The scrape of the key in the lock grated against his nerves. The thump of their boots on the stairs echoed in the pounding of his heart. Alone, he fought like a wild man, writhing against his bonds. Back and forth he sawed until blood oozed hot over his fingers and his breath came broken and ragged, but the silver drained his strength even as it held him fast in his human form. He could not shift. He could not escape.
He was fucking trapped.
David St. Leger was still very, very angry. But he definitely wasn’t bored.
3
“Come along to the dining room, Mr. and Mrs. Hopewell. Some tea will help you gather yourselves together.” The grieving couple followed Branston out, she dabbing at her nose, he pale but collected.
Branston closed the door behind him, leaving Callista alone to recover from her journey into death. A few deep breaths to steady the fluttering of her heart. A shot of brandy to warm her chilled and stiffened limbs. A long, unblinking stare into the heart of a candle’s bright flame to break her free of the horizon-less shadowy landscape that was Annwn. These were the techniques Mother had shown her to ensure her spirit’s full return.
A missed step, and who knew what part of her soul might remain lost within the maze of paths that led always downward into the realm of Lord Arawn, ruler of the underworld. Even Branston respected the ancient rituals enough to leave her in peace as she collected herself.
“Fools and their money, eh, Callie?”
Unfortunately Mr. Corey proved less considerate. He swaggered from behind the heavy velvet curtains drawn on rods all the way around the small room they set aside for appointments. The thick blue fabric muffled sound and light, making for better spectacle as well as simplifying her search for the border into death.
“Good trick. Giving them a song and dance about dear little Joe and his dear little pony. Almost made me want to blubber—or puke.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat. This was the third time in a week she’d been asked to find a child. She hated these requests the most. Not only were children difficult to summon but they were notoriously hard to bind long enough for conversation. And they were such delicate fluttery bright little things. She always felt as if she’d captured a firefly in a jar, its tiny body flinging itself against the glass, desperate to escape. Little Joe Hopewell had been no exception, barely offering his bereft parents a spark of comfort before he slid from her grip, to be lost within the tangle of roads leading to deeper reaches where she dared not trespass.
But it had been enough. She’d seen that as soon as she passed back through the door and into her body to find Mrs. Hopewell snuffling into her handkerchief, Mr. Hopewell’s eyes suspiciously bright.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, picking up the first and largest of the three bells to polish it. Key had an ebony handle engraved with the sword and cauldron of Arawn. Its deep, solemn tone paired with her tracing of the proper symbols freed her powers to unlock the door between the realms of the living and the dead. Allowed her to pass through into the vast frozen tangle of paths where cold sapped the strength from her body and deadened her aching limbs. Mother had warned her never to stop moving once she entered death and never to tarry lest the demons and dark spirits find her and take advantage of her weakened state.
Unfortunately, she’d never told Callista how to avoid the monsters within her own house.
Corey came up behind her and put his hands upon her shoulders, fingers digging into her skin. “I like to watch you do your hocus-pocus act.” He leaned down to whisper in her ear, his breath hot against her cheek. “Better than a night at Vauxhall. You’ve the gift of the actress. A real showman, you are. Had them eating out of your hands.”
“Well, the show’s over.”
Doing her best to ignore him, she placed the bell in its case and picked up Summoner, the next in size and the one whose higher strident ring called and bound the spirits to her so that she might speak with them. With the pad of her thumb, she caressed the four faces carved into the ash wood handle: the maiden, the warrior, the innocent, and the priest. Ran the cloth over the aged sheen of the silver before placing it, too, in the case.
Lastly, she wiped clean Blade, the smallest of the bells but the most deadly, and her only weapon against those creatures that made the underworld their home. Its hawthorn handle was always warm to the touch, its call sharp as a soldier’s sword. If only its power to banish and disrupt worked on the living.
“You’ll find my brother in his office counting his coins,” she said. “Why don’t you go gloat over the misery of others with him and leave me alone?”
Corey spun her around to face him, leaning in close. She could smell a mix of cloves and brandy on his breath. “You think you’re better than me, don’t you? I have news for you, you’re nothing but a sideshow freak. The same as that chap locked upstairs.”
The man upstairs. David.
The name suited him. Strong yet with a touch of upper-class panache.
Unfortunately, knowing the prisoner’s name only made her feel worse about knocking him over the head and dragging him into this mess. Not to mention that had she accepted his help as it was meant, she might have made her escape. She might even be aboard a northbound coach by now. Free and clear. On her way to Scotland and Aunt Deirdre.
Safe.
“All of our kind are afflicted with powers that make us strange and different. Make us more than human.” Corey looked past her and muttered a few words of household magic, causing the candles upon a side table to burst into flame and the fire in the hearth to roar to life. “It’s what we do with them that’s the key.”
“Just because you use your powers to swindle and scam doesn’t mean I should do the same.”
She winced as he turned the same intensity of expression on her that he’d used to kindle the candles. “Those powers were all that kept me from starving when my pa chucked me out. Six years old I was, and lucky he didn’t have me tied in a sack and drowned in the river for being a monster. But I didn’t starve, did I? I succeeded. Got rich. And made sure the old man knew it, right before I gutted him like a market hog.”
She tried to edge away from him, but the table dug into her back, the chair cutting off her escape. “I didn’t know.”
His scarred face twisted in a cold look of fury. “Of course you didn’t. You think I go about advertising what I am or where I come from? You think you’re something special, but you’re not. You’re a dealer in dreams just like I’m a dealer in goods. We each use what we have the only way we can to get ahead and to hell with the stupid prats who don’t have our advantages. They deserve to be swindled.”
She dropped her gaze to her hands, the truth of his words more painful than the grip he had on her chin. “That can’t be all there is. Or the only reason for our gifts. I won’t believe it.”
“So grand and selfless, but the world doesn’t bow to the meek and the righteous. It’s power and money that make men respect you.” He smiled, licking his lips, undressing her with his eyes. “Another few weeks and you’ll belong to me. Together we’ll show the world what
“What do you mean?” Callista asked, though she knew already she’d not like the answer.
“Hasn’t Branston broken the news? Your brother has accepted my very generous offer. You and I are to be married by special license in a few short days.”
She wanted to be sick. “I’ll never marry you. You may dress like a dandy and ape the manners of a gentleman, but you’re nothing more than a common street thug.”
Corey grabbed her, his fingers digging into her upper arms until tears burned in her eyes. “I’ll have you if I have to drag you bound to the altar and afterward I’ll show you just how common I can be.”
Before she could respond, he clamped his mouth on hers, shoving his tongue between her teeth while his free hand fondled her breasts. She struggled, but it only made him press his body closer to hers, his excitement shoved between her thighs. She couldn’t breathe. His hand pinched at her nipple until tears stung her eyes. The case fell with a clang of spilled bells to the floor, their ring sizzling along her bones, the paths into death opening like a tumbled knot in her skull, her spirit lifting away from her.
He bit her lip, blood mingling with his spit, and she was yanked back into her body in time to slam her knee
