ë Archer - Demon’s Bride

“Then who is he?”

His mouth tightened. “My geminus.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“You’re a clever girl,” drawled the other Leo, the geminus. “Surely you can hazard a guess. Only consider: I came into being one very eventful night three months ago.”

According to Livia, that was when Leo and the other Hellraisers made their pact with the Devil, exchanging tokens for their sinister magic. This thing sprang into existence from that exchange. Looking at it now, she saw in its wintry gaze the most malevolent parts of Leo—rage, contempt, hatred. Drawn forth from him, and given flesh.

“It’s you.” She stared at her husband, who stared back with anguish. She could only imagine she looked equally ravaged. “Your dark counterpart.”

“Ah, you are clever.” Yet the geminus looked far from pleased by this notion.

Anne’s hand rose to her throat. “God, Leo, what have you done?”

“What I thought I must,” he rasped.

The geminus clicked its tongue. “Let us not stray from the subject at hand. Now that you are here, we may as well discuss vital matters.” It attempted to move closer to her, and again, Leo lunged into its path, blocking its advance.

“I said, Don’t. Bloody. Touch. Her.”

The heat and violence of his words made Anne edge back. She had never seen Leo this angry, and his rage was a terrible thing, savage as a blood-maddened wolf. Everything became a peril, especially the man she knew as husband. What did he want from her? What would he do? Anything was possible, and all of it awful.

She needed safety. She had to run away, to protect herself. As her emotions churned, energy gathered within her, a swirling maelstrom collecting throughout her body, potent and blue.

Leo turned to her, his expression torn between fury and desperation. “Anne, please—” He took a step toward her, one hand outstretched.

“No!”

Anne flung her own hands out, warding off an attack. As she did so, she felt the energy within her release, pouring out of her in a furious gale. Both Leo and the geminus flew backward, pushed away on a current of violent air that came from her hands.

The geminus slammed into the desk. Leo careened into the bookcase lining the far wall. Both groaned at the hard impact, then fell to the floor, sprawling on the carpet.

Anne stared down at her hands in horror, then at the two figures lying upon the floor. She had done that. Pushed them both away using a power that came from within her.

Madness.

Leo groaned again. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. Raised his head to look at her. The pain etched into his sternly handsome face made her want to go to him, comfort him, and she was appalled at herself.

“Anne,” he rasped.

She turned and fled.

She did not know where she ran. She knew only that she must run far. Put the whole nightmare behind her, as if, by the motion and momentum of her body, she could outpace the truth. The truth that scoured her with its ghastliness.

My husband is in league with the Devil.

Anne ran through the streets of Bloomsbury, past elegant homes and leafy parks. Night covered the city, and lamps threw out fitful light. As she passed, the lamps extinguished. Linkboys’ torches sputtered. Even candles she espied through windows guttered and died as she ran by. She sped into darkness.

London became a city of deepest shadow, the city in which she had spent almost her entire life made strange and frightening. Every face she passed seemed to be Leo’s, or some demonic creature. She remembered the things she thought she had seen in the riot, the fiendish beasts in the crowd. Those had been real, and even now, they could be out here, searching for her.

Running, she passed a group of men.

“Where are you going, madam? Are you in distress? Shall I fetch a constable?”

She shied away from outstretched hands, seeing clutching grasps, and raced on. Those men could be disguised demons. They could be men also in confederation with the Devil, their words of supposed kindness a trap.

She had no means of protecting herself. Not from the demons. Not from Leo. And not from herself. Something lived within her, a power she did not understand.

Winded, her stays a hard cage that crushed the breath from her, Anne stopped in an empty square and struggled for air.

Her head spun. Where could she go? With whom could she seek refuge? Not her parents. Numerous acquaintances were scattered throughout, in Marylebone, in Soho and Saint James’s. The idea that she could sit in someone’s parlor and explain to them that her husband had made a compact with the Devil, thus creating a sinister double of himself, and she had to flee for her very life—if she wound up in chains at Bedlam, she ought to consider herself fortunate.

Where, then? When she had not a single ally.

Ally.

Lord Whitney. He had known all along. Had tried to warn her. She must go to him; he would help.

You shall find me and Zora at the Black Lion Inn, in Richmond.

She fought to get her bearings in the darkness. She might be in Mayfair, if the impassive, towering buildings around her were any indicator. Her heart sank. Richmond stood miles away to the west, past Hyde Park, past Kensington, past even Chiswick—on the other side of the river.

Coin to pay for her journey she had none. A bitter irony, considering the number of coins she had procured for Leo.

Coins. Leo had asked her to obtain them for him. Could it be that he needed them to utilize his magic to prophesize? She remembered that he’d demanded a coin from her father before making the mining investment. If that was true ... She had helped him. Abetted his use of evil power. And like a spaniel eager to please, she had done it.

Nausea roiled through her. He had used her. Deceived her. She had done it to make him happy, never knowing to what wickedness she contributed.

It wasn’t all for Leo’s benefit, whispered a voice deep within her. You liked playing tricks on those disdainful, pompous women. You enjoyed it.

She shoved that traitorous thought from her mind. It did her no favors, not now. Easier, simpler, to think of Leo as the villain and herself the wronged innocent.

What she needed was to reach Richmond, and Lord Whitney. Leo might be in pursuit of her. She could not dally.

