by Amber Benson
Chapter Twenty-Two
A crimson band of magic snaked into the fire after her and a black spirit erupted from the burning witch’s mouth and eyes, the human soul driven from inside her.
In the flames, the thing was changed now, a demon only. It crisped quickly to nothing but charred bones. The Protectors of Albion had found their edge.
“Rhos?”
She looked down. Lorelle gazed up at her, moving weakly, speaking with great effort. Rhosynn dropped to her side and slid one hand beneath her head, helping her up. “Oberon’s hand! Are you well?” she said.
Lorelle smiled wanly. She pushed herself up and from nothing, gossamer wings appeared upon her back. Their color was dim, but she could move them, and she rose farther, feet coming off the ground.
“I am, Rhos. I am. ”
Rhosynn felt her face twist into a mask of hatred. “Excellent. Then let us kill the witches. ”
“Oh, yes. Let’s. ”
THE SHOTS FROM HIS PISTOLS echoed throughout the clearing, cutting through even the shrieking of the witches. At Farris’s feet lay Christine Lindsay, the barmaid who had been so kind to them at the Mason’s Arms. He would not allow harm to come to her. Another girl, one unfamiliar to him, crawled weakly toward Christine and they clutched at each other for safety.
“Make for the trees! Get out of the clearing! I will cover your retreat!” he shouted to them.
The girls obeyed. Rising to a shaky crouch they began to hurry for the edge of the woods. Dark silhouettes, black against the black night, diverted toward them, shrieking as they rushed through the night toward the girls.
Farris fired at them again and again, the impact of each bullet traveling up his arms, making his bones and muscles ache. He shouted at the damned creatures as they whipped around the night air. The bullets struck them, jarring them, but not deterring them. Farris kept reloading. One of the witches darted away from the fire, out into the trees, and disappeared a moment.
Then she returned.
Her eyes were black pits rimmed with sickly yellow light and her distended features were like unto the dead, the damned, screaming in eternal torment. She flew right at Farris.
“Not my Farris, ye ugly cow!” cried the little sprite who flew around his head. No larger than a hummingbird, she streaked away. His heart skipped a beat as she darted straight at the witch.
“Serena, no!”
She did not heed him. Serena flew straight at the witch’s face, thrust out her tiny hands, and struck the creature’s left eye like a bullet. With a sickening noise the sprite punctured the witch’s eye. Greenish ichor spilled out and the thing screamed with agony, tumbling to the ground, clawing at her face, digging furrows there with her talons. She cursed in some ancient tongue Farris could not understand.
Then the witch’s right eye popped wetly and Serena burst from the socket.
“Not my Farris!” the sprite cried, savage and triumphant.
The witch rose and began to stagger around, blinded.
But there would be no pause. The night was filled with the screams of innocents. Farris turned and saw witches grabbing at Christine Lindsay and the other girl who was with her, carrying the squirming girls toward the fire.
A pair of fairies locked in combat with a witch drove her, and themselves, into the fire, all of them wailing as they burned.
Twenty feet away, in the shadows and light that danced across the clearing from the flickering blaze, he saw Richard Kirk helping a girl who must have been his sister, Sally, rise to her feet. Farris felt a moment of hope, a single spark of it, at the sight of this reunion.
A witch darted down from the sky, coming at Richard from behind. She thrust out her hand and his skin erupted with angry red pustules that burst almost instantly, as though his flesh were boiling. He screamed and writhed, and just as he would have fallen, the witch flew nearer, grasped his head, and tore it from his shoulders.
Richard Kirk’s body fell to the ground with a wet thump while the witch flew off, cackling madly, his head in her hands, a bit of spine dangling below it.
Farris had never felt such pure hatred before.
The pistols were empty, but it mattered not. Bullets were not harming them. Not yet. He thrust the guns into his belt, and drew his father’s sword from its scabbard. He’d reload when the Swifts’ magic took hold. Then the witches would pay for the darkness they’d wrought.
“Damn you all. ”
WILLIAM SAW RICHARD KIRK DIE. There was nothing he could do, and though he had wished many times that his grandfather had never chosen him to share this horrid legacy, this was the first moment in which he actually hated Ludlow for it.
A scream tore through the night off to his right, and he glanced over to see two witches dragging a fairy archer to the ground. Her wings manifested behind her as she tried to fly to safety, and the witches tore them off, laughing all the while. In that pitiful moment, the fairies had never looked more beautiful to William, nor had the witches looked uglier.
The air was a blur of darkness, of fluttering cloaks and horrible talons. He struggled to think with the screeching of the witches digging at his ears. He and Tamara had to put a stop to this.
