“And why are you using your moment Here to speak with me?”
“In an indirect way, I am the one who has caused the problem.”
“Forgive me,” Jack said with a politeness he clearly did not feel, “but you’re not explaining yourself very well.”
Mary wanted to be annoyed as well, but the goodwill flowing off the angel could not be denied. She liked him. Instinctively.
“Poppy often tells me the same,” Augustus murmured. “It is simply this. Two years ago, Winston Lane was attacked by Death. I intervened and brought him to Benjamin Archer.” A strange look of pride lit the angel’s features for a moment, then was gone.
“Death, thus cheated, prompted another, Apep, to break free from Nowhere or what you call Hell,” Augustus explained with a wave of his hand. “A rift was opened, and many who had been consigned to hell used the opportunity to escape, including Amaros. The Nex gained power and strength in those new allies.”
Augustus’s mouth turned down. “While I do not regret saving Winston Lane’s life, I regret the unforeseen effects of that action. The least I can do is give you knowledge to defend yourself. When Amaros took your blood, he thought himself cured. Unfortunately, it was a temporary stay of execution. He needs a constant diet of your blood to remain as he is. As your healing blood is a gift, you must freely give it to him for it to have full potency.”
Deep within Mary’s soul, something stilled and then went on alert. She could see the end, a dark shadow on the horizon, and it was she who stood between Jack and that chasm.
Yes. You understand.
Augustus’s voice was clear in her mind. She glanced back at him, but he gave no indication that he’d spoken.
“He won’t get any more from me,” Jack said flatly. “Let him die.”
“Do you honestly believe that once he realizes your blood did not permanently cure him that he will not come after you?” Augustus shook his head sadly. “While his mind might be muddled by madness, he is not without intelligence. Expect him to return soon. And his rage will be great.”
“And so will mine,” Jack retorted.
Augustus’s gentle expression turned solemn. “I know what you are planning, Jack. And it is not the answer to your troubles.”
But you have the answer, do you not, Mistress Chase? A flicker of his gaze toward her.
Her spirit stretched wide, then collapsed tight. Did she? Her mind raced. No answers came.
Wholly ignorant of their exchange, Jack stood straighter, his hands at the ready. “What am I planning, then?”
If the threat in his voice bothered Augustus, it didn’t show. “That you will kill him.” He smiled slightly. “It is what I would do to anyone who threatened my beloved.”
“A good guess.” Jack rolled his tight shoulders. “And the right one.”
“It will not work.” Augustus sighed, and the air upon the platform grew warm and tinged with the scent of a summer storm. Augustus’s expression grew grim. “If I could, I’d kill Amaros myself. But a fallen is forbidden to kill his kind.”
Mary drifted closer to Augustus. A queer sort of anticipation surged through her being. As if the answer was just bumping along the edges of her mind.
“Which is why Amaros is now cursed,” Augustus said. “Long ago, in a fit of rage, he killed another fallen and has been rotting away ever since.”
Jack frowned. “I am half fallen. Can I kill him? Or will I too be cursed?”
Dark, ancient eyes held his. “You will be cursed just as he is. To destroy his soul is to destroy your own. That is our way.”
“Hell.” Jack pinched the bridge of his nose.
Can I kill him in Jack’s stead? Mary asked Augustus.
“Miss Chase has asked me if she could destroy Amaros in your stead.”
Jack lurched up from where he’d been leaning. “Absolutely not.” He glared at Mary as she glared back in defiance.
“No other immortal has ever killed a fallen,” Augustus said. “They are too physically strong to destroy. Ironically, one needs the strength of a fallen, or Nephil, to do the deed.”
The weight of Augustus’s words sank like a stone.
Then why tell me that I have the answer?
Sometimes the answer is not in the physical, but in the spirit.
Beside her Jack suddenly flinched as if a realization had come fast upon him. “But if Amaros is already cursed, then…”
“He can destroy you,” Augustus finished. “Without doing himself further damage.”
His curse is soul-deep. You understand the soul, do you not, Miss Chase?
And suddenly Mary did. She knew precisely what needed to be done. It was risky. And Jack would never agree to it.
