The geminus chuckled. “A mortal man stripped of his power and a Gypsy girl with a mountebank’s skill hardly amount to reinforcements.”

An unearthly shriek echoed through the house. The windows rattled. The ground shook. It sounded as though dozens of knives were being sharpened, then Leo realized it was the scrape of talons upon stone.

Demons. Approaching.

The geminus laughed again. “For a man given the gift of prophecy, you’ve shown remarkably inferior planning.”

“There is one ally you have not considered,” said Leo.

“The other Hellraisers are not your friends.”

“Not the Hellraisers.”

“Who, then?”

“Me,” said Valeria Livia Corva.

Light exploded, filling the corridor with radiance. The Roman woman emerged from a brilliant nimbus, hands upraised and ready, hair wild, and she fixed the geminus with a hard, unrelenting stare.

Radiance from Livia threw everything into high relief. The creature recoiled, and it unsettled Leo deeply to see a look of naked hatred upon his double’s face—as though Leo himself shrank back in fearful loathing.

“We’ve more than enough power to face you,” said Leo, “and whatever else comes crawling up from Hell.”

Snarling, the geminus lifted up its hands, preparing to work its own magic. Yet whatever it attempted to do, the effort failed. It glared at Livia.

“No retreat for you,” she said. “This mortal home is your trap, until I decide otherwise.”

The geminus sneered. “You cannot harm me. Unless you seek to hurt him.” It flicked its gaze toward Leo. As it did so, it drew a poniard from inside its coat. Before Leo could stop it, the creature jabbed the point of the blade into its own left hand.

Anne cried out as Leo hissed in pain, gripping his now-bleeding hand. He moved quickly, knocking the poniard hard from the geminus’s grip so that it stuck in the wall. Even this small blow resonated in his body, the force of his own strike against the creature echoing in his hand.

Despite the loss of its weapon, the geminus chuckled. “Threaten as much as you please. The mortal and I are joined. He is my hostage.”

Much as Leo wanted to plow his fist into the creature’s smirking face, he restrained himself. Anne looked equally murderous. Yet the next move had to be Livia’s.

“You are not so protected as you believe.” The ghost moved closer to the geminus, which glowered defiantly at her approach. “To the Dark One, you are nothing but a puppet. We shall make appropriate use of you.”

Latin words streamed from her mouth, and with her hands she made complicated patterns in the air. The geminus seemed to understand her intent, for it tried to dart past Leo, but he grabbed the creature before it could flee down the hallway. He ignored the sharp pain in his own arm as he held fast to the struggling geminus. Livia had to finish her spell before the creature could be set free.

He felt the change, an echo of her magic threading through his body, but the geminus felt it even more strongly. Its movements grew stiff, mechanical. In slow increments, its struggles against Leo’s hold quieted. It stared down at its body as if it were a strange, phantom limb.

“What iniquity is this?” it cried.

“A taste of your own poison,” answered Livia. “During my living years, I learned my own share of dark magic. You and your master seek to command others against their will. Now you share the same experience.” She nodded at Leo. “Release it.”

Leo uncurled his fingers from around the geminus’s arm, careful to stay close lest the thing make another attempt to flee. But it did not run. Instead, limbs moving with sharp jerks, it turned to the study door. Its hand curled around the doorknob.

“Reconsider,” it said over its shoulder, words growing thin with panic. “All is not yet lost. There is still time—”

“We know already how trustworthy your master is,” Leo spat, hating to hear the geminus using his own voice to bleat like a coward. “Do as you’re commanded.”

The geminus made another sound of protest, but it opened the door to the study. Yet the room that lay just across the threshold was not Leo’s study. It was a stonewalled chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling. The books were gone; his desk was gone. In their place were rows and rows of heavy wooden shelves, and trestle tables running the length of the long chamber. On the shelves and the tabletops were objects the size of oranges. They each cast light, some more brilliantly than others.

Leo knew without being told that what he saw were souls. Human souls. All of them held captive in this chamber. The cold stone walls formed a grim prison, pitilessly enclosing the radiance of the souls’ humanity. Yet as Leo looked upon them, greed stirred. Shimmering and precious, the souls were rare prizes that inspired covetousness—even within him.

