ë Archer - Demon’s Bride

“What do you see?” she asked.

His focus returned, a sudden sharpening of awareness. He became wary, guarded—of her. As though she concealed a dagger in the folds of her skirt.

“I see my wife.” Yet he dropped his hand and the ribbon slid from his fingers. It gleamed in a satiny curve as it fell to the ground, where it lay in the mud.

“That is exactly what I am, Leo. Your wife.” She stared up at him. “The one person you should trust above all others.” Tell me, she willed him with her gaze. Whatever it is, I must know. Yet she feared his honesty.

He took several paces away from her. Then turned, and cautiously approached, as if uncertain whether or not she would bolt away. She stood her ground. They faced each other, scarce inches between them, testing each other, testing themselves. His hand came up to cup the back of her head. She tilted her face up. In slow, slow degrees, he brought his mouth to hers. With the sound of the surging river enveloping them, she felt herself slide beneath a tide of yearning, wishing life could be as simple as a kiss.

They held tight to each other, until someone shouted lewd encouragements.

“Go to Hell,” Leo snarled to the waterman on his skiff.

“Ain’t you heard, guv’nor?” The waterman chortled. “We’re all goin’ to Hell.” He poled his flat-bottomed boat on, chuckling all the while.

Leo said nothing, but it was clear that if the waterman had been within reach, Leo would have made him suffer. Her husband stared at the Thames—the boats and ships upon it, bringing his cargo and wealth, the swarms of people skimming across the surface of the water like insects, and the buildings and warehouses crouched on the banks. He gazed at it all as if he could burn everything down with only a look. Anne half expected to see flames burst to life along the masts bobbing at anchor.

He faced her. “Everything will be all right.”

Yet it was clear that even he did not believe his hollow words.

He ensconced himself in a dockside tavern, having lost his taste for commerce on this day. She had gone home—or so he imagined, for they had talked little as they returned her to the waiting carriage. Her hand had been light on his arm as they had walked, her gaze abstracted. Vast troves of unspoken words lay between them. As he had handed her into the carriage, she had slipped from his grasp like smoke. He’d watched her drive away, though he wanted to shout after her, Stay.

Now he stared at the empty tankard before him. Two men diced by the fire. Another whittled what appeared to be a piece of bone, peering at his handiwork through one eye.

“Another drink, sir?”

He waved the tapster off, but tossed him a coin for good measure. Drink would not straighten his head. Answers came scarce at the bottom of a tankard.

The geminus had spoken true. Any object now gave him access to what would be—including a ribbon belonging to his wife. Until then, he had only looked into the futures of those he sought to undermine or exploit. No longer being beholden to coins gave him an even greater advantage. And a yet larger hunger for more. He could not find satiety. A profit of a thousand pounds meant nothing. His demand refused appeasement, as though a monstrous serpent lived within him, consuming everything, including himself.

Her ribbon lay in the mud. It had shown him a future he did not want to see. Anne, speaking with the Roman ghost. The ally of Whit, and enemy of the Hellraisers. There was nothing Leo could do to stop this future from happening. He could not warn his wife. His only option was to wait, and he despised waiting.

A shadow darkened his table. Without looking up, Leo knew exactly who cast it. His body tensed.

“You aren’t impervious to bullets,” he said, “for all your Gypsy’s magic.”

He did glance up then to see the man he’d once called friend. It had been months since last he had seen him. Whit looked a little thinner, but not haggard. Far from it. When Leo had known Whit, he’d been indolent, indulged by birth and circumstance, finding his one real spark at the gaming tables. Now, he was sharp as vengeance, his gaze alert to everything around him.

“Nor can your gift of prophecy deflect a blade.” Whit’s hand rest lightly on the pommel of his saber, his nobleman’s privilege. “Prior history has proven so.”

Leo resisted the urge to rub the scar on his shoulder. When Whit had turned his back on the Hellraisers, there had been a fight in Oxford. The rapier that had wounded Leo had, in fact, belonged to Bram, but Whit had manipulated luck to cause the injury.

“Both of us could mortally wound the other,” said Leo softly. “But who will be first? Shall we wager on it?”

“I came to warn you,” Whit replied, resisting the lure, “not kill you.”

Leo’s chuckle was low and rueful. “Assuming that you’re faster with your sword than I am with my pistol.”

