The Deepest Well

by Juliette Cross

  Having been compelled to travel by the fastest means possible to Harron House in London, he and Jude had sifted there. Upon arriving and finding her gone, they were forced to acquire suitable mounts from a local stable and go in search of the carriage. The search took them throughout the streets of London as the night grew long.

  And on the outskirts of town, there it was. George reined in his horse, its hooves skidding on the pebbled road. He sped to the front and leaped to the bench. No driver. He wrenched open the door. No passengers either.

  “Here he is!” yelled Jude, already in the ditch, helping the burly man into a sitting position. “They gave him a good knock over the head, but he’s alive.”

  George pulled a flask of water from inside his longcoat. He poured the water over the dried blood matted in the man’s hair. “Barclay, can you hear me?”

  He splashed some water over his face. The man jerked and threw up a fist to knock George back.

  “It’s all right! There now. It’s Thornton.”

  He held up his fists a moment longer, blinking in the dark. “Milord?”

  “Yes. Here, take a drink of water.”

  George helped him, but Barclay took the flask himself and gulped down three swallows.

  “Tell me. What happened? Where’s Lady Katherine?”

  He heaved a sigh and wiped a large hand across his face, water dripping from his chin. “I’m so sorry, Lord Thornton. The lady asked me to wait downstairs, so I did. I wasn’t there long when I felt a thump on the back of me ’ead.” He felt for the lump. “I turned round to give the man a go but was shocked to find a proper gentleman like you did that.”

  “Like me?”

  “Aye. Dressed in fancy clothes and all. ’e was fast too. Didn’t even see ’im move when ’e ’it me again”—he gestured toward the front of his head at the bleeding wound—“then I was out cold.”

  “Sifting,” murmured Jude.

  “What did he look like?” asked George.

  “Like I said. Kinda like you, but his face weren’t so perfect. ’Ad a nick right above ’is mouth right ’ere. Long hair in a queue.”

  Jude and George shared a knowing look.

  “Lorken,” said George. “All right, we need to get you back home.”

  Jude and George lifted him to his feet and helped him back to the carriage. While George took the reins and guided the horses forward, Jude stepped behind the wheel in the ditch. With much urging of the horses, George pulled and Jude pushed, the carriage lurched forward onto the road, if a bit cock-eyed.

  “Whoa! Easy, now.” George gentled the horses, then strode back to Barclay, who stood in a stupor, and guided the man into the coachman’s seat.

  “Jude, you help him get home. I’m going to Calliban’s. That must be where they’ve taken her.”

  “Like hell I’m letting you go there alone.”

  Barclay hoisted himself in front of the cab. “I can get me way ’ome fine. Don’t ye worry.”

  “Are you sure?” asked George, eager to sift, his skin tingling with the need for action.

  “I’m sorry, Lord Thornton. I didn’t mean to let ye down.”

  George shook his head. “It’s not your fault, Barclay. You just get on home safely.”

  “Aye,” he replied pulling his forelock before snapping the reins. The horses jerked forward, seeming eager to return to the safety of their stables.

  “Sift to the back of the property by the lake,” said George a split second before he vanished.

  He arrived along the back gate of the property with a snap of energy, but there was no one outside to notice. The gate that encircled the property was not the true barrier. Rather it was the protective wards. But George knew they could cross over here. He walked along the gate with his hand, palm out, sensing the wards’ strength.

  Jude appeared with a whipping crack, which reverberated over the lake. “Must you make so much noise?” asked George.

  “I can’t control how powerful I am.”

  George had no smart response, too intent on his goal. “Here.”

  Jude joined him at the gate and placed his palm in the air where George had his. “Yes. Paper-thin. The lake curves closest on this side.”

  “We should cross over now,” said George, fury still pumping hard through his veins.

  “Wait. Look.” Jude pointed. A carriage that hardly made a sound rolled up to the atrium.

  Neither of them said a word when Damas stepped out, dressed in his finest. Alexander came behind him, following Damas into the atrium.

