“Ezekiel explained it to me once. Long ago. Some who barter with daemons seek redemption. They work to regain the soul they’ve lost. Others give in to the corruption. They feed the connection with their daemon in despicable ways. Loyalists condemn the practice, but Rogues have encouraged it,” Adam said. “They want to win at all costs.”
His soft whisper held the darkness at bay as they traversed passages and climbed stairway after stairway.
“Good versus evil,” Victoria said.
“Nothing is ever so simple as that. I, for instance, fall somewhere in between. I have killed. Often. That blood has fueled Ezekiel and my cause. I’m no angel. I never will be,” Adam said.
“But you are also no Malachi. Or Reynard,” Victoria said.
They had paused at the top of a particularly tall flight of stairs that opened up into a room instead of a passageway. Adam edged around her and walked across the empty room to open the door just enough to scout ahead of their path.
“Are we close?” he asked.
“Yes. I think so,” Victoria answered. “I think he’s very near.”
“There are men at the end of the next hallway,” Adam said when he’d come back to her side. “They seem to be guarding a door.”
“Michael,” Victoria said. She stepped forward automatically, but Adam reached to grip her arm and stop her.
“Better if you call them here,” he said.
Victoria’s gaze lifted quickly to meet his. Beneath the cowl, the light from the narrow slit of window in the room seemed to settle on his eyes. They were blue diamonds in a shadowed face, hard and brilliant but faceted, as if he was afraid she would agree.
“Brace yourself,” she warned.
Her hum was low and scratchy, but she put her whole being into its expression. Unlike the hum she’d used in the tunnel to calm her nerves and get her to the other side, this was intentionally a siren’s call. She forced her attention beyond her companion—nearly impossible—to the monks in the hall outside. She could feel them. She took a step toward the door as she opened herself to the magnetism of the strange Brimstone blood, but when she took another step a warm hand closed on her wrist. Her concentration was broken. She looked back at Adam, surprised to see his hood thrown back and beads of sweat on his upper lip.
“Brace myself? As if I could possibly prepare...” Adam said.
She wasn’t prepared for the fierce tug that brought her up against him. Or the hard kiss he pressed against her lips. But she didn’t reject it either. She enjoyed the heat of his tongue against hers and the taste of salt until he stepped back. He retreated several paces toward the door and stood to the side in preparation of the monks who would enter in moments.
“Again,” he urged.
She could see Adam plant his feet and firm his shoulders before she hummed again.
They both stiffened when they heard the steps outside the door.
Adam’s sword came out of its sheath with a stealthy hiss. He cut off the cries of both men before they could make a sound. They slumped to the floor with gaping wounds across their throats. She’d expected a Brimstone flare, but their blood ran black as charcoal instead. He motioned for her to come forward and she did. She stepped over the two dead monks and followed Adam into the hallway. At the end of the long passageway, there was only one door.
“It’s a tower room,” Adam said. “They thought one entrance and exit would protect their prize.”
“Have they treated him like a prize or a prisoner?” Victoria wondered. Tears burned the backs of her eyes. Adam didn’t stop her when she hurried forward to find out if Michael was well enough to save, or if Malachi had fed his Rogue daemon master with her child’s blood.
Chapter 22
The last barrier between her and her son was a heavy oak door that was worn with age and bound by iron strap hinges that reached from edge to edge. The hinges were inscribed with layers upon layers of letters. Victoria couldn’t make out the jumble until they were within a couple of feet. She peered closer and noted several Latin words and phrases, but most of the inscriptions were indecipherable.
“Prayers to bind,” Adam said. “Scratched deeply into the iron for decades by the unholiest of men.”
He touched the door, but drew back his hand quickly when the Brimstone in his blood protested contact with the inscriptions. Victoria reached her own hand out to touch the iron, but it was cool to her touch.
“They interfere in a conflict they don’t understand. They invoke these prayers without having a right to do so. But the conflict between daemon and heaven is there. The powers that be weren’t happy with Lucifer when he chose to fall and rule a kingdom of his own. These inscriptions will have been painful to Michael if he’s on the other side of this door, Victoria,” Adam warned.
“I’m ready to face whatever we find,” Victoria said.
She stepped back with Adam and bolstered her nerve, but she wasn’t prepared for the sudden burst of violence that erupted from him. His body leaped forward, his leg lashed up and out, and the door burst inward with a splintering render of wood from iron. The door was left hanging loose to the side. The seal the corrupt prayers had created was broken.
And Victoria fell to her knees. Because as intense as Michael’s Brimstone cry of distress had become, the binding of the Latin phrases had shielded her from the magnitude of his Burn.
She struggled back to her feet and rushed forward. Her son was alone in the room. He stood crying in an iron crib fashioned fully enclosed like a cage. The bars he held glowed with heat. The crib was also inscribed with layer upon layer of words, but they hadn’t stopped Michael’s Burn from coming upon him.
Ezekiel had warned her that the Burn would come no matter the circumstances. He’d also warned her that without help, a half daemon child might not be able to stop himself from immolation.
“Michael... Michael, I’m here. I’m here,” she said. His eyes were scrunched to swollen slits. His face flamed red. Though he cried and cried, his tears evaporated before they could roll down his chubby cheeks.