Mary looked at Augustus. This is why you haven’t spoken of this aloud, isn’t it?
Would you rather I had? Augustus’s response was wry, yet tinged with sadness. Because he too knew the risks. She could feel his concern for her like a warm hand upon her shoulder.
“Then I shall offer him free use of my blood,” Jack said.
His freedom.
“I see no other recourse,” Augustus answered sedately.
No! It was a shout in Mary’s mind. Never. She would not let Jack become Amaros’s blood whore. She would not see him go back to that dark place of hell and despair. Offering himself to the being who’d held and tortured him.
As if hearing her very thoughts, Augustus glanced at Mary. Then you know what must be done.
Jack ran a tired hand over his face and turned away to stare out over the city. “Then I shall do what I must.”
To protect those he loved, Jack would do anything. And so would Mary.
“Two squared is four. Three squared is nine. Four squared is sixteen.” Holly hugged herself tight, rocking slightly as she continued to count. The words burned against her throat. “Five squared is five-and-twenty…” Numbers. Sensible, reliable numbers. They would not harm her.
Her accommodations had changed. No more laboratory. Only the icy, dank hole of her cell. There were others here, rows of black cells that held the damned. She could not see them, but she could hear them. Moans, curses, weeping.
She could almost bear the sounds of their misery. But not those of the demon who occupied the cell with her.
A violent wave of nausea ran through her when she glanced to his side of the space. Lying upon a hard pallet and still strapped down by chains of gold, he shook along the whole of his lean body as he stared blankly up at the ceiling. His teeth were clenched and bared, and white fangs cut into his bottom lip until blood rolled along his chin and pooled at his neck. Holly doubted that he was aware. He simply shook as if nothing would ever again warm him.
His muscled torso shone pale, nearly luminous in the dimness, an uncomfortable contrast to the purple bruises mottling his chest and the ugly, ragged scar that ran down his sternum. Thick, awkward stitches held his skin closed, puckering his once-smooth flesh and sticking up like thorns in a briar patch.
The memory of witnessing his heart being ripped from his chest to be replaced with a clockwork one would haunt Holly for the rest of her days. She couldn’t stand to look at him now. Nor could she stand to look away. If she looked away he might die. Alone. She couldn’t allow that. Not when it was her invention clicking away in his chest.
Holly pressed her knees harder into her breast and let the numbers flow through her mind. Six squared is six-and-thirty. Seven squared is nine-and-forty.
A long, agonized groan tore from her cellmate’s lips, and his body bowed off of the pallet, restrained from falling by the chain across his shoulders and thighs. As if hit, he slammed back down and began to thrash and groan.
A childish urge to cover her ears had her arms twitching. But she crawled to his side.
“It’s…” She extended a hand to touch him, then stopped when he bucked again. “It’s all right.” Feeble words. He didn’t hear them anyway. Unfocused eyes stared wide. His mouth hung open as if locked in a scream, but no sound came. Sweat rolled down his temples and pebbled on his torso.
Would he die? Was his body rejecting the heart? She could not tell. But something was changing. From the edges of his wound, little rivers of shining platinum began to creep along his skin. No, not along, but through his skin.
“Oh, no.” Her platinum heart was a failure after all. Holly watched in horror as the gleaming metal rapidly spread outward like the root system of a tree. Up over his chest and down his side it went. And all the while he thrashed, as if it was agony.
Heedless of the danger, she reached out and touched his shoulder. So cold and clammy with sweat and shaking violently. But she smoothed her hand down his arm in a slow, gentle caress. Strangely, the metal’s progress stopped. But not on the other side. Platinum twined and writhed down his left arm and twisted along his fingers. The demon clenched his fist and sobbed. A trickle of blood leaked from the corner of one eye.
The sight sent a ripple of disgust along her skin. She hailed from a family of logical inventors, yet some deep-seated part of them maintained a vigilant Irish suspicion of blood drinkers. Dearg-due, Abhartach. Reviled creatures who lusted for blood. Ungodly fiends. As soon as the thought entered her head, shame chased it out.
Holly touched his cheek, and he leaned into it with a whimper.