  “Bloody bastard. He’s brought Alexander again.” George clenched his teeth, wanting to crush the demon’s skull with his bare hands. “We’re crossing over. She’s down there in that pit of filth. I know it.”

  “No. Be patient. The moment we breach the wards, they’ll detect that we’re here. One of them could sift away with her to the underworld, and we’d never get her back.”

  Jude was right. George was thinking with his emotions. He needed to keep calm if he was to get her away safely. So they sat back and waited. Time stretched. Music began playing below the lake’s surface. George watched the lighted dome under the lake, yearning to sift there and take Katherine from that place. If he did, he could lose her with one misstep.

  Patience. A virtue he once cherished. Yet now, when it came to her, to Katherine, he had none. Only the desperate, clawing need to go to her, no matter the cost. In this case, the cost might be losing her for good. He clenched his fists, trying to quiet his racing temper, despising the unknown, feeling helpless.

  The music stopped playing. Jude and George glanced at one another and watched the door. Waiting.

  “Someone’s coming,” said George.

  Out stepped Alexander, then Katherine, dressed in white with a man’s coat over her shoulders. Damas was at her back.

  Blinding rage took hold of George. He sifted without thinking, landing directly at their side, and reached for Katherine. Damas moved lightning fast and blocked her, punching George across the jaw.

  “George!” she screamed.

  Alexander defended his master. Damas pulled a sword from nowhere and handed it to the young man, whispering in his ear. Alexander nodded and held the sword pointed at George’s heart, his own flesh and blood used as a pawn against him.

  Damas pulled Katherine into his arms and yelled into the night, “Caesar! Veniat ad me!” He vanished, sparks crackling, after summoning some spawn named after the Roman emperor. George’s heart plummeted, not because of the threat but because Katherine had been taken where he couldn’t find her.

  “Over there!” bellowed Jude, suddenly appearing and knocking Alexander’s blade away with a zing of steel.

  Damas stood on the vast lawn up the hill, Katherine beside him, pale as the dress she wore. The air rumbled. Lightning splintered the sky, striking the ground close to Damas.

  “Something big is sifting in,” said Jude.

  A crackling boom, then a deafening roar vibrated into the night as a titanic demon spawn sifted above and landed on the lawn, the ground shuddering when his claws touched the earth. Two demons rushed out of the atrium at the noise, while Jude circled Alexander. Jude wielded a second blade in his left hand, readying for the newcomers.

  “I’ve got this,” Jude said. “Go get her!”

  George pulled Silversong from her scabbard with death on his mind and sifted closer to the beast. Katherine had fallen to the grass and stared up at the black-scaled dragon in awestruck horror. Damas stood over her as the beast shifted its body between George and Damas. George would have to kill the creature first or risk being killed before he could get Katherine out of there.

  The prince’s new pet was four stories high with razor-like flaps framing its face. Black scales shimmered under the moonlight when the clouds broke before billowing over the luminous orb o
nce more. Its mouth gaped wide, a crimson forked tongue slithering in and out. Ice-white eyes followed George as the creature stamped one foot, shaking the earth. It growled, the vibration rippling the air as it sidled forward. The clash of steel on steel behind George didn’t deter him. He stood his ground, sword at his side, gazing up at ten tons of death. Damas had made this mistake before, sending one of his biggest beasts to defeat George. There was no creature, great or small, that could keep him from Katherine.

  Thunder rumbled above. Storm clouds blanketed the night sky, a sign of Flamma warfare. More demons tumbled from the atrium along with Clyde, who might as well have been one of them, for there was no humanity left in the man.

  The beast swiped through the air at George, but it was no match for the centuries-old warrior. All the while, Damas stood to the side, holding on to Katherine, watching the display.

  Clyde ambled toward the lawn, staring in wide-eyed wonder at the beast. He mumbled something, then laughed maniacally as if filled with uncontainable glee at the sight of a dragon, a living fairy tale on display for his pleasure.

  Damas made a motion with his hand. “Caesar!”

