died to my mortal life and was given another.”

  Katherine shook her head and opened her mouth to ask a question.

  “Hear me out. I want to tell it all right here, right now. When Uriel made me, I became the commander of what would be a league of demon hunters across the human world. The damned were out of control, ruling and corrupting without boundaries. Uriel taught me how to cast them back into Hell, then Jude joined our ranks, but not in the same way. He was the first Dominus Daemonum.”

  Katherine translated the Latin. “A master of demons?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what do you mean, not in the same way?”

  George stared down at his locked fingers. “His story is not mine to tell. But hunters are different. They are made when they have received a fatal wound, like I did, but have gotten it when committing a mortal sin. If Uriel deems t
hem worthy of the choice, they are given a second chance to join our ranks. If they choose Light, Uriel makes them a Dominus Daemonum with the same powers as other Flamma, though there is a penance for their sins.”

  “What powers?” asked Katherine, her breathing shallow as she listened with rapt attention.

  “To cast illusion and build wards, to expel demons, to sift, to remain…ageless.”

  At this point, Katherine’s mind was reeling. She started to speak, but he held up his hand, asking for patience.

  “You did not see the sword I was carrying today because I used a cast to trick your mind that it wasn’t there. All Flamma have the ability to cast, to disguise weapons or even hide themselves among the population. It is necessary when tracking enemies as crafty as those we hunt. You know about sifting, a gift of the angels. And once a human dies to their mortal life, they become ageless. Not immortal entirely, but free of a natural death from aging and disease.”

  George did not waver from her gaze.

  “You are ageless?” she asked, hesitantly.

  He nodded.

  “When…when did you die? To your mortal life?”

  “Three hundred and three anno Domini.”

  Katherine did not speak, did not move. Neither did George. The laughter of those in the maze still playing their game drifted over them, mocking the world-shaking revelations taking place in the stillness of the gazebo.

  Finally finding her voice, she demanded every last detail. “This king you served?”

  “An emperor, to be more precise. Diocletian. I was a legionary in the Roman army. Uprisings in Judaea had brought us there to quell the chaos.”

  Katherine stood and peered out at the vast park stretching away in moonlit serenity. She inhaled a deep breath, processing the unfathomable story she’d just been told.

  “Can this possibly be true?” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

  “I was thirty-three years old when I died, when Uriel remade me as I am.”

  “You are fifteen hundred years old.”

  “Yes,” came the soft reply.

  A heartrending realization suddenly came to her. “Were you ever married?”

  “Once.”

  “Did you love her?”

  “I loved the idea of marriage, of family, of a home. Our parents arranged the union. I did my duty by her, earned money to make a home for us. I was happy. So was she. I gave her a child, a son.”

  Katherine could no longer even breathe. She turned to him, unable to restrain the emotions rattling through her frame, spilling into pools in her eyes.

  “You had a son?” Her voice cracked.

  He stood slowly and moved close to her, wiping the tear that slipped down her cheek with his thumb. She didn’t flinch away but remained passive and frozen.

  “I had a son. Then I went away to war when my emperor called. I was gone for nearly a decade, and I died on a foreign field, drenched in demons’ and soldiers’ blood. I died to the simple life I once had and took up a new one. Uriel told me I could never return. A curse of being ageless, besides the fact that I would only bring danger to them in my new life.”

  Katherine sobbed for the loss he must’ve felt, for what he must still feel. He had had a wife and son who loved him, cherished him, and he had lost it all.

  “So you never saw them again?”

  His mouth quirked up on one side. “Yes, I saw them again. From afar. I saw my wife grow old, caring for our child. I left a pouch of denarii for her as often as I could, to keep them from falling into poverty. I saw my son marry and have a family of his own. Then I watched as my grandson had a family of his own.” George sighed with a sad smile. “I’ve watched them all as long as I could.”

  “And you still do?”

  “I have one living relative left.”

  “Only one? You should have many.”

  “My line has not been very fortunate. A great deal of it has to do with the fact that if my enemies, any of the demon princes or their minions, discover me favoring a human, that human will be singled out for corruption and destruction.”

  “And where is your last descendant now?”

  “Here in London. You’ve met him. Alexander Godfrey.”

  “But he comes from a long line of Godfreys. They’d be your descendants too.”