Holding her aching side, Anne turned toward what she hoped was west and ran. Yet she was a lady, little used to running, and her slippers were meant for soft carpets or gleaming parquet floors, not rough pavement and cobblestones. She might as well have foolscap strapped to her feet for all the protection her slippers gave her. So her progress crept along, as she kept slowing to catch her breath and to ease off her throbbing feet.

London seemed infinite, the night equally huge. Every dark shape made her jump. Each rustle of wind through the elm leaves caused her heart to pound. She was sick, and weary, and terrified, and she despaired of ever arriving at Richmond.

Prayers were sent up to whatever deity might be listening, that she could reach Lord Whitney, and soon.

Anne stumbled down the road, until she found herself at the edge of a large grassy plain, a pitiless, colorless moon overhead illuminating paths, trees. A trio of buildings formed fanciful shapes against the sky, including a tower that soared high above the grass, a series of curiously roofed structures stacked one atop the other. Moonlight gleamed off its green-and-white-tiled roof. She realized at once where she was: the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. The tower was the Pagoda, built recently, and distantly she espied the domed roof and minarets of the Mosque. The Alhambra and its extravagant latticed railing and cupola made up the third structure.

It was all so deliberately, obstinately whimsical—buildings designed to be novelties, things meant for the enjoyment of London’s pleasure seekers, whose lives never touched the kind of horror that Anne now faced.

She hated those buildings, their playful indifference. A bitter desire clutched her; she wanted to burn them down, laugh at their ashes.

Instead, she staggered toward them. Though her heart urged her to keep running, her body demanded rest, and she needed out of the cold. She tottered inside the Alhambra, shadows dulled its brightly painted arches and columns. Only when she sank down onto the ground, her legs unable to bear her weight any further, did she at last give in to tears.

He heard her footsteps racing down the hallway and the front door open. She ran from him. Leo tried to stand, to force his legs to follow, but dizziness overwhelmed him. He felt the twin pain of being thrown not just against the bookcase, but the hurt of the geminus as it was flung against the desk. The creature lay on the floor, unmoving.

He could not believe the power that had come from her, sudden and unknown. She threw me and the geminus across the room. His surprise knew no limits.

Blackness swam in his vision. He tried to push it aside, as he pushed all obstacles out of his path. In this, though, his body overruled his will, and he slumped to the floor.

“Sir? Sir?” Munslow gently shook him. Leo opened his eyes to see a pair of polished but well-worn buckled shoes. “Shall I fetch a physician, sir?”

Leo sat up, groaning. Munslow stood close by, gazing down at him with a worried frown, whilst more servants gathered in the doorway of the study, peering in like curious birds.

Turning his throbbing head to look at his desk, Leo saw that the geminus was gone. He tried to focus on the clock on the mantel, but his head spun.

“My wife,” he rasped.

The head footman shot an anxious glance over his shoulder, toward the other servants. A girl Leo recognized as Anne’s maid shook her head.

“Gone, sir.”

“How long?” Leo forced himself to standing, his whole body aflame, his head aching.

Munslow could only offer a shrug.

Leo pushed past him and the gathered servants as he staggered from the study. He barely heard Munslow’s calls to him, the nervous offers of bringing in a physician. As he lurched up the stairs, he shouted, “Have my horse saddled and ready to ride.”

“Sir?”

“Do it.” Leo gained the top of the stairs. His head still pounded, but the floor became steadier, and he ran into the bedchamber.

He would not allow himself to look at the bed, to think about the life shared between him and Anne that now lay in ruins. He had an aim, a purpose; he would not falter.

Her clothespress. He strode to it and threw open the doors. Gowns of every color and fabric lay in neat arrangement. They carried the sweet fragrance of her body, the echo of her shape. Plunging his hand between the gowns, his fingers brushed against smooth cotton, the pleats of ribbons.

The room around him vanished. He found himself in a darkened pavilion, though the night could not fully disguise the brightly painted arches and columns. And there, on the ground, curled into a ball—Anne.

The vision dissolved. Once more, he stood in his own bedchamber, and Anne was gone.

If ever he had been glad of his Devil-begotten power, nothing compared to his appreciation for it now. For without it, he would never know where to find his wife, and this was his lone aim. Without her ...

No. He refused to think of it. Instead, he ran back downstairs to the study. There, he loaded his brace of pistols, then slipped them into shoulder-belt holsters and slung the whole of it across his chest. His primed hunting musket hung across his back. Into the top of his boot, he sheathed a knife. Damn that he could not carry a sword. Any means of attack or defense, he would use—he would never use them against Anne, but London after dark was not safe, now worse than ever. The riot at the theater remained lodged in his brain like a thorn.

He started to stride from the room, but froze in his tracks when he saw the geminus. Not the geminus, he realized, but his own reflection in a glass. The man who stared back at him bore no resemblance to the wealthy businessman he had fashioned for himself. His hair undone, his expression wild and fierce, heavily armed, he looked every inch the brute the aristocrats claimed him to be. Good. Now was not the time for aping the manners of the gentry. Now was for survival, for reclaiming what he had foolishly lost.

He left the study. His saddled bay gelding waited for him outside his house. Leo snatched the reins from the groom and, without a word, kicked the horse into a gallop.