  The beast lunged, stretching out its long neck, opened its jaws and snapped them around the body of Lord Blakely. Katherine screamed again. The beast shook its head back and forth. The man’s legs dangled from its mouth before the dragon snapped Clyde in half, letting the legs fall to the ground, and tossed the rest of the man aside, a lifeless chunk of meat.

  The beast turned back to George, effectively blocking him from Damas and, more importantly, Katherine. He had to dispatch the beast quickly and get to her. When the behemoth lunged for him as it had done Blakely, he simply sifted, not to another part of the lawn, but on top of the creature’s head. Raising his sword high, double-fisted on the hilt, he released a mighty blow, crunching the blade into the skull. The dragon screamed in pain and shook its head from side to side. George held on and shoved the sword deeper, never losing his balance, his aim straight and true.

  The beast crashed to the ground, rolling as it went. George leaped but was caught by the dying dragon’s snout, his legs pinned as they tumbled to the ground together. He glanced toward the woman he loved.

  Her eyes wide with terror, she was already running toward him, her arms outstretched. “George!”

  Her feet suddenly left the ground as Damas caught her around the waist from behind. Damas glared at George with only one dark thought shining in his stormy gaze. Revenge. The demon smiled over Katherine’s shoulder as she struggled to free herself, one arm reaching out to her love.

  “Farewell, Slayer,” said Damas.

  Panicked, George froze for a second too long. He sifted, moving as fast as the lightning that webbed the sky. When he appeared where they had been standing, she was gone.

  The lingering scent of sunshine and seashore filled the air, a torturous remnant of her warmth and beauty, now in the hands of George’s greatest enemy, taken into his dark lair in the underworld.

  “George!”

  Jude was being overrun. Racked with pain and fury, George sifted into the middle of the mayhem, swinging his sword wide, the blade still covered with Caesar’s blood. Jude had expelled four demons on his own, but the rest were pouring out of the building. Alexander was in the mix with them.

  Fury drove George on like a madman, hacking and slashing. Black blood spewed. Injured demons fell at his feet. And he refused to relent, refused to expel them, leaving them mangled and monstrous, dismembered by Silversong’s vengeful wrath. Most of them fled, including Calliban. He wanted no part of the Slayer of Demons after witnessing his unabated rage and the bloodbath he refused to stop.

  “Enough!” yelled Jude when George had hacked the last demon standing into unrecognizable pieces. Jude grabbed George’s shoulder. “Enough, man.”

  George shook him off, heaving wildly, anger still burning through his veins. Jude walked from one pile to another, chanting the spell to send them back to Hell. One at a time, they combusted into smoke and ash. George did nothing, still clutching Silversong tightly, unable to quench his thirst for blood and revenge, for his true enemy was far, far away. With Katherine.

  “And what about him?” Jude asked.

  Against the atrium door, Alexander sat, clutching at a wound in his gut. Dark red soaked his waistcoat.

  Jude stepped closer to George. “I’m sorry. He nearly killed me. I was only defending, but he turned and—”

  “It’s not your fault. It’s his.” He ambled closer and stood over the fair-haired man who actually showed some genetic resemblance to him along the jawline and profile. He hadn’t noticed till this moment.

  George considered letting his family line die right here, right now as he watched the lifeblood spread across Alexander’s belly like a blot of ink on parchment. But the bitter hatred he felt eating him up inside wasn’t for this young man whose eyes were already glazing with death. It was for himself. By one arm, he lifted the man. Jude got under the other and assisted.

  “To Dartmoor,” said George.

  They sifted together, landing on solid ground on the wide, lonely expanse of Dartmoor near a line of standing stones. The hills rolled under a silver sheen of moonlight—desolate and empty. They lowered Alexander and lay him flat on his back.

  “Uriel,” said George, staring upward into the night sky, barely above a whisper.

  In a streak of light, with a whipping crack, the white-winged archangel descended, half sifting, half flying to the earth. He didn’t wear the raiment of humans as he often did when blending with the populace. Today, he wore a blue tunic and pewter armor as a battle-ready warrior for the Flamma of Light. The tips of his wings shimmered gold like his hair, even under the pale moonlight. His aura of power beamed a halo around him.