A witch dropped down in front of him, leering, and her abyss-deep eyes froze him for just an instant. Terror clasped at his heart.
William bit his lip, raised his hands, and said the words. Crimson magic leaped from his fingers, wrapped around the witch, and tore the humanity from her. The monstrous thing screamed, the pure thread of her human soul erupting from her maw, flying off into the ether.
She died easily enough after that.
He leaped over her remains and at last saw Tamara ahead of him. She was perhaps fifteen feet from the fire. The ghosts of Bodicea and Horatio flanked her and the witches dove down at them again and again. Several were low to the ground, moving like predators, preparing to lunge.
Bodicea twisted and saw the witches coming, and the spectral sword in her hand shimmered and elongated, becoming a spear. As a witch leaped at her, she brought the point up and impaled the shrieking creature. Her opponent thrashed for a moment, then grabbed hold of the spear and dragged herself forward. She raked her talons across Bodicea’s face, dragging furrows through the warrior queen’s ectoplasmic features.
The ghost cried out and fell back. Her shimmering form wavered, became less solid, until she was barely a suggestion of a figure in the night.
“Abominations!” Horatio shouted. The witches darted away from him, a wave of them descending upon Bodicea. In that moment, she was vulnerable, and they swept in to finish her off.
“Face me!” he demanded.
But the horrors were set upon their task. They would be back for Horatio when Bodicea was destroyed.
Somewhere nearby William heard Farris roar in fury, but he did not even turn. That good man would have to see to his own survival for several moments longer.
“Tamara!” William cried.
She risked a glance at him, one hand up, a shield of magic bursting from her palm even as with the other she cast the spell that tore the humanity from yet another witch. William didn’t know how many of them were dead now, four or five perhaps, but it wasn’t happening quickly enough. Richard Kirk was dead and fairies were dying all around them.
Horatio attacked the witches surrounding Bodicea, his spectral sword hacking and slashing at them, but they would not die.
William ran to Tamara’s side. A witch descended upon him from behind, long talons grabbing his hair in a gnarled fist. He shouted in pain and tore himself away. Blood trickled down the back of his head and into the collar of his shirt as he spun to see the fiend with a hank of his hair in her fist. On instinct alone, he reached down into the soul of Albion and lashed out with a blast of pure magic that impaled the creature, driving he
r back into the fire. The witch screamed and lurched from the blaze, staggering, then flew off into the night sky, bathed in crackling eldritch flames.
Tamara grabbed his hand. William turned to look at her.
“It’s got to be together, Will,” she said.
“Yes. It ends now. ”
The melee went on around them, but they tightened their grip. William felt the connection to the soul of Albion, to the spirit of ancient England that had mystically chosen them to protect the land, at all times. But this was different. When he and Tamara were together it was as though a circuit was complete, from Albion and running through the two of them.
Together, they intoned the spell, their voices increasing in volume until they were shouting the words. They drew the sigils in the air. Tamara cried out. William arched his back, the power flooding him, and he shook with it, as though struck by lightning.
Crimson light flashed out from the Protectors of Albion, erupting from their hands and chests and backs and mouths. The witches were snared by the spell and it coiled around them, shot through them, and pinned them to the ground. As one they shrieked, heads thrown back, and William saw the beauty of their vestigial human essence as it was driven from their hideous forms.
All that remained were demons.
Without their magic, the demons were no match for the fairies. Rhosynn and her kin began to slaughter the witches in earnest. William heard the boom of Farris’s revolvers, effective now.
Tamara ran at the monsters that were attacking Bodicea, but a bright light gleamed from among them and the night was filled with a familiar battle cry, the savage, primal scream of the warrior queen.
Bodicea burst from the throng, spear swinging, and plunged that spectral weapon through the skull of a demon.
From the woods came the mournful sound of a horn, and then a loud battle cry, a single voice at first but then joined by a chorus of shouts. Hoofbeats echoed off of the night sky as the ghosts of the Pendragon’s knights rode into the clearing.
“For Arthur!” cried a ghostly knight.
“For Albion!” shouted another.
Now that the witches had no magic, the knights could fight them at last. As they attacked the offspring of their ancient enemy, their souls became so focused that their weapons gleamed as though solid.
The knights and the fairies joined together in attacking the demon-things. Unable to withstand the onslaught, the remaining creatures fled from the clearing, down the hill and off into the forest.
“After them!” Rhosynn cried, wings lifting her into the air with the music of magic. “Leave not one alive!”
The fairies and ghostly knights gave chase, then, darting and riding off into the trees after their prey. In moments, William and Tamara stood in the clearing on that hilltop with Bodicea and Horatio, Farris and Serena, and the three remaining human girls from the village of Camelford, most glancing around, disoriented and confused.