“The danger to you and your wife grows hourly, and yet you waste time with braggadocio.”

Leo shot to his feet and grabbed Whit’s neck cloth. The tavern fell silent. “Threaten her, and I will kill you.”

“Goddamn it, Leo, you are the one who threatens her, not me.” Whit shoved against him, but Leo would not release his hold.

Whit spoke, low and quick. “What the hell do you think the price of your gift was? What do you think we all bargained in exchange for that magic? Our souls.”

Leo narrowed his eyes and released Whit. “I still have a soul.” He could feel it within himself, and its bright aching resonance whenever he was near Anne.

“Every day, you lose more and more of it.” When he saw that Leo meant to contradict him, Whit continued. “The markings that appeared after we made our bargain—they are growing. From one night to the next, they spread across your skin. The more they grow, the more of you they cover, the more your soul is taken. Until there is nothing left. Until you belong to the Devil completely, and you are damned.”

The marking of flame on his calf was growing daily, and now it reached almost up to the back of his knee.

His legs urged him to move. Leo shouldered past Whit and went out into the street. Whit followed. Leo did not know where he headed, only that he must keep moving.

Whit kept pace as Leo walked, his stride equally long. “You feel it. The Devil’s hunger, constantly craving the destruction of others. As the markings grow, so does his hold on you. You will become his puppet, his minion. I know this, because it happened to me, as well. As it is happening to all of the Hellraisers.”

“Don’t know why I should trust you,” Leo said on a growl. “You’ve proven yourself a traitor already.”

They dodged heavy drays rattling down to the wharf, and dogs nosing in the heaps of rubbish.

“If not for the sake of your soul,” Whit said, “then for the sake of your wife.”

“Leave her out of this,” snarled Leo. Simply hearing Whit speak of Anne set Leo into a killing humor.

“It is you who have involved her.” Whit grabbed Leo’s shoulder and swung him around so they faced each other. “For I tell you truly, Leo, you aren’t merely losing your soul, you are losing her.”

Leo shook himself out of Whit’s grasp, but he felt as if he’d been stabbed through. He glanced down, just to be certain that he hadn’t. It wasn’t Whit’s blade that wounded him, but his words.

“This association with the Devil will cost you everything,” continued Whit. “Your life, your fortune, your soul. Your love.” He peered closer. “You do love your wife, don’t you?”

Leo stood utterly still. His heart beat thickly in his chest.

“I do.” The realization scoured him.

“Then if you won’t fight for yourself, fight for her.” Shouting by the docks drew Whit’s attention. He glanced around, wary. “London is not safe. And the Hellraisers are to blame.”

“Mankind has always been treacherous. That isn’t the fault of the Hellraisers.”

“The Hellraisers have worsened a chronic illness,” said Whit. “Hastening society toward early collapse. And one of the first casualties will be your marriage.”

Leo inhaled sharply. “If that is true ...” His jaw tightened. “I have to find a cure.”

Whit backed toward an alley. “I cannot stay longer. But when you are ready, you will find me.”

“Whit, damn it—”

“Hurry,” was all Whit said, and then ducked into the alley.

Leo ran after him, but there was no one in the passageway. He stood alone.

She did not go straight home. Thinking about returning there, with its hollow chambers and shadowed corners, reminded Anne too much of the emptiness of her marriage. What could have been a warm, welcoming place became instead an unfulfilled promise. So she asked the coachman to drive around London, circling aimlessly.

At one point, the carriage drove past her parents’ townhome on Portland Street. A faded little building tucked between grander structures, an impoverished relative at an elegant dinner. She immediately discarded the idea of going to see her mother and father, taking shelter with them from the chaos of her life. They could offer no solace, no haven. Even if she did go in and confess everything—her fears, her frantic, dying hope—they would never believe her. She, herself, could not believe the thoughts she now entertained.

Leo cannot be in league with the Devil. The Devil is not real. Magic is not real.

Yet her faith in the world as she knew it crumbled away, with each day, with each hour.

The carriage drove on.

Everything spun out of control. She watched the streets roll past—Saint Martin’s Lane, Oxford Street, the Knightsbridge Turnpike as they headed west and out toward the new development of Kensington—seeing only a world off its axis, and her unable to right it, to stop the mad whirl.