“One of those guards might have the key,” Adam said.
She vaguely registered his words. She’d placed her hands over Michael’s, even though touching his hands was like touching a hot iron. She felt her skin burn. She didn’t let go.
“I’m here. I’m here,” she repeated again and again.
Adam disappeared and returned seconds later with a key. The pain in his face as he touched the sanctified object to free her son mirrored her own as her hands continued to burn. He inserted the key into the crib cage lock and opened the hinged side so she could reach for Michael. Adam grimaced as he released the inscribed iron, dropping the key on the bedding and backing away.
Victoria ignored the heat. She moved to pick up her baby. At first he resisted when she tried to lift him from the crib, but she continued to murmur his name and reassurances. Finally, he let go of the glowing iron and allowed her to bring him up into her arms.
She cried out in pain from his heat and his condition. Her rough robes smoked from the contact with Michael’s skin. He was dressed only in a rough gown made of the same material as her robes. Curls of smoke rose from the material as it scorched against his skin. He was dirty, but she couldn’t see any blood or bruises.
“Hurry. We have to get you two out of here before Malachi tries to stop us,” Adam said.
Victoria held Michael close even though he was still stiff and crying. He seemed completely unaware that his mother held him. He was lost to fear and the pain of his Burn.
“He has to be stopped,” Victoria spoke over Michael’s crying. “The Order has to be destroyed from the inside out. You can’t get us out until you’ve dealt with Malachi.”
Adam stepped toward her. She could see his intention on his face. His jaw was set in stone. His blue
eyes blazed with a Brimstone glow. She could think of only one thing to do. She jumped into the cage with Michael and reached to jerk the hinged side closed. The sanctified lock clanked fast against Adam before he realized what she intended to do.
The key was beneath her on the bedding. Adam was locked outside. She was in a cage and as Michael screamed she thought of all the birdcages at Nightingale Vineyards that were open. Always open. Because the ghost of Elena Turov dreamed of a day when her son, her firebird captured in the service of a dark prince, would be free.
“No. Damn it. No,” Adam shouted. He reached for the inscribed iron bars of the cage and gripped them with white-knuckled hands, even though she could hear the sizzle above Michael’s screams as his Brimstone reacted to the prayers.
“I won’t let you sacrifice your soul for me. Or for Michael. You have a daemon bargain to fulfill. You’ve avoided this compound for a hundred years, but it’s only a place. Your loathing of it is remembered pain, but it’s the men that dwell here who are evil. They will continue to create tortured souls like Esther and Gideon. Like you. It isn’t just the daemon king their destruction will slake and serve. You’ve saved as many as you could for as long as you could, but now you have the chance to save them all,” Victoria said.
Adam looked from her to the toddler in her arms who just might burn her alive if she couldn’t calm him.
“But it won’t save you. The Burn is claiming him, Victoria. He’s going to combust and take you with him,” Adam said.
“I wouldn’t survive if he went to ash without me, Adam.” Victoria leaned down to kiss her crying child’s round cheek. Her lips parched instantly against his flaming skin. “I came for him. I’m here to hold him. There’s salvation in that even if we both burn.”
“I won’t leave you,” Adam insisted.
“Of course you won’t. You’ll go for Malachi. Your blade has been tempered with a hundred years of blood for this moment. We’ll be here when you come back for us. I promise. We’ve been through the fire before. My little one and me. We can do it again.” Victoria was grateful that her tears evaporated before they had a chance to fall. The heat was unbearable. She was in terrible pain. But she bit back the whimpers that rose against it.
Adam came to her. She braced herself to argue if he continued to try to free them, but he only leaned to kiss her. He felt cool. She marveled at the coolness of his lips. He moved from her mouth to the top of Michael’s head. She allowed the move through the bars of the cage. She didn’t scoot away. He kissed the dirty blond curls. Then he backed away. He backed all the way to the door, as if he would memorize the way they looked, mother holding child, smoke rising from their robes to fill the room.
“My soul is worth nothing without you,” he said. “I do this for them. For all of them. And for you and your family too. The Order has haunted too many lives for too long.”
“Save your soul for me, Adam Turov. And I will survive to claim it and you for the next fifty years or so,” Victoria said. Her voice was hoarser than ever. Michael’s cries continued.
She was no daemon. She had no power to make a deal bound by universal laws. But the moment still seemed to pause for them. Smoke seemed to slow its swirl. Michael hiccuped and his cries stopped for a split second. When they resumed, Adam turned and ran out the door. His blue diamond eyes hidden from her sight.
She was in a cage. Her son was burning on the inside. He had no resources at his toddler disposal to deal with the gift his father had given him. Victoria had only one gift. It had been stolen from her in the first fire she’d walked through, shielding Michael with her body from the flame.
But Adam had helped her find it again.
Her hum began scratchy and low. But she didn’t let that silence her. Not this time. She grew louder instead. Claiming the new sound that came from her, older and wiser. Gone was the ingénue soprano she’d been. A new woman lifted her chin and opened her throat. Her diaphragm tightened and her lungs expanded. The smoke didn’t bother her. This voice had risen from smoke and ashes.