“There now, big man,” she whispered, as she covered him with her blanket. “You’re not alone.” With a hand that shook, she ran her fingers over his brow and through his damp hair. The white strands clung to her hand like spider silk but the demon calmed. No, his name was Thorne. He was not some nameless demon. But Thorne.
His eyes were closed now, long bronze lashes lying against unnaturally pale cheeks.
“You are not alone, Mr. Thorne.”
At the sound of his name, his eyes flew open. No longer simply black as onyx, a starburst pattern of luminous platinum radiated around his pupils. His head turned toward her, but not a flicker of recognition or sense lay in his strangely beautiful eyes.
Holly opened her mouth to say something, anything that might offer some comfort, but a massive bellow rang out, echoing off the stone walls.
“Evernight!”
She jumped back, her bottom hitting the floor, just as the door to the main cellar smashed open.
Master surged in on a tide of rage. Open sores and great gaping wounds once again held dominion over his flesh. Holly cowered as he strode forward, seething and growling. His wild gaze landed on her, and she knew she was dead.
While Mary went home to reconnect with her body—and Jack had no doubt she was desperate to give him a thorough tongue-lashing—Jack went to Thorne’s house. He’d put his friend at risk for selfish reasons, and though they worked on opposite sides, it did not sit well with his conscience. Thorne needed to know with what they were dealing. A mad fallen was a menace to all. The Nex was insane to think it could control Amaros.
But the moment he stepped up to Thorne’s town house, Jack’s skin prickled along his neck. All appeared quiet, but a thick fug of dark power hung over the air around the place. The broken door lock did not ease his worry. Slowly Jack entered the main hall, taking in the destruction and the carnage of slaughtered help.
Sliding out a knife, more for a sense of security than for actual protection, Jack made his way down to Thorne’s subterranean lair. More destruction. Blood splattered the walls; the furniture was broken down to kindling.
Regret sucked at Jack’s gut as he made his way home to Mary. For Thorne alone he yearned to kill Amaros. So great was his ire that it took him a moment to realize something was wrong as he entered Mary’s flat. It was too quiet, and her scent was not strong enough. As though she was gone. Then he spied the message written in blood upon the blue-lacquered wall. Jack’s knees hit the floor, his head going light, his limbs ice-cold. And then came the rage, powerful and welcome, and running like lightning through his veins.
If you want her, come and get her.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Having her body stolen was certainly a new experience. Mary had returned home only to find it gone. Fortunately, a GIM could always locate her body. Unfortunately, she knew quite well that she would not like where it was. And she was correct. Following the pull of her physical flesh, Mary soon found herself in the cellars beneath Lambeth Palace. Gold torchlight flickered off moldering, damp stones.
She kept to the upper shadows, where the ceiling curved low and rough. She glided over a number of well-armed guards, each of whom wore a Nex tattoo upon his left hand and a tattoo of a chain about his neck—a blood-bonded slave. Mary wondered if any of them wanted to fight their servitude. Mary also wondered exactly how Amaros had discovered her home, until she entered an underground chamber and spied Tottie O’Brien seated at a table covered with food and drink. Tottie, who had claimed to see Jack abduct Holly Evernight. Tottie, who had access to Poppy’s files. Tottie, who would live in a world of regret as soon as Mary got her hands on her.
But for now Mary hovered. Her body lay on a blood-encrusted trolley. Not a pleasant sight. Nor was that of Amaros bending over her. Augustus had been correct, the fallen was rotting again. His robe gaped and revealed his cursed flesh. A faint, almost sweet stench emanated from him. But the power radiating from him belied his decrepit appearance.
Grabbing hold of her bodice, Amaros tore it in two. Mary supposed she ought to feel humiliation upon seeing her body exposed. Anger came instead.
“Quite lovely, no?” he said to no one in particular, but Tottie answered quickly enough.
“If you’re going to shag an empty body, tell me now, and I shall leave you to it.” Her pert nose wrinkled in disgust.
“It will not be empty for long.” With brutal efficiency he reached down and ripped the key to Mary’s heart off her nipple. Blood welled from the torn tip, and Mary gave a mental wince. That would hurt when she came back to herself. And he now had the means to stop her heart.