  George shook his head. “Alexander is the bastard son of the woman he calls aunt. She fell in love with one of my line while in France, then the last living kin I had. He disappeared and was found drowned in the Seine a month before she gave birth. Then she died from excessive bleeding in delivery of the child. Her brother, the senior Alexander Godfrey, took pity and raised him as his own, since his wife was barren.”

  “Dear God. I am so sorry, George.” She reached out and took his hand.

  He stared down at their clasped fingers, hers encased in a white glove.

  “I’m afraid there is nothing but tragedy in my history. But I’ll be damned if I allow Damas to take my last living kin into a world of debauchery.” He clutched her hand tightly.

  “Who is Damas?”

  “You know him as Lord Radcliff.”

  “The viscount.”

  George laughed. “He is no viscount. He is a prince of the underworld. And he is determined to torment me by dragging Alexander down as low as he can before he destroys him completely.”

  Katherine frowned, never having seen any sign of wickedness where Lord Radcliff was concerned. She would more believe her husband a demon than—

  “My husband, Lord Blakely. Is he one of these…high demons?”

  He shook his head. “No, but he keeps their company. I am afraid for you as long as you are with him.”

  She scoffed. “I fear there is no way of avoiding that.”

  “Yes,” he said, his tone low and grave as he squeezed her hand more tightly. “There is a very simple way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He tugged her a little closer, invading her space with his alluring presence.

  “I want you to leave him. I want you to come and live with me. If you can’t get an annulment, then so be it. I care little for the laws of men. I know only that I want you as my partner in life. The rest of them can burn in Hell, as far as I’m concerned.”

  George’s jaw clenched tight, square and hard in the shadows, his brow furrowed. He was serious. She needn’t ask him if he was.

  Rather than entertain his rebellious plan, which had her thoughts spinning wildly, she focused on the part that didn’t matter to her at all.

  “You would spurn society?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “Then why hold this house party if you don’t care about them all?”

  “For you. To find a way to get you here. Because I am a bloody fool, I may have endangered you by singling you out at the Weathersby ball. Damas took note that I drew you away for that waltz. He wants anything that is important to me. And right now, you are the most important thing to me in this whole goddamned world. I held this house party specifically to get you safely under my roof and away from that blackguard of a husband. I am not ashamed of it either.”

  A singsong voice crooned from the hedgerow nearby. “George? Where are you?” It was Penelope, who had broken from the party.

  Both of them glanced in the direction of her voice. George grabbed Katherine and pulled her close against his chest, his hand splayed tightly against her back as he whispered, “Hold on.”

  A sucking sensation pulled her stomach into a knot, then all was black with blurring shapes around George’s head. She felt as if she were falling before they righted on solid ground again, standing by a bench in the hedgerow maze.

  “Go that way and turn left. It will take you directly to the back veranda,” he whispered. “And Katherine”—he perused her face with an intensity that made her bre
athless—“I understand that what you’ve heard sounds like sheer madness, but it is all true. Especially the part about what I want with you.” He paused again, visibly swallowing, then licked his lips. “My parents chose my first love for me. This time I choose my own. My heart chooses you, Katherine. If you’ll have me.”

  He sifted away, surely to meet up with Penelope and help the damsel escape the maze before the minotaur got to her.

  As she stepped with confidence toward the exit, a premonition of evil seeped into her skin, sending a shiver down her spine: that she was the true lonely maiden wandering through a maze, seeking the right way home before the beast caught her and devoured her whole.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sleep would not come that night. George didn’t even try. Around midnight, a steady rain began to pour. No thunder. No lightning. Only rain—relentless and serene. He needed a drink to take off the edge, but he refused to indulge even in that. He wanted to be lucid and alone with his thoughts.

  After the charade of a game to entertain his guests, when the real motive was to find Katherine alone and divulge the hard truth of his past, he had retired to his bedroom, exhausted. Dressed only in his drawers, he remained fixed by the window, listening to the torrential downpour and the fire hissing in the grate.

  There were many things left unsaid at the gazebo. If she chose to be with him, there would be time to explain the details he’d had no time to tell her then. Like the sudden lightning storm that erupted when he fought the three demon lords by the pond. He did not want to frighten her further by explaining that this sort of phenomena occurred only when Flamma of great power battled one another. The energy coursing through their bodies clashed when they came in conflict and stirred the earth’s elements. Great storms with flashing and thundering skies hid the battles between heavenly and demonic hosts. Humans found cover when a dangerous storm approached. Often, it was a sign that something more dangerous was coming. But tonight, there was nothing but quiet rain pouring down. A stillness that eased his mind.