Victoria sang.
And the entire castle keep beneath her shuddered.
Michael took a deep breath as if he prepared to fuel another cry, but he released the air in a great sigh instead. His stiff little body collapsed against her. She gathered him closer while continuing to sing. She sang a lullaby she’d always crooned to him under her breath. This time she gave it full volume and expression. She looked down at the quieted toddler in her lap. His face was still swollen, but his eyes glinted up at her from within his reddened lids.
The cage was shaking now. Its legs jittered on the stone floor.
Victoria continued to sing.
“Mom,” Michael croaked. His voice had been made as raw as hers by his crying.
His temperature had cooled. Smoke no longer rose from their scorched robes.
She wasn’t sure the danger had passed, so she continued to sing as she fished under her for the key. She held Michael close with one arm while she unlocked the cage. She carefully kept his chubby bare legs from the inscribed iron as she climbed out and stepped down onto the floor. Her song was a purer prayer. Please. Please. Let me save him. Beneath her feet, the stone trembled. She wasn’t sure what was happening, but she knew that the structural integrity of the keep she’d seen through tunnels and passageways and crumbling rooms wasn’t as strong as it needed to be to withstand an inexplicable earthquake on top of a Carpathian peak.
Michael wrapped his arms around her neck and his legs around her middle. He hummed now along with her. He remembered the lullaby although she’d always whispered it before. He was the son of a daemon. But he was also the son of a former opera singer with an affinity that was only beginning to be tapped and understood.
Victoria walked across the room toward the open door. It was hard to keep her balance against the shimmying stone. When she reached the passageway, it wasn’t only the movement that frightened her. There was a rumbling growl rising from far down below where the keep met the mountain. She couldn’t possibly take Michael back down to the narrow tunnel lined with moldering bones. The keep continued to jerk and lurch beneath her feet as she made her way to the stairs. Even if she thought he would recover from the gruesome experience of crawling through the tunnel, she now feared that they would be crushed beneath tons of stone.
And still she sang as Michael hummed along with her.
She stumbled many times as they went down stairway after stairway. Her jeans were torn. Her knees bloody. Her back screamed against the weight of her child. Her out-of-practice throat hurt and her voice became even scratchier. She continued on. She didn’t know where Adam had gone. She didn’t know why the earthquake went on and on. She only knew she couldn’t stop until she and Michael had made it outside.
Several stories down, she began to run into monks who were fleeing the crumbling structure. They didn’t accost her and Michael. The walls had begun to fall. At first in sprinkles of stone dust, then in trickles of disintegrated pieces and finally in crashing blocks that threatened to crush and maim. She pressed Michael’s face into her neck and hoped his humming would distract him from the cries of monks who didn’t successfully avoid the crashing stones.
A young child’s snuffling cries stopped her. She looked back the way she’d come. A chorus of childish voices had joined the crying. Before she saw the children, a familiar dog-shaped shadow came into sight. His eyes blazed more distinct than the rest of him. His fur billowed like smoke around his massive body. Grim. He’d found his way to the castle. He’d come to help. But the prayers inscribed on Michael’s door must have kept him away from his master. The children he had found shuffled behind the hellhound as if he was a ferocious Pied Piper come to lead them. Victoria gasped when she saw them—from the tall to the small—the boys and the girls were grimy, bruised and malnourished. The bigger children carried those that were too w
eak or tiny to keep up with the necessary speed of the evacuation.
None of the adult monks even paused to help. She shouldn’t be surprised. They had treated the children horribly. Their deplorable condition gave testimony to how little they were valued and cared for.
Grim saw Michael in her arms and he leaped to her, blinking out of existence as he left the ground and reappearing back at her side. The group of children came to a stop, confused by the abandonment. She felt the familiar press of the hellhound’s heat against her legs. Michael was too drained from his Burn to notice his faithful companion’s return.
“I’ve got him, Grim. Lead the children out of the keep. We’ll follow,” Victoria said.
Grim touched a fully materialized muzzle full of large white teeth gently against Michael’s hip. Then he returned to the children. The oldest boy carried a girl who snuffled and cried. He gestured for the others to follow as Grim continued his role of guide down the stairs.
Victoria followed Grim and the children toward the front of the keep where a safer exit might be found. The steady stream of evacuees made her feel like she was headed in the right direction.
But then she smelled the smoke.
She stopped on a landing just above a large courtyard at the center of the compound. They had exited the castle keep. High walls surrounded the courtyard in a large semicircle. Grim continued to lead the children down the stairs, away from the courtyard toward the gates where other evacuees fled.
It wasn’t until she looked down on a battle that she saw the smoke coming from a large fissure that had opened in the earth. The courtyard dirt was smooth and polished from years of training, but the sides of the fissure were jagged gray stone. Men climbed up the stone as if it was an unnatural staircase the earthquake had provided. They leaped through the rolling smoke to engage the monks in combat.
Victoria had continued to sing, unsure if Michael’s danger was past. When she stepped out onto the landing and stopped, all the men from the fissure looked toward her. They stood as if in salute for a long moment before turning back to the monks they fought.
Brimstone Bride Page 22