  “Who have you brought me?” he asked.

  This was their custom. When George found a human worthy to join the ranks of Dominus Daemonum, he would summon Uriel to this lonely moor.

  “His name is Alexander Godfrey.”

  The archangel knelt and placed a palm on the dying man’s forehead. “Your blood pumps through his veins.” Uriel’s aura of power filled up the space where they stood. “One of your kin?”

  “Yes.”

  “He has fallen to the enchantment of a high demon. I detect the aura of a dark force. Not essence, but influence.”

  “Damas.” George’s voice shook with rage. Simply saying his name nearly sent him over the edge. He could hardly breathe.

  Uriel studied George with a clear, steady gaze. “Damas has hurt you to the heart this time. But I sense it is not over your descendant lying before me.”

  Rigid and unmoving, George couldn’t speak, inhaling a deep breath as he stared out at the windswept moor that mirrored the hollow emptiness he felt inside.

  “Damas has taken George’s—” Jude began and paused to clear his throat. “George’s friend, Katherine, was abducted tonight by Damas.”

  “I see.” Uriel’s expression remained calm, never wavering. “We can only deal with one tragedy at a time. Is this man worthy of a second chance, to pay penance as a Dominus Daemonum? Or did you want me to save him solely because he is your blood?”

  George still refused to answer. He felt as if Alexander’s wound had transferred to him, the pain spreading like a fatal lesion bleeding inwardly.

  Jude stepped forward. “This man, Alexander Godfrey, fought on the side of the Dark tonight, defending Damas, trying to kill on behalf of a demon prince. I would say siding with Damas is mortal sin enough. Yet, there is good in the man. He is not filled with malice as men who have fully fallen are. He has been misled, following the will of an evil one with higher power.”

  “Yes. I sense the darkness within. But I also sense the light.” Uriel lifted the unconscious man’s head off the ground with a hand on his chest. “His injury will certainly kill him so
on enough. Let us see if he wants a second chance.”

  A flare of light shot from Uriel’s hand, zapping Alexander awake. He coughed as his eyes popped open. Staring wildly at the angel leaning over him, he knit his brow into a frown.

  “Am I…am I…dead?”

  “No,” said Uriel. “But you are very close to death. If you should die at this moment, you will spend eternity in hell for your earthly crimes.”

  Alexander’s gaze widened further, his youthful face filled with fear. “I don’t want to die.”

  “I can save you,” said Uriel. “But if I do, you will no longer be human. You will live out your days as a force for good, fighting the evil that has corrupted your own soul. Sending them back to Hell.”

  A puzzled expression fixed on Alexander’s face, which then contorted in pain as he gripped the wound on his abdomen, his hands already smeared scarlet.

  “I don’t want to die,” he repeated.

  “That is not an answer. If I give you this power to live again, to live long, you must pledge your life to the power of Light.”

  He nodded, his ashen face grim but determined. “I do.”

  “Very well.”

  Setting his head back down, Uriel ripped open the man’s shirt. George had witnessed this many times. He knew the archangel needed to place his hands on bare skin to expel his own power into whatever human he made into one of them.

  Pressing one hand high on Alexander’s chest and the other over the bloody wound, Uriel began to chant the words of making.

  “Ignis caeli venite ad me.” The fire of heaven come to me.

  White-hot light filled Uriel to the very tips of his wings, beaming like a star too bright for human eyes. The light shifted, pouring into Alexander’s body, beginning with his chest and running through his entire frame.

  “Lux autem in tenebris. Libera eum.” Light up the dark. Set him free.

  Ethereal flames licked into the night air, burning away the old, renewing his spirit with heavenly fire. Alexander cried out in pain, arching his back as the supernatural burn purged his body clean. The death wound on his abdomen closed up, sealing itself with nothing more than a thin scar running sideways where Jude’s sword had slit him open.