The Dark Days Pact

by Alison Goodman

  ‘Mors Ultima,’ the Comte whispered, a grim smile on his bloodless lips. ‘He is no more.’

  Helen had never seen the final end before. Lawrence had no offspring to shift into; she had truly destroyed him. Two deaths on her soul now: one human, one Deceiver. Lowry had been right. She was killing like all the other Reclaimers.

  The light swarmed from the body and hung for a moment above the tumbled flesh form. A dark speck in the centre expanded, the size of a pinhead, a button, a penny, growing and growing, pulling all the swarming light in until it seemed to collapse upon itself with an awful screaming keen, leaving just a corpse with a ruined face and blood creeping through the carpet.

  ‘Murder! Murder!’

  The cries from the street broke Helen’s horror, and the startled hiatus above them. She heard the sound of wood smashing and a low gasp of pain. Carlston. She looked up at the ceiling: was Stokes getting the upper hand? Every part of her wanted to run upstairs, but she had to learn the cure from the Comte before he died. Everything hinged upon the cure.

  Voices were already calling below. She and the Comte would not be alone much longer. She stepped around the gruesome remains of Lawrence and leaned over the old Deceiver.

  ‘Lawrence is dead, Comte. What is the cure?’

  Above his coiffed white hair, blood smeared the bedhead. His breath came in short gasps.

  ‘Tell me, what is the cure?’

  He frowned, struggling to fix upon her face. ‘You are the cure,’ he said, the words almost lost in the wet wheezing. ‘Cause and cure. You should be bonded, but you are not.’ He lifted his hand and tapped her chest with a trembling forefinger. ‘The Grand Deceiver is not one of us, but two. A dyad. Same for the Grand Reclaimer. A dyad: you and Carlston, bonded in blood. That is the cure.’

  She stared at him. At the rout he had said it would take both of them — herself and Lord Carlston — to defeat the Grand Deceiver. Even then he had been telling them that they were meant to be bonded. That they would be facing two Deceivers working together.

  Why did no one else know that the Grand Deceiver was a dyad? Perhaps he was lying. Carlston had said he did not trust the Comte. But where would that take her? Nowhere. God help her, she had no choice but to believe him — it was the only hope she had.

  ‘Comte, how do we bond? How do we become a dyad? Is it a ritual?’ She caught his shaking hand, trying to focus his dying mind. ‘How do we do it?’

  He drew in a rattling breath. ‘Blood alchemy,’ he whispered. ‘Benchley built it.’

  ‘The Ligatus?’ She shook her head. How could their bond be forged by such a hideous, godless creation? ‘No, it pulls us into madness! It will kill us.’

  ‘Head or heart?’ he whispered.

  She remembered his same question at the rout: did she follow her head or her heart?

  ‘These two are not like any other,’ he rasped. ‘Lusus naturae.’ His clawed fingers caught at the blood-stained fob ribbon that hung from his breeches’ pocket. ‘Find —’ He stopped, panting for a moment, then wrenched the ribbon free and held it up. The attached fob — a gold disc with etching on it — swung between them. He pressed it into her hand. ‘Find … Bath Deceiver. Show this.’ Red spittle flecked his lips. ‘Keep your word. Keep my son safe.’

  His laboured breath barely lifted his chest.

  What did he mean, not like any other? And who was the Bath Deceiver?

  ‘Comte!’

  But his eyes had fixed beyond her, sight no longer anchored in the room, and although his mouth moved with words, he no longer had enough breath for sound.

  Behind her, the bedroom door opened. She spun around. Pike stood in the doorway staring down at Lawrence’s body, his thin lips pursed in distaste.

  ‘One problem gone.’ He looked at the Comte on the bed. ‘Is he dead too?’

  ‘No, but I do not think he has long. He can no longer speak.’

  She pushed the gold fob and ribbon into her breeches’ pocket and rounded the bed, avoiding the staring eyes of Lawrence’s corpse.

  ‘Stokes and Quinn are both injured,’ Pike said, looking up at the ceiling. The thud and crash of combat still filtered down, but it was less frantic. Was that a good sign or not? ‘I don’t think you are ready, but you are all I have. Get up there and get the journal. We must destroy it.’