Leo had been one of the reckless. Somewhere in that impossible room, his own soul waited.


Anne stared, hardly believing what she saw. Here was the vault of souls that Lord Whitney had described. The souls themselves were beautiful and shimmering, far lovelier than any gem torn from deep within the ground. Even standing some distance from them, she could feel their power and potential radiating outward, sending flickers of energy through her body.

The sight of so many souls trapped within the gloomy, oppressive chamber made her heart wilt. Already, a few of the souls faded, their light dimming. She did not know what would happen when their brilliance disappeared entirely, but it must certainly mean disaster.

“How did you come by so many?” she could not help asking the geminus.

It forgot its momentary horror, and looked smug. “Mortals are such fallible, gullible things. I learned this well during my profitable visits to the Exchange. They throw their souls away for mere trifles. Money, power. Love.”

She stared at the shelves and shelves of souls, fighting despair. If this was the handiwork of a single geminus in only a few short months, imagine what many more of the things it could do in the span of a year. Hardly a person would walk the earth who still possessed their soul. And if the Devil could harness the power of all of these souls, power that Anne herself could feel ... no wonder he must be stopped.

Leo strode toward the door to the vault, but could not move into it. He seemed to face an invisible barrier; his hand pressed empty air as though pushing against glass. Curling his hand into a fist, he threw a punch. The blow simply glanced away.

The geminus laughed. “Another excellent scheme. The vault is there, but what of it? You cannot go inside.”

“We knew that much,” muttered Leo. Yet it was in his nature to try anyway.

“Then you know no mortal may enter.”

“Conversely,” Livia said, “I am not mortal.”

Anne held her breath as the ghost darted toward the vault. For this had been their intent, what they had planned beside the river in Richmond. When Lord Whitney had retrieved his soul, it had taken Livia’s magic to gain Zora entry into the vault. That spell had cost Livia much of her power, but now they had a simpler option. She herself would gain entrance into the vault, and secure Leo’s soul.

Yet when the ghost tried to pass across the threshold, she actually stumbled back. A look of bafflement crossed her face. She attempted to enter once more. Again, she met an invisible barrier. She stared down at her hands and body in confusion.

The geminus gave another ugly laugh. “Perhaps I ought to have made myself more clear. No human may enter the vault, be they living or dead. Ever since the Gypsy’s essence was smuggled into another vault, alterations have been made.”

Anne’s heart sank, and Leo bared his teeth in frustration.

The Roman was not deterred. “No solid surface has yet barred me,” she said, eyes hard and determined. “Not since my imprisonment between the realms. This night shall be no different.” She rushed toward the wall beside the open door, and passed right through.

Anne anxiously looked into the vault for Livia’s reappearance on the other side of the wall. The ghost did not materialize.

“Where is she?”

Livia appeared a moment later, emerging from the wall. Her face was set in a dark scowl. “All I find beyond that wall is a library. No vault. No souls. Merely useless books. If there is a way in, I cannot find it.”

As the geminus continued to laugh, Leo cursed, long and floridly, and even Livia looked crestfallen. Desolation was a crushing weight in Anne’s chest. For all their plans and hopes, for everything they had been willing to sacrifice, everything that had been lost—Leo’s soul still belonged to the Devil, and there was nothing any of them could do to get it back. He was lost. They had failed.

They could not fail.

“Almost admirable,” the geminus chuckled, wiping its eyes. “A fiasco, of course, but extremely inventive. ’Tis a shame that none of you shall serve my master. He would make excellent use of you.”

Another unearthly scream rattled the windows. From down the corridor came the sounds of the front door being shaken, heavy bodies throwing themselves against the wood. Glass shattered. Zora shouted out a warning, and the clang of Lord Whitney’s sword rang out. Demons howled, rage and bloodlust in their uncanny voices.

“Of course,” said the geminus, mockingly solicitous, “you are welcome to join your friends in their useless battle. But know that you fight for nothing. And once my master’s soldiers destroy your mortal body, your soul spends eternity in bitterest suffering.”

“Hers won’t,” said Leo, nodding toward Anne. “That is all that matters.” He drew a pistol and pointed it at the geminus’s heart. “I’ll take you to Hell with me.”