Zoe Archer - Sinner’s Heart

Livia knew better than to mistake it for a retreat. A regrouping, perhaps, but not a retreat. Whatever he intended, it meant certain disaster.

She wrapped her arms tightly around his narrow waist. “You know what we must do.”

“Aye,” he answered, grim. “And I’m eager for it.”

“Go,” said Whit. “We’ll hold this end.”

Pressing his heels into his horse’s sides, Bram urged the animal to give chase. Livia and Bram raced away from the demon-choked field of combat. Death and danger were everywhere. Yet the true threat lay not on the battlefield but up ahead in the trees. The sounds of combat faded as she and Bram plunged into the dark forest in pursuit of their enemy.

Trouble, almost at once. The trees grew too thick and close to pursue on horseback. Only a moment earlier, there had been more than enough room for a horse and riders. Now they crowded in on every side. It had to be John’s doing. No choice but to dismount and follow on foot.

Bram kept ahead of Livia, the stride of his long legs twice the length of her own. And she was not as accustomed to running as he. She cursed herself as she fell behind, her body already weary and taxed from the battle.

Seeing that she lagged, Bram slowed.

“No, keep with him,” she said.

“I stay with you,” Bram growled.

“He cannot have an opportunity to collect himself or summon reinforcements. Go,” she added, when still Bram lingered. “Don’t insult me by thinking you need to protect me.”

He sent her a glance that clearly indicated his displeasure with this arrangement, but, seeing that John was indeed disappearing further into the woods, he seemed to understand there was no choice. With a final, searching look, Bram sped off.

She allowed herself a moment to gather her breath, summoning reserves of energy. This was not the time to let mortal weakness hinder her. Surrounded as she was by the woods, she drew on the true strength of the trees, their primal living strength, green and nourishing. This was not the trickery used by John to slow their advance. The Druids had worshiped these forests and the spirits within them. Once, Livia had stolen magic from a Druid priestess for her own avaricious purpose. Now, she called upon that ancient force once more, in service to a higher cause.

It flooded her in warm verdant waves—renewing strength, lifting her heart. She felt alight with primeval strength. With reawakened energy, she picked up her skirts and ran after Bram.

Noises of struggle sounded just ahead. She emerged from a thick stand of trees and skidded to a stop. Bram grappled with a giant beast, its skin rough and brown as bark, its long, clawed fingers gnarled like branches. It had a vaguely lupine face, and serrated yellow teeth. Bram swung his sword at the creature, hacking into its limbs and torso, but the blows hardly slowed its assault.

Just beyond where Bram and this monster fought, John stood, his lips moving silently as he spun out the spell that controlled the beast. Livia darted toward him. But she only took a step when another of the tree-like monsters emerged from the darker shadows and attacked.

Thus distracted, she could do nothing as John turned and fled deeper into the forest.

She bit back an oath. Then shouted, “Incendia!”

Flames leapt from her hands. Fire caught on the beast’s limbs, spreading up, until the whole of the monster burned. It thrashed around, nearly striking her and Bram. Roaring, it collapsed, turning to smoldering carbon.

Bram followed her example. He ducked past the beast’s limbs, then stuck his sword into its chest. As Bram pulled his blade free, the creature’s woody flesh ignited. It flailed for several moments, but the fire crept inside, and glowing red appeared in cracks in its body. Bram struck with his sword again. The monster shattered in an explosion of charred debris.

Ash dusted Bram’s shoulders and streaked his face, and there were rips in his coat, yet he appeared largely unhurt.

“Bastard doesn’t fight fair,” he muttered.

“Neither should we.”

They took up their chase. For a man more familiar with books and the corridors of power, John proved himself remarkably fleet. He kept ahead of them. Energy gathered between his hands. She knew the words his lips formed, recognizing the spell. But not in time. He wildly flung bolts of violent energy from his hands. Livia and Bram dodged as they ran, trees and earth exploding all around them.

“Damned tired of this,” Bram said through gritted teeth.

“This must stop.” Fury coursed through her. “It can only end where it truly began.”

Bram kept John in his sights, but he was a wily bastard, weaving between the trees and holding them back with a mad barrage of dark, jagged flame.