  ‘I am ready,’ Helen said, heading towards the door. She looked back at the Comte: dear God, let him be telling the truth. ‘But we can’t destroy the journal. The Grand Deceiver is two creatures working together, not one. The Comte told me Carlston and I are their opposite: a Grand Reclaimer. We need the journal to bond. That is what is wrong with him — it is the need to bond that is making him mad!’

  Even as she said it, a vile question rose in her mind. If they were meant to be the Grand Reclaimer, were their feelings for one another based on nothing more than a compulsion created by this power?

  ‘You are a fool to take the word of a Deceiver,’ Pike said. ‘If the journal is making Carlston mad, then surely it will do the same to you. I will not have two of my Reclaimers descend into madness in one night. Destroy the book.’

  ‘No. Even if there is only a slight hope that it will restore Lord Carlston, we must take it.’

  ‘He is too far gone. I order you to stop him, by the authority of the King — even if that means killing him.’ He stepped in front of her, blocking her path. ‘It is my order. Acknowledge it!’

  ‘I no longer take orders from you, Mr Pike,’ she said, unmoved by the narrowed threat in his eyes. She pushed past him, savouring the astonishment on his bony face. She knew what she must do and he was not going to stand in her way. ‘I know the real reason why you want the journal destroyed. I know about your wife.’

  ‘You read the journal, didn’t you?’ He followed her out into the corridor. ‘Then you understand Isabella had no idea what she was doing.’

  ‘But you did,’ Helen said, rounding on him. ‘You hid the fact that she is an Unreclaimable offspring and killed Sir Dennis. You made a bargain with Benchley, even though you knew he was mad.’

  ‘Of course I did — she is my wife.’ His face tightened into loathing. ‘And, by God, he made me pay for it. Even so, the Ligatus is part of a gateway to Hell. I order you to destroy it. Honour your oath, Lady Helen.’

  ‘My oath is to the Dark Days Club and England, not to you.’ The truth of the statement straightened her spine. ‘I am a Reclaimer and I believe the Grand Deceiver is real, Mr Pike. Lord Carlston and I must fight them whoever, or whatever, they are. I will not destroy the journal, not until I try to make this bond with him.’ She ran up the steps, then said over her shoulder, ‘Besides, saving Lord Carlston and the journal is in your wife’s best interest too.’

  Pike glared up at her through the balustrade. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I saved an Unreclaimable through that journal. If it is destroyed, your wife’s only chance at sanity is destroyed as well.’

  His whole body stilled. ‘You saved an Unreclaimable?’ The hope in his face hardened into bitterness. ‘And so you will hold this over me now? I must do as you say if I want my wife saved?’

  ‘That is your way of doing things. I will try to save your wife whatever happens.’

  She stopped on the landing, her voice stolen for a moment by the magnitude of the bond she was about to attempt. The danger to herself and to Lord Carlston.

  She took a deep breath. ‘If I survive, I will save your wife.’ She looked down at him, standing on the level below. ‘I know you do not recognise it, Mr Pike, but that is what honour looks like.’

  Chapter Thirty-One

  The shouts and wails in the entrance hall below had taken on a new volume. Helen peered down through the stairwell as she rounded the intermediate landing and caught sight of hats and hands and boots: men on the stairs, making their cautious way up. One of them was a doctor by the glimpse of a black physician’s bag. She ran up the next rise, noting smudges of blood on the wall and banister,
a sick sense of dread building with each step.

  Mr Hammond’s voice cut across the sobbing and cries below, demanding to know where Lord Carlston had gone. Thank God he and the others had finally arrived. They could not help her retrieve Carlston from his madness — he was too strong, too fast, and far too lost in the journal’s violence — but just their presence sent new energy through her body.

  She directed her hearing upward. It was quiet, no longer any sounds of battle. Was that good, or bad?

  She took the final steps at speed and rounded the balustrade, ducking back at the sight of two men on the landing: one heavyset and slumped against the white wall; the other crouched beside him, blond and lanky. Her mind caught up with her reflexes: Quinn and Selburn. What was the Duke doing up here?

  As she straightened, he spun around, a long-barrelled pistol aimed at her chest.

  ‘Helen!’ He lowered the gun. ‘You are safe!’

  ‘You gave me your word you would stay outside!’

  She had not seen him pass the bedroom. If he had been caught in the fight between Stokes and Carlston … No, she could not even think it.

