What Remains of Heaven

of wood and bone rained down around them. A grinning skull still covered with leatherlike skin and stuck to its frilled pillow by a mass of matted dark hair crashed into his upraised arm and sent his knife spinning into the rubble. The candle Ashley had balanced atop a nearby coffin toppled.

The crypt plunged into a suffocating blackness.

Sebastian’s eyes adapted quickly to the lack of light. But like most men, the Chaplain was hopelessly blind in the dark. He stumbled about, coughing in the dust, his iron bar whistling through the air as he swung like a madman in first one direction, then another, the tip clanging against a stone column, whacking into another stack of coffins.

Quietly searching the rubble around him, Sebastian found what looked like someone’s kneecap and hurled the bit of bone against the back wall of the crypt. It hit the stones and fell with a clatter.

“Devlin?” Ashley swung around, trying frantically to peer into the murky gloom. “We can make a deal. You keep quiet about my secret, and I’ll keep quiet about yours.”

Moving stealthily, Sebastian slipped his good arm beneath his friend’s unconscious body.

“I know about Miss Jarvis,” said Ashley, his voice echoing about the dark vaults. “I overheard her talking to the Bishop a couple of weeks ago.”

Sebastian froze.

Ashley shouted, “I know you can hear me, Devlin. You try to pin these murders on me, and everyone in London will know about the bastard you planted in Lord Jarvis’s oh-so-proper daughter.”

His heart pounding in his chest, Sebastian struggled, one-handed, to lift his friend. “Gibson,” he whispered, then froze as a faint glow illuminated the dusty scene.

Ashley’s candle had not, obviously, gone out. Falling into one of the collapsing caskets, it must have sputtered, only to catch again. Now, fed by ancient cloth and wood, it flared up to fill the crypt with a growing light and the smell of burning hair and wool.

“Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian, struggling to haul Gibson up with him.

But he’d already lost the brief moment of advantage offered by the darkness. With a hiss that sounded like burning pitch, the mummified body in a nearby coffin blazed up as if it were a giant torch, filling the crypt with a surge of light and the stench of burning flesh.

“Devlin!” roared Ashley, the iron bar raised over his head as he charged.

Closing his hand over a mound of debris, Sebastian scooped up a fistful of grit and smashed bone and threw it in the Chaplain’s face. The Chaplain flung up one crooked arm to protect his eyes, his step momentarily faltering.

Letting go of Gibson, Sebastian rammed into the Chaplain headfirst, barreling the man across the aisle to crash into the cobweb-draped pile of coffins in the opposite bay.

The wall of caskets collapsed around them in a dusty crescendo of bones and wood and broken iron bands. The two men went down together, rolling over and over. A jagged piece of wood tore a gash down Sebastian’s leg. His injured arm whacked into the base of a stone column and a whiplash of pain exploded in his head, stealing his breath and dimming his sight.

He was aware of Ashley rearing up, that damned iron bar still gripped in his fists.

“You bastard,” swore Sebastian. Pivoting, he slammed the heel of his boot into Ashley’s forearm. The bar went spinning out of sight.

He heard a roar, and realized the glow in the crypt had brightened. With an ugly whoosh, the flames raced from one bay to the next, fed by the massive piles of dried wood and corpses and ancient textiles stiffened with congealed body fluids.

Ashley scrambled up, eyes wild. Sebastian drove his good fist into the cleric’s face, knocking him back in a crash of breaking wood and clattering, bouncing bones.

The fire was all around them now, filling the air with a foul, oily smoke that stole Sebastian’s breath and stung his eyes. “Gibson!” he shouted. Coughing badly, he lurched back to where the surgeon was trying to push himself up onto his one good knee.

“Put your arm around my neck,” Sebastian shouted over the roar of the fire.

Sebastian surged up, dragging Gibson with him. Together they staggered toward the stair vault through a tunnel of flames. The bays of coffins had turned into giant banks of fire that filled the air with flaming wisps of ancient winding sheets and burning pieces of wood that rained down everywhere.

Then the stack of coffins nearest the stair vault collapsed in a fiery avalanche that sent flaming debris skittering across the central aisle. A smoking slab of wood fell on Sebastian’s head, slamming him to his knees. He tried to get up and felt something heavy clobber him in the back, knocking the breath from his lungs. He pitched forward, losing his grip on Gibson.

“Gibson!” he shouted, reaching for him. A violent fit of coughing racked his body, stealing the last of his strength.

He knew a terrible rage: for the unborn child who would never know its father, for the woman who would face the birth of that child alone. Gritting his teeth, he fought to push himself up, and heard a shout from somewhere up ahead.

Looking up, he saw the dark shadows of men moving purposefully through the smoke and curling flames. Hands reached out, lifting Gibson from Sebastian’s grasp, carrying him toward the stairs. Sebastian heard a familiar, high-pitched voice, saw the gleam of fire reflected in the lenses of Sir Henry Lovejoy’s glasses.

“We must hurry, my lord,” said the magistrate, his fists closing on Sebastian’s coat. “Can you get up?”

Sebastian nodded. He was coughing too badly now to talk. Leaning heavily on the little magistrate, he staggered up the worn, narrow steps.

At the top of the stairs, he tripped over the remnant of the old brick wall and went down. Rolling onto his back, he blinked up at heavy gray clouds. Rain splashed in his face, and he dragged the sweet air of the countryside into his lungs.

“Gibson?” he asked, the effort of turning his head in search of his friend bringing on another bout of coughing. “How is he?”

“He has a nasty gash on the side of his head, but he looks to be all right. Better, in fact, than you, my lord.”

“And Ashley?”

“We couldn’t reach him.”

Sebastian coughed again and gave up trying to sit up. For the moment it felt good simply to lie here on his back in the cool grass, letting the rain wash the dust and cobwebs and the smell of old death from his face.

He said, “I didn’t think you’d make it in time. Sir Peter must have found you far quicker than I’d anticipated.”

“Sir Peter?” Lovejoy frowned. “I haven’t seen Sir Peter.”

Sebastian raised his head to look at the magistrate. Lovejoy’s hat was gone. The sleeve of his coat was singed, and there was a rakish-looking black smear above one eye. “Then what the devil are you doing here?”

“Miss Jarvis looked up the surname of the Marquess of Ripon in Burke’s Peerage and made the connection to the Bishop’s chaplain. When she discovered it was Dr. Ashley’s intention to drive out here this morning, she insisted we come after him. I personally thought she was overreacting. Obviously, I was mistaken.”

Sebastian let his head fall back against the wet grass and started to laugh.

Chapter 43

FRIDAY, 17 JULY 1812

Clad in a navy silk dressing gown, white linen shirt, and doeskin breeches, Sebastian descended to his