The Dark Days Pact

by Alison Goodman

  Two young fashionable bucks watched from the doorway of the daffy house opposite, their mouths agape at the blurred battle. Beyond them, Hammond stood holding someone back by the arm — a tall, fair man. Helen felt her breath lock in her chest. The Duke. What was he doing here?

  He had seen her. His perplexed frown shifted into horrified recognition. It was just like the hanging, only tenfold worse. This time she was dressed as a man and coming out of a bawdy-house cellar.

  He wrested his arm from Hammond’s hold, turning on the smaller man. ‘Is that Lady Helen?’ she heard him yell. ‘For Christ’s sake, man, is that Lady Helen?’

  The fight between Lowry and Carlston erupted upward and her sight shifted to follow their speed. Lowry was back on his feet, a vicious kick connecting with Carlston’s head. The Earl slumped back onto his knees, blood running into his eyes from a gash across his forehead. Lowry staggered across the lane and grabbed one of the wooden stools outside the coffee-house, swinging it wildly as Carlston lunged for him again. The first swing missed. The second caught Carlston across his shoulder and back. Helen winced at the impact, but the Earl ignored it and grabbed for the journal, hauling on the strap across Lowry’s body. She could see the madness in Carlston’s face, his mouth drawn back in a snarl, the blood from the gash and his nose smeared across his face. He had more strength than Lowry, but the mania had overtaken his mind. He was fighting without care and without strategy.

  Gathering all her resolve, Helen launched herself at the two struggling men, Quinn’s training like a litany in her head: Find the range, transfer weight, chassé, connect, pivot. She aimed the chassé kick at Lowry’s gut, all the strength of her lower body behind the blow. He dodged and her foot glanced off his meaty side, the impetus slamming her into his body. They staggered, holding on to each other’s jackets as if in some ghastly drunken jig.

  ‘You stupid bitch,’ he hissed, spraying her with bloodied spittle. He grabbed her wrist, twisting her hand from his lapel. ‘Everyone could have got what they wanted.’

  She saw his fist a second before it slammed into her face. Pain exploded across her mouth and cheek. She stumbled back, tasting a flood of warm metallic blood. It felt as if she had been hit in the face by a carriage and the shock of it made her sway and gulp for air.

  Lowry turned to run. He took only two steps before Carlston lunged and grabbed his ankles, bringing him down hard on the stones. They rolled away from Helen.

  ‘It’s a fight!’ The call, stretched into long vowels, came from within the daffy house and was echoed in Holt’s opposite.

  Helen heard the scrape of stools and yells as the men inside pushed their way out to watch the spectacle, their movements slow and languorous as if they moved through water. She felt her sight shift back, their bodies jerking into normal velocity. They spilled into the lane in a ragged circle, taking a moment to register the unnatural speed of the fighters, and then the men who had surged out in front reeled backward, pushing those behind into the walls and against the windows.

  ‘Devils!’ someone shrieked.

  ‘God preserve us!’ another screamed. ‘It’s devils fighting.’

  The yells sparked a stampede, some men pushing forward to see, others punching their way back into the safety of the buildings. The panic spread. Helen could almost feel it like a huge wave pounding across the lane. People ran, screaming, bringing more curious men and women out into the lane. The Home Office was not going to be pleased.

  She scrambled to her feet. She needed help. Where was Hammond? She found him and the Duke still pressed up against the wall of the daffy house, hemmed in by the mob. Hammond was trying to follow the fight on the ground, all his focus upon Carlston and Lowry. The Duke, however, had his eyes fixed upon Helen, clearly horrified by her uncanny speed and bruised, bleeding mouth. He started forward, as if to wade through the panicked crowd to her side.

  No, no! She shook her head, jabbing her finger wildly towards Hammond and then at herself.

  His outrage disappeared into a searching frown and then he nodded. Thank heavens he was a man of quick understanding and even quicker action. He yelled something in Hammond’s ear. The smaller man straightened and looked across.

  ‘Hammond, get Quinn,’ she bellowed. ‘Round the back.’

  He gestured to his ears — he could not hear her above the yelling and screams. She jabbed her finger towards the back of the bawdy-house. ‘Quinn!’ she yelled again. ‘Quinn!’