  Unrepentant, he said, ‘I heard the gunshot and fighting and came looking for you.’ He gestured to Quinn with a bloodied hand. ‘Carlston’s man is in a bad way.’

  It seemed Quinn had been heading for the narrow attic staircase at the end of the corridor; a smeared trail of blood down the wall mapped his collapse to the floor. A bloodied knife lay next to him. Both his eyes were closed, his hands clasped over his stomach wound, blood still seeping through his fingers. His skin had turned a waxy grey and his body had a frightening stillness about it.

  Helen crouched beside him, praying she would find life. ‘Mr Quinn?’ She pressed her palm against his tattooed cheek. Still warm, and she felt his soft breath on her skin. ‘Quinn?’

  No response, not even a shift in his shallow breathing.

  ‘He was conscious when I found him,’ the Duke said. He pointed at the attic steps, the door at the top ajar. ‘As far as I know, Carlston is in the attic, but I haven’t heard anyone move since I arrived. Quinn told me Carlston has killed Stokes. He kept on saying it.’

  Helen clutched at the wall for support: his words felt as if a hammer had hit her chest. Stokes could not be dead. Must not be dead. She had liked the Reclaimer, even trusted him. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to hold back her grief and the flood of ramifications. If it were true, Carlston would never forgive himself. Nor would the Dark Days Club.

  Quinn had to be wrong, or the Duke had heard amiss.

  Opening her eyes, she concentrated fiercely, listening for any kind of sound in the attic. Beside her, she heard Quinn’s shallow gasps, then four sets of approaching footsteps on the stairs, Pike’s voice — ‘You can’t go up there!’ — and then Mr Hammond’s curt rejoinder, ‘The devil take you, man!’ Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to ignore their arrival and focused her hearing upward. Finally she found breathing, but only one person, every inhalation pained and sick. Even so, she recognised the rhythm: Carlston. And like a counterpoint within it, that incessant pulse that reached between them. Now she knew what it was: the call of the Grand Reclaimer bond.

  ‘My lady!’ Darby ran headlong up the stairs, her broad face drawn into exhausted shadows. She checked on the last step at the sight of Quinn. ‘Nathaniel!’

  ‘He is alive,’ Helen said quickly. ‘Stabbed in the stomach.’ She rose to her feet, making way for her maid.

  Only Carlston in the attic: had he truly killed Stokes? If so, he must not have recognised the other Reclaimer. Maybe he would not recognise her. He had called her his love, but would that hold firm against the journal and its madness? Dear Lord, she had to find a way to get through to him.

  Darby dropped to her knees beside Quinn, ripping her tucker from her bodice. ‘Nathaniel?’ She pressed the white linen against his wound. ‘Nathaniel, can you hear me?’ She looked up at Helen. ‘Why is he not healing? Shouldn’t he be healing by now?’

  ‘Lady Helen!’ Mr Hammond appeared at the top of the stairs, his strained face streaked with grime, blue jacket almost grey with road dust. ‘Where is Lord Carlston? Do we have the journal?’

  Behind him came Lady Margaret, her usual poise lost in a tumble of black curls, crumpled gown and a dusty pelisse. Delia, her pallor and angles even more pronounced, brought up the rear. All three of them gathered on the landing.

  ‘Lord Carlston has the journal up there,’ Helen said, indicating the attic. ‘It is possible …’ She stopped for a moment. ‘It seems he has killed Stokes.’

  ‘No!’ Lady Margaret stepped forward, all indignation. ‘He would never do that.’

  Hammond gripped her arm as if to hold her back.

  ‘The Comte gave me the cure,’ Helen continued. ‘It is the journal itself.’ She swiftly reported the old Deceiver’s dying instructions.

  ‘But do you trust the information?’ Delia asked. She glanced at the Duke, clearly seeking the support of her fellow aide. ‘It could be a trap for you and Lord Carlston.’

  ‘Miss Cransdon is right,’ the Duke said. ‘You cannot trust a Deceiver, and you cannot hope to go up against Carlston. The state he is in, he will kill you.’ He held out the pistol. ‘Shoot him. No, wait.’ He drew it back. ‘I will shoot him, then you will not have to deal with the sin of murder.’

  Too late for that, Helen thought.

  ‘Shoot Lord Carlston?’ Lady Margaret exclaimed, just as her brother said forcefully, ‘He would break your neck before you even raised the gun.’