Sally Kirk cradled her brother’s headless corpse in her lap and wept, shuddering in silent grief.
THE FIRE ON MORDRED’S GRAVE burned low, quickly dying, so that in moments there was only a small flame there, the ground itself aflame as though the ancient remains of Arthur’s bastard burned underground.
The moon provided enough illumination, however, and Tamara left her brother’s side and walked across the clearing. One of the girls from the village whimpered at the approach of strangers, scrambling across dirt and grass in fear.
Farris knelt with Christine, the barmaid from the Mason’s Arms. Tamara was pleased that she was alive, though her survival would be tainted when she learned of her grandfather’s death.
Tragedy. All around them.
In the chaos of battle she had moved halfway round the clearing to the other side of Mordred’s grave. Now she walked toward it and stepped right over the flickering remnants of that blaze.
A frown creased her forehead and she paused, turned, and kicked dirt onto the struggling flames, smothering them. Only a thin trail of smoke came up from the ground
The remains of the witches were almost unrecognizable. Cloth and bone and pulp and fragments of a brittle gray substance like the carapace of some crustacean. Tamara shivered as she gazed down upon a hideous mess that had once been a witch a demon.
She had not seen the witch queen fall, had not seen her destroyed. None of the others knew Viviane on sight, and so could not say for sure that she had died.
Tamara stood at the edge of the clearing atop that hill, in the ancient rowan circle, and stared at the treetops that spread out below. Was the witch queen fleeing through the woods even now, or flying across the midnight sky? Bitter and sorrowful, had she abandoned her sisters at the last to save her own life, or was she one of the heaps of charred bones that lay now around Mordred’s grave?
Did she watch, even now, from the darkness of the forest? And if she did, what emotions roiled in her black heart?
If Viviane had escaped, it might well have been before William and Tamara had performed the spell that would have stripped her of her humanity, and her magic. She might be a horrid demon, damned for eternity to wear a hideous countenance, never again to be beautiful.
Or she might be the last of the Daughters of Morgan le Fey.
Tamara shook herself. If she ever saw the witch queen again, Viviane might be just as inclined to thank her as to kill her. There was simply no way to know.
She could only wonder.
Her lips still tingled with the soft brush of Viviane’s lips. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment at the thought and at the memory of the things she had let Viviane do while she was magically disguised as John Haversham. What lingered with her, though, was that last kiss, which had revolted and excited her. It had only been a glamour, a beautiful mask to hide her ugliness, and Viviane had enthralled her with magic, affected her judgment.
Was her mind still clouded, then?
So many questions gathered in her mind, but Tamara knew she would find no answers this night.
“Tam,” William said.
She flinched and turned to face him. Lost in thought, she’d failed to notice his approach.
“We should depart,” her brother said. “Take the the survivors back to the village. ”
Tamara nodded, grief-stricken at the knowledge that Holly Newcomb and Mary Raynham had not survived. Their victory felt hollow to her. Sally Kirk lived, but had to return to her mother, Ellie, and tell her that Richard had been killed. Serena once again had her best friend, Aine, in her life, but two of the fairy girls had also been sacrificed in the aborted ritual, and fully half a dozen other fairies of Stronghold had died in the battle.
A hollow victory, at best.
Yet she knew that for those who lived, it was far more than that. They had survived. They could go from the rowan circle atop that old hill and live, and love, and find laughter. Tamara knew that she and William would do the same.
But not tonight.
“You go,” she said. “I’ll be along. ”
William watched her a moment, then left her there in the moonlight, and went to join Farris and the girls. Tamara glanced at them, saw the tiny, bright form of Serena flying in small circles above Aine’s head, the reunited friends unwilling to be parted even for an instant.
“So happy my Aine is safe,” Serena sang giddily, zipping about. “So glads you is with us again!” She alighted upon Aine’s shoulder just long enough to kiss her cheek, and then darted away again.
“I missed you so much,” Aine replied. “I was afraid for both of us. But I swear, Serena, I’ll never listen to one of your dares again. ”
Tamara spared a final glance at the remains at her feet, and then out across the treetops below the hill. Unbidden, one hand came up to touch her lips. Then she turned and followed Wil
liam and the others where they had left the clearing. With a heavy heart, she passed a small pool of Richard Kirk’s blood on the way.
She slipped into the trees and started down the hill, leaving behind her the grave of Mordred, and the ghosts of the last witches of Albion.