  Finally he nodded, and leaned in to the Duke, yelling something in his ear. She strained her hearing and caught the end of his words: ‘… part of the Home Office. Stay where you are.’

  Hammond plunged into the tumult, the Duke staring after him, astounded.

  Now he knew. Damn it. The last thing she had wanted was the Duke involved.

  Another stool came flying through the air past Helen’s head. She ducked, her Reclaimer sight finding Carlston and Lowry up against the daffy house wall, Carlston punching wildly, only half his blows connecting. Should she try to pull him off? But that might give Lowry the chance to bolt into the crowd.

  Something forced itself into her fierce focus — a strong, familiar smell like the charged air after a lightning strike. She knew that smell: Deceiver whips. She swung around.

  The Comte’s small, wiry valet, Lawrence, stood barely two yards away. He held up a finger as if warning her to stay back, and then in a blur even to her Reclaimer eyes, he was standing above Carlston and Lowry.

  ‘Carlston!’ Helen yelled.

  He must have already sensed the Deceiver coming, for he wrenched Lowry to the left and they rolled as one. The cobbles beside them exploded into dust and debris. Both men scrabbled back as the whip punched down again, smashing up another burst of stone.

  Helen groped for her touch watch, hands shaking as she flicked it open and snapped the lenses into place. She knew she should not be using it — too much metal — but she could not trust herself to build a mind-image. She had barely managed it in training; how could she do it here?

  She lifted the lens to her eye. The laneway blossomed into blue glows, the shifting life forces dazzling her for a moment. Her eyes fixed upon the vibrant blue around Lawrence and the pulsing ultramarine whip curving from his back and poised for another strike. Only one whip. She reached down to her boot and found the handle of her glass knife, yanking it free from its tight fit. She must not let Lawrence get the journal. Better that Lowry have it than the instrument of the Grand Deceiver.

  The whip plunged down again, this time clipping Lowry on the shoulder, slicing through linen and flesh. He screamed, blood blooming on the pale cloth of his shirt.

  Carlston hauled himself to his feet, shaking his head as if trying to focus. She saw the whip hover, then line him up for another strike. She had to stop it.

  ‘Lawrence!’ she yelled.

  The Deceiver whirled to face her, his whip snaking around as if it too heard her call.

  ‘Voi sapete il mio nome?’ he said. You know my name?

  With knife in hand, she edged forward, keeping her eyes fixed upon the weaving weapon through the lens. She should drop the lens, but she could not bear to lose sight of that whip. The bright blue end of it flicked out at her; another warning. Helen jumped back. Lawrence did not seem willing to attack her, just like Philip in her bedchamber. Why? She had no answer, but his reticence did not mean she could not attack.

  His whip glowed in her lens. But she could not hold the glass to her eye and make any kind of approach. She would have to rely upon her senses. She pushed the watch back into her pocket, praying that all her training would resolve into some sort of skill.

  The air was charged with energy — she could taste it, smell it, feel the itching buzz on her skin. She strained, trying to find the image of the whip, but nothing formed in her mind.

  Beyond the Italian Deceiver, Lowry was scrabbling back, his hand clasping his injured shoulder. Dear God, he was going to run, and he still had the journal. He hauled himsel
f up and plunged into the crowd of onlookers at an unearthly speed, punching a pathway through them, their yells and curses following him.

  ‘Get Lowry!’ Helen yelled to Carlston.

  It was no good; he was still lost in his mania. She could see it in the bloodshot heat of his eyes. He lunged at Lawrence, dragging the Deceiver down, the two of them hitting the cobbles. For a second they rolled and punched and then Carlston screamed. His shoulder peeled open, flesh and muscle coming apart as if by ghastly magic to the normal eye, his blood smearing across the stones as the two of them slid into the scraggly circle of horrified onlookers.

  Helen ran, pure instinct driving her between the two men on the ground.

  ‘No!’ The Duke’s voice whirled the Deceiver around.

  She sliced blindly above Lawrence’s back with her knife, connecting with air.