As he and Livia ran, he felt the change before he saw it. The trees turned white, the rough texture of their bark becoming fluted as their trunks straightened. Branches disappeared. The wood turned to marble. The trees were now pillars. Roman pillars.

Dread scraped down his back. They looked distinctly familiar. He realized where he had seen them before: at the ruined temple, the place where he and the other Hellraisers had freed the Devil.

He glanced at Livia. She murmured words in Latin, and she glowed with power. This was her doing.

“You couldn’t bring us to the temple. So you brought the temple to us.”

And that’s precisely where they were. The forest that bordered St. George’s Field had become a Roman ruin. Some of the columns stood upright, whilst others had toppled. Weeds choked what had once been a tiled floor, and everywhere hung a low mist, just as it had on that night months before. The ruin itself stood atop a steep knoll. Its solidity was deceptive, however. The true temple was within the hill. On that fateful night, Bram, Whit and the others had discovered a heavy stone door leading beneath the hill’s surface. Like starving wolves lured by a fresh kill, they had followed. Straight toward their doom.

It would have been their doom, had not a headstrong Roman priestess not intervened.

In an eerie echo of that night, Bram saw John at the entrance to the underground temple. Unlike the first time he and John had been here, though, there was no hesitation in John’s step as he hurried below, disappearing beneath the hill’s surface.

They had to pursue.

Voices stopped him and Livia before they could give chase.

“We gather again.” Whit led Zora, Leo, and Anne up the hill. Blood crusted along Whit’s temple, Zora walked with a slight limp, Anne’s once-tidy hair was wild, and half of Leo’s coat was missing. Yet they were here.

“Courtesy of our sorceress,” Whit added.

Livia tilted her head, regal, though she swayed with weariness.

“He’s down there?” Leo nodded toward the entrance to the subterranean temple. “Why corner himself?”

“Desperation,” Bram said.

“There’s yet more power he can summon.” Livia looked grim.

“Enough chatter.” Bram strode toward the entrance to the temple. “This fight ends now.”

No sooner had he taken a step, however, than the hill began to shudder. The marble columns shook like the trees they had once been, and pieces of stone rained down as the pillars cracked.

Demons clambered up the hillside. Each of them stood as tall as a man, with long bodies and stinging tails like scorpions, but having human torsos and heads covered in an insect’s glinting armor. Pincers rather than hands snapped at the ends of their arms.

The monsters appeared on all sides of the temple, scuttling up, their legs making clicking sounds and shaking the ground with every step.

At once, Bram, Livia, and the others faced this new threat. They formed a ring, weapons and magic at the ready.

Seeing the Hellraisers positioned to make a stand, the demons shrieked and brandished their claws. One snapped at a nearby column, and the stone pillar shattered. Venom dripped from the creatures’ stingers. One sting, Bram knew, meant death.

He glanced quickly at the entrance to the temple. It had been dark below, but now an unholy light glowed. John had to be the source, summoning more demons—or worse.

Looking back to the massive, crawling demons encircling the Hellraisers, Bram cursed, and Livia echoed his sentiment. Costly time slipped away.

“Go.”

Bram scowled at Whit’s directive. “A damned poor friend I’d be, to abandon you to this.”

“It’s not abandonment, but strategy. A veteran like you knows that.” Whit jerked his head toward the entrance to the temple. “You and Livia. Send that bastard to his deserving reward.”

“Most eagerly.” Bright streaks of magical energy danced along Livia’s fingertips.

“And you?” Bram asked.

Leo grinned like a fiend. “Fighting is the only vice left to us.”

“No more carousing,” said Anne.

“Or wenching,” Zora added.

“Don’t deny us our final pleasure,” Whit said.

Bram gave a clipped nod. If this was how the Hellraisers were to meet their end, so be it. All of them fighting to their very last exhalation, without regret.

“Time to redeem the Hellraiser name,” he said. He turned and, with Livia beside him, sprinted toward the temple entrance.

Carved stone steps led from the surface to the underground chamber. Bram took the lead, his sword drawn, whilst Livia kept sharp vigil at his back. They cautiously descended the stairs, and he was struck with a sense of symmetry, time folding in on itself. When last he’d walked down these steps, he’d no awareness of what awaited him. He had been driven by a compulsion he hadn’t understood, a force outside of his will, and a dark, grasping hunger.