In the days after their return to London and to Ludlow House, Tamara was unusually solitary. Highgate was gifted with a string of pretty summer days, warm sun and gentle breezes. In the mornings, Tamara walked the grounds of her family estate, meandering among the gardens. In the afternoons she took tea either alone or with Sophia, and in the evenings she sat at the desk that had once belonged to her grandfather and she wrote the most hideously lurid, blood-drenched tale of evil and betrayal that she could imagine.
And she could imagine a great deal. The Inquisitor would be the most dreadful of penny dreadfuls.
William gave over several days to mollifying his intended bride. Tamara was pleased to see him choosing love over responsibility, at least for a little while. Swift’s of London could survive without him for a while longer. When he did return to business, nearly a week after the events in Cornwall had come to a close, he made certain to speak with Sophia each day and to pay close attention to the details of their impending nuptials or, at least, the details to which she directed his attention.
The most curious thing had transpired in their absence. Tamara would never know what, precisely, had engineered such a change within her, but she could not find it within her heart to despise her future sister-in-law any longer. Sophia’s frantic, exasperated antics upon their return only amused her.
And when the woman saw that her bridegroom meant to concentrate upon his obligations to her, and that Tamara had returned from Cornwall in a state of wistful melancholy, then Sophia, too, was changed. Gone was the sardonic edge in her voice and expression, and gone was the sense of competition between the girls.
From time to time, however, when they were discussing such wedding particulars as the menu or floral arrangements, Sophia would glance at Tamara to see if she was being patronized. As the days passed, however, the two relaxed into a warm sense of comfort in each other’s presence.
In her heart, Tamara still wished that Sophia weren’t quite so needy, but she allowed herself to accept the fact that this trait did not make the girl a villain.
Sophia was to be her brother’s wife— and very soon, since the preparations were now nearly complete. They might never be great friends, or sisters, but they would be family, and Tamara made a conscious decision to cherish that.
John Haversham called upon Ludlow House on the very afternoon they arrived home, but Tamara had instructed both Farris and Martha to turn him away. Kindly, but firmly. John returned each day and was met with the same response. At last, on the fifth day after their return, she took his hand and brought him along on her wander through the gardens, and told him the tale of the witches of Cornwall.
The first words from his lips were an apology for not having gone with her to Cornwall. He began to explain that he had responsibilities, not least of which was to the Algernon Club, and that he had also been quite aware of how inappropriate it would have been for him to accompany her.
Tamara shushed him. Observing William and Sophia, she had acquired a refined understanding of responsibility in recent weeks. His response and behavior, she assured him, had been precisely what they ought to have been.
John remarked that she was much changed, that her quietude seemed both sad and peaceful, and Tamara did not argue with him. He confessed that he had put his duties to the Algernon Club before his own heart. He had wished to court her, but held his feelings in check so that he did not compromise his obligations to the club. Her absence, and his fear for her, so far away, had made him realize what a fool he’d been. Tamara smiled softly and shook her head, glancing away in a manner that was entirely too demure for her.
“We are a tragic pair, John. My brother does not trust you. And though we often argue, I have come to rely upon William’s perception. We are grateful for your efforts in uncovering the thief who plagued the bank, but now it is I who hold you at arm’s length. Improper as it is for me to say, I welcome your courtship. But despite the fact that we travel in the same circles— both magical and societal— I must insist that we proceed with caution. ”
She gazed into his eyes, searching for truth, and was not sure what she found.
“I do care for you, and I find you nearly irresistible,” she continued. “That is my confession, and I hope you shall not use it against me. Perhaps that will be the great test for both of us. ”
“As you wish,” John said, inclining his head. He caressed her arm gently and bent as if to kiss the top of her head.
Tamara caught her breath, trembling slightly.
But John only took her hand in his once more, and they continued their garden stroll. The breeze swirled the delicious scents of the flowers all around them. Tamara told him the wedding would be the following Wednesday, and asked if he would be her escort on that most wondrous of days.
John kissed her hand and they kept walking.
LATER, AFTER HE HAD GONE, Tamara found Sophia taking tea in the observatory, enjoying a quiet respite from the final wedding plans.
“Has he gone?” Sophia asked.
“Yes. ”
“But he will be back?”
Tamara smiled. “For the wedding, and almost certainly before. You do realize that your cousin isn’t quite the rogue you painted him?”
Sophia sipped her tea for a moment. When she set the cup down, she gave Tamara a knowing look. “I’m beginning to realize that. But not to worry. I won’t say a word. I would so hate to ruin his reputation. ”
The two young ladies shared a quiet laugh and then set to talking, as they had so often of late. When one of the maids came in with another tea setting for Tamara, and then departed, Sophia traced the rim of her own cup and a worried expression crossed her face.
“So it’s to be tonight, is it?”