  The Deceiver twisted to face her, lashing out with an arm. She jumped back, feeling the prickling sense of energy across her skin. His whip. She grabbed, finding air again, but for a glorious second she saw its outline in her mind. It was enough. Her hand connected with the pulsing weapon.

  She gasped, feeling the whip’s bright energy collapse into her body, flowing into her blood, her marrow, her muscles, the meat of her mind. It felt like the moment she had wrested Carlston back to her mouth: a soaring, fierce, violent, animal delight. Around her, the whole laneway was alive with the glow of blue energy. She could see every life force without the lens, the same as when she had held the Colligat.

  She laughed, dropped her knife and slammed her palm against the Deceiver’s chest, seeking more energy, more sublime sensation.

  Lawrence screamed, struggling against the touch of her hand. ‘Cosa state facendo a me?’ What are you doing to me?

  She could feel all his energy flowing into her hand, bringing so much strength, the ultramarine of his body fading into a pale, sickly blue.

  ‘Lady Helen! Let him go. You will die!’ Quinn’s voice broke into her thrall.

  She felt Lawrence wrenched from her hold. Gone.

  She gasped, the loss of the connection like a thousand lamps in her mind suddenly extinguished. Quinn’s strong arms circled her body, then slammed her against the ground, the stone hard and cold against her cheek. Through the blur of her vision she saw Lawrence staggering through the crowd. Escaping.

  ‘Lady Helen, let the energy go. Please!’

  She would never let it go. It was part of her now, gloriously embedded within her body. Couldn’t he understand that? She punched him, knuckles connecting painfully against his jaw. He grunted but did not loosen his grip.

  ‘Hold her down!’ he yelled. ‘Lady Helen, let the energy go into the ground.’

  ‘You’re not her Terrene. It won’t work,’ Hammond said.

  ‘I have to try, don’t I?’ Quinn snarled. ‘He’ll kill me if I don’t try.’

  She felt Quinn’s weight and other hands pinning her flat against the flags. It didn’t matter. The energy was hers and she could hold it.

  ‘It’s not going. It’s not going,’ she heard Quinn sob.

  ‘Mine,’ she whispered. ‘It’s mine!’

  ‘We are well past twenty seconds, Quinn,’ Hammond said urgently.

  ‘What does that mean?’ The Duke’s voice. Frantic.

  ‘It means she’s not going to die,’ Quinn said, husky with wonderment. ‘If a Reclaimer holds on to the energy too long, it usually kills them.’

  ‘Kills them?’ The Duke again. Horrified.

  Helen shifted. ‘Quinn, let me up.’

  She felt the man’s heavy weight lift off her body. She took a deep breath. The bright blue life-force glows had gone and the laneway was once more dim and dingy, its narrow width blocked by stunned people watching them in silence. The glorious sensation had gone too. Even so, she could feel the Deceiver energy inside her like a bright heat.

  She could not bring herself to look at the Duke. She focused on Quinn, who was crawling across the stones to the prone body of his master. Helen rolled onto her hands and knees and followed, her body feeling strange with so much energy: heavy, but as if it was lifting into the air with lightness. How was she able to hold on to so much Deceiver power?

  Quinn pulled Carlston onto his back. ‘My lord?’

  Carlston groaned, bringing a huff of relief from Quinn.

  ‘Journal?’ the Earl rasped.

  Quinn shook his head. ‘Gone, my lord, with Lowry.’

  Carlston released a pained breath, a curse hissed within it. ‘Lady Helen safe?’

  ‘I am here.’ Helen leaned over him. He was a mess of cuts and gashes, but his eyes were sane again.

  ‘Ah.’ His smile shifted into concern. ‘You are hurt.’

  He lifted his hand to her face. As his fingers touched her cheek, a bright crackling charge of energy arced between them, the effect slamming them both backward.

  Helen felt herself hit the ground, her heart heaving in pain. The bone-jarring impact punched all the air out of her lungs and cracked her head against the cobblestones in a sickening ache.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Hammond’s voice.

  She gulped for breath, heard the scrabble of feet. The Duke’s face appeared above her, his voice saying her name over and over again.

  She turned her head and saw Carlston in a crumpled heap across the lane, eyes closed and face ashen white, his breath coming in ominously short gasps.