  ‘He cannot beat a bullet,’ the Duke said.

  Helen heard a sound from the attic; a heaving cough that she immediately recognised. Carlston was searching the journal again. If he had any sanity left, that would surely rip it from him.

  ‘We will not shoot Lord Carlston,’ she said, cutting off the argument. ‘Your Grace, Hammond, take Quinn downstairs.’ In one sweeping glance, she gathered Lady Margaret, Delia and Darby into her next order. ‘Go downstairs. Do not let anyone up here.’

  Darby touched Quinn’s cheek, then sat back on her heels. ‘With respect, my lady, I am staying with you. I have trained to be your Terrene and I will not let you stand alone.’

  ‘You do not have Terrene strength or speed,’ Helen said.

  Darby lifted her chin. ‘We have made our oaths, my lady. Do not doubt me now.’

  Helen met her maid’s steady gaze and nodded. There had already been too much doubt.

  ‘I’ll be damned if I let two women try to subdue a madman by themselves,’ the Duke said. ‘It is impossible.’

  ‘We may be women, Your Grace, but we are also Reclaimer and Terrene,’ Helen said. ‘You saw what I did in the laneway. I do not need your protection.’

  He crossed his arms, patently unmoved by her statement. She had no time for debate. Nor did Carlston. Garnering her Reclaimer energy, she stepped across to the Duke at uncanny speed and pulled the pistol from his grip. She stepped back and held out the weapon as his sluggish perception caught up.

  The Duke stared at his empty hand and then at the gun lying across her palm. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘But keep the pistol.’

  ‘Finally he understands,’ Hammond murmured. He crouched beside Quinn and hooked his hands under the big man’s armpits. ‘You heard what your Reclaimer said, Duke: help me move Quinn.’ He looked up at Helen, his face grim. ‘You are the only one who can save Carlston, but if he is beyond help and tries to kill you, do not hesitate. We cannot lose you too.’

  Helen gave one stiff nod. Pray God it did not come to that.

  As soon as Selburn and the others had retreated downstairs with Quinn, Helen led the way to the attic staircase, Darby following close behind.

  Helen flexed her hand around the ivory handle of her glass knife and focused her senses on the room above. Carlston’s breathing held a rasping rawness — he had moved to the far right of the room — and she could smell blood, bile and the dank reek of final evacuat
ions.

  ‘How does the journal bond work?’ Darby asked softly. She had armed herself with the knife lying beside Quinn and was gripping it in a very skilled manner. He had trained her well.

  ‘I do not know,’ Helen admitted, pausing for a moment on the bottom step. ‘It is built out of the blood of slain people. I would think we must offer it blood too.’

  ‘You should have kept the Duke’s pistol.’

  Helen shook her head. She had seen what a pistol shot had done to Lawrence and there was no coming back from an ill-timed or misjudged shot. ‘I cannot bond with a corpse.’

  They crept up the remaining four steps. Not that stealth would make any difference, Helen thought. Carlston was sure to be listening for them. He would be prepared for their arrival whatever they did, and it only remained to be seen whether he held on to enough sanity to recognise them. The best chance, she decided, was to make sure he knew who was coming and try to reach what was left of his mind.

  She concentrated her senses, squinting with the effort, but could not find his position. A disturbing development. Had he vacated the room through a window, or was she merely failing to locate him.

  Through the gap of the door, she glimpsed the booted feet and buckskin-clad legs of a long, lean man sprawled on the floor. The wooden boards beneath the body were dark and wet, the tiny channels between them red and glistening with pooled blood. Stokes.

  Behind her, Darby drew in a sharp breath of horror. Helen felt it too — a sickened grief that wrung at her innards, and with it a deep sense of foreboding.

  ‘Carlston,’ she called. ‘It is Helen.’

  She pushed open the door and stepped into the attic. Dust, stirred up into tiny currents of glittering air, tumbled and streamed through a shaft of sunlight. She registered stacked chairs, travelling trunks, an old freestanding tambour frame, and then all her attention fixed upon Stokes at her feet. His once warm hazel eyes stared up at her, glazed by death, the cause of his demise immediately apparent. A glass knife protruded from the side of his throat, the smooth, viscous creep of blood below it already flecked with dust. Helen could not move her gaze from the etched design upon the blade; the same as her own. Carlston’s knife.