Tamara looked up, frowning. “What is— ”
And then she stopped. How could she have forgotten? Her breath caught and her heart raced.
“Tonight,” she agreed, nodding her head. “The wedding is only five days off. Neither of us wants to wait any longer. ”
“Do you think it will work?”
Tamara stared at her.
“I’m sorry,” Sophia said quickly. “I don’t mean to cast doubt— ”
“No, no. I was only thinking,” Tamara said with a gentle smile. She sat back in her chair, cup in hand, and glanced out at the gardens behind Ludlow House. “William went through a great deal of trouble to retrieve that spell from New Orleans. It ought to work. Truly. But if it does not, our time in Cornwall introduced to us another possibility. ”
“A different spell?” Sophia asked.
Tamara nodded. “It’s a far greater risk than the other. But we cannot go on like this. If the ritual does not work, we’ll try this spell. It may be the end the end of Father. We have heard tales of an exorcist in Istanbul who might be able to help us, but we have pursued false hopes before. No, we must exhaust all options. ”
Sophia reached out and put a comforting hand over Tamara’s own.
“You will succeed. I know it. I can feel it. You and William together, there is nothing you cannot do. ”
THE EVENING MEAL WAS DELAYED that night. William had sent word from Threadneedle Street that he intended to go to the jail, to speak with Harold Ramsey, the young man who had gone from his trusted assistant and loyal friend to cunning thief without anyone being the wiser.
Sophia knew that William would never have suspected Ramsey if the man had not been caught in the act, and that he was crushed by the betrayal. She thought her fia
nce was entirely too kindhearted where the thief was concerned. William was trying to make sense of the actions of a loathsome criminal. To Sophia, there were no mitigating circumstances. Ramsey had thieved from his friend and employer. As far as she was concerned, he ought to be flogged in front of the Tower.
But Sophia did not dwell on the fate of Harold Ramsey. Her heart and mind this evening were filled with much happier anticipation. Whatever sadness and regret William carried over his thieving friend, certainly it would be erased this very night, when at last his father would be free of the demonic force that possessed him.
In recent days Sophia had agonized over her own future, wondering if William could ever truly dedicate himself to her. He had assuaged her fears upon his return from Camelford, and been ever so attentive to her and to their wedding plans.
But in those days she also had found comfort in the kindness of his father. Henry Swift was afflicted— the demon within him made him say and do horrid things. But the demon was not always ascendant, and in those times when the weakened man had his wits about him, he had been a friend and confidant to Sophia, assuring her that William truly loved her and that his sincere attention to his duties only revealed how attentive he would also be to his duties as a husband.
Of course, Henry had been correct. But in the days that William had been away, she had only the elder Swift’s assurances to soothe her fears. With her own parents deceased, Henry had become precious to her. And now came the news that he was soon to be freed of the influence of the demon. She couldn’t have been happier had he been her own father.
In the usual course of things William, Tamara, or Nigel would bring Henry his meals after they had eaten. But with the household awaiting William’s return before dinner could be served, she had asked the kitchen to prepare a plate for Henry.
Now she hurried up the stairs to the third floor, her excitement only barely contained.
The dish was warm in her hands as she went down the hall to the room at the back of the house. Once, she knew, it had been a nursery. Now it was a prison, swaddled in wards and enchantments to keep Henry from escaping with the demon inside of him.
As she approached the door, the air shimmered beside it. A musical trill filled the hall and Lord Byron appeared.
“Good evening, darling Sophia,” Byron said, a familiar lusty twinkle in his eye. Not fully materialized, the ghost had only wisps where his legs ought to be. Even so, he offered a deep, gentlemanly bow. Though Byron was hardly a gentleman.
Sophia blushed a smile. “Good evening, Byron. ”
“May I say that you are ravishingly beautiful, as always, my dear. The anticipation of your wedding day brings a fetching flush to your cheeks. ”
She arched an eyebrow. “Why, Byron, that seemed like a genuine compliment, without a hint of inappropriate suggestion. I’m not sure whether to be flattered or insulted. ”
The poet’s ghost posed as though leaning against the wall. His grin was full of mischief now. “Not to worry, Sophia. It’s a momentary fever, but it shall pass. I will continue to admire you particularly in the bath, even after you’ve become Mrs. Swift. You have a deft touch with soap. ”
Sophia ought to be have been outraged. Instead she only rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s better. You had me worried a moment. ”
Byron gave another courtly bow and drifted aside. “The demon’s been awfully quiet. I don’t like when he gets this way. Seems to me as if he’s listening to the goings-on in the house. ”
“When he’s quiet, it often means that the demon has retreated,” Sophia replied.