  Good God, what had just happened? She had felt his hand touch her cheek and then all that power like lightning between them. Just one touch and now he was barely breathing.

  One touch. Her touch.

  The dawning realisation brought another kind of pain slamming through her heart. They had kissed, and his madness had come hard behind it. And in the salon, before he had lost control, he had touched her cheek too. She had been hurting him all along. Perhaps even causing his madness.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  SUNDAY, 19 JULY 1812

  The next morning, Helen sat at the secretaire in her bedchamber, her eyes fixed upon the lesson in her Book of Common Prayer, but seeing none of the words. All her sight was turned inwards, reliving the fight with Lowry blow by blow, as if she were still in the squalid lane. Could she have made another move, another decision, that would have stopped him escaping with the journal?

  Of course she could have. She had been too slow; she had hesitated. Everything she had done had led to the loss of the Ligatus and Lord Carlston’s incapacitation. It was all her fault, and when his lordship finally woke — please, let him wake — everyone would think through the events of the last few weeks and arrive at the conclusion that now seemed obvious to her: she was the cause of Lord Carlston’s madness. The Comte had probably known it all along, and now the cure he had offered had disappeared along with Lowry and the journal.

  She stretched out her left hand, the long sleeve of her gown just covering a ring of deep bruising around her wrist. The energy she had pulled from Lawrence was still a throbbing presence in her veins, a faint echo of its fierce violence curling her fingers. How had she absorbed the whip and not been destroyed by it? Perhaps a new direct inheritor power, but to what end? It seemed she could do nothing with it except harm Lord Carlston. Another thought came, hunching her shoulders: maybe Benchley had been right all along and she was, in fact, a bringer of evil.

  She glanced at her glass knife on the desk. Thankfully, Mr Hammond had retrieved it from the lane. God is in the glass. Perhaps; but did she still have God’s grace?

  She bowed her head, the tip of her steepled hands against her lips — half in prayer, half in fear — the press of her fingers bringing a small jab of pain. Another reminder of Lowry. Even so, she was lucky; by the time they had made their hurried exit from the narrow battlefield, her Reclaimer power had relieved most of the pain and swelling.

  Lord Carlston’s healing capacity had not been so efficient. He did not rouse from his unconscious state and so Quinn had picked up his limp, bleeding body and forced a
way out of the crowded lane, Helen and Mr Hammond close behind, with the Duke determinedly following their retreat. They had emerged on the Castle Tavern corner, dishevelled and attracting far too much attention from the fashionables on the Steine.

  To Helen’s horror, the Duke had immediately taken charge, hailing a hackney coach to take them back to German Place, and quelling the alarmed driver’s protest with the flash of a guinea.

  He had asked only two things in the carriage on the short journey up Marine Parade.

  ‘Are you badly injured, Lady Helen?’

  ‘It is nothing.’

  She had glanced at Mr Hammond seated opposite. A frown on his stricken face had warned her from making any more comment.

  ‘This is his fault, isn’t it?’ the Duke had then said, jerking his chin towards the senseless form of Lord Carlston propped against Quinn’s sturdy shoulder. The Terrene had also been wounded: a deep, bloody gash across his tattooed cheekbone that his own healing ability had already started to close.

  Helen shook her head at the accusation, but it was Hammond who answered. ‘I am sorry, Your Grace, but we are unable to explain anything. We must all abide by an oath of secrecy to the Home Office.’

  ‘It is better that you do not get involved,’ Helen said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Too late for that,’ he had said curtly, but had tempered his frustration with a small smile.

  Even under such circumstances, the Duke held on to the manners of a true gentleman.

  Helen closed her prayer book, abandoning all attempt at reading it. At some point, the Duke would come for an explanation. He was not a man to quietly step back, even when the authority of the Home Office had been invoked. And of course Pike would come too, as soon as he heard what had happened.

  Helen closed her eyes. How was she to explain her failure to buy the journal as arranged, or Lord Carlston’s pursuit of Lowry? As soon as Pike knew Carlston was involved, he would assume she and Mr Hammond had broken their oaths and told him about the journal. Treason.