One bolt of energy hit the demon in the stomach. It collapsed, shuddered, and went still.

“The hell?” Bram’s surprised voice sounded above the demons’ shrieks and the rush of his blade. Though his gaze was on her, he continued his attacks against the creatures.

“Don’t question it,” she threw back. “It strengthens both of us.”

Only then did he notice the incandescent energy surrounding him. He started, then gave a feral smile. “Damned useful.”

They plunged back into the fray, Bram felling demons with his sword, Livia cutting them down with her magic. The creatures seemed unprepared for such a show of aggression and resistance. They fought back, yet their numbers continued to thin. At last, only two of the demons remained. One of the pair shrieked at the other. They turned and fled into the darkness.

Both Livia and Bram attempted to pursue, but the demons abruptly disappeared. One moment, they scuttled across the field, and the next, they vanished, leaving behind the smell of sulfur.

“A portal,” Livia said. “How they arrived here.”

Sword in hand, panting, Bram said, “We give chase.”

She shook her head. “Vitalized as I am, I’ve not the power to open a portal once it has been shut. Even if I did, we’d face legions of demons on the other side.”

“I’m ready.” He bared his teeth, savage.

She stared at him. He’d taken a few cuts during the fight, a thin line of blood crossing his cheek, and there were tears in his coat. Yet he stood like a warrior born, fierce and literally shining with martial power, gripping his blood-streaked sword.

The thrumming that resounded within her came only partially from the battle she and Bram had just fought.

The swell of her strength began to fade, its brightness receding like a tide. She swayed.

He was beside her instantly. “Hurt?”

“The demon somehow managed to wound me.” She shook her head. “A minor injury.”

He cursed, his expression lethal. The brightness around him also began to dim, leaving behind afterimages. “Don’t know how to tend to a ghost’s wounds.”

“Truly, it will pass.”

His gaze gentled. “I’d no idea Roman priestesses could fight like Spartans.”

“I did not precisely follow the prescribed course of prayer and study.”

“Praying against an enemy is never an effective strategy.” He gave a crooked smile. “And I’m glad you weren’t an ideal priestess.”

During her lifetime, courting someone’s good opinion had not been her ambition. Her ruthlessness earned her more than a few enemies. It did not trouble her. Only one opinion mattered: her own.

Yet Bram’s words warmed her, far more than she thought a dead woman could feel.

She turned back toward the manor house. “You need to warn the men. There will be more attacks.”

After wiping his blade on the grass, he sheathed his sword. “That is going to be an interesting conversation. ‘Your political opponent is literally in league with the Devil. Time to invest in a few hundred bodyguards. Preferably ones with magic.’”

“They need to go into hiding—say whatever you must.” She glanced at the demon bodies strewn across the grass. Already, their corpses were liquefying, the process of decomposition working faster on creatures of the underworld. “There is one certainty, however.”

She gazed at Bram, the moonlight upon the breadth of his shoulders and ebony of his hair. Resonant energy turned his eyes to pale crystal, ringed with sapphire.

“John and the Dark One know, now. They know that you have chosen a side—and it isn’t theirs.”


Returning home was no longer an option. Livia was well aware of the consequences once a Hellraiser turned his back on the Dark One.

He’s threatened by you, she said as Bram rode toward the city. Which means he will try to destroy you.

He can try, Bram answered.

I haven’t the strength now to battle hordes of demons.

I’ll take them on myself.

She snorted. Arrogance gets men killed. Whilst your soul is in the Dark One’s grasp, we cannot take that chance. Have you someplace safe, someplace John doesn’t know about?

A small house in Spitalfields. My father bought it for his mistress. She died a few years after my brother inherited, and Arthur kept the place. Rented it out, but when I acceded to the title, I stopped taking tenants. It’s been empty ever since.

Go there. You can rest in safety, then we can plan how we can draw John out.

Yes, ma’am, he answered, his voice sardonic. Yet he did as she directed, and she thought of the tumultuous minutes after the battle.

Bram had gone to Camden House first. The men within had all exclaimed in shock when they had beheld him, bloody and disheveled. In terse words, Bram had told them they were the intended targets of assassins and needed to go into hiding immediately. Some of the men had protested—half had wanted proof of his allegations, the others had wanted to summon the law and bring official charges against John.

“The law cannot help you,” Bram had answered. “And I didn’t fabricate these wounds. All of you need to go. To your country estates. Abroad. It doesn’t sodding matter. If you value your lives and the lives of your families, you’ll do as I say. Now.”

The men had seen the hard blue fire of Bram’s gaze, and heard the steel of his voice, and had meekly obeyed.

Now she and Bram rode through the night-shrouded city, through quarters she little recognized. They passed mobs of men, some of whom lunged for Bram or the reins of his horse. Bram’s sword made fast appearances, and the assailants retreated. Thereafter, he kept one hand on the reins, the other around the hilt of his unsheathed sword.

At last, he slowed outside a narrow house, with a lower story and two floors. The surrounding homes were genteel, if a little shabby, their façades cracked like porcelain, an occasional weed sprouting up from crevices in the plaster. The streets here were dark and empty, not a single light in the windows. A thin dog trotted down the middle of the cobbles. It did not stop or look at them, its nails clicking on the stones as it passed, in search of food.

Bram dismounted and led his horse around to the mews. The stable behind the house held only rotten straw and a rusted trough. After securing his horse and cleaning out the stall, Bram slipped into a neighbor’s stable and gathered supplies—a bucket of water, some feed.

Don’t your commandments forbid you from stealing?

Requisitioning, I prefer to call it. That’s not a sin.

A large orange tabby cat ambled through the stable. Judging by the size of its belly, it had more than an ample supply of mice.

Bram tended to his horse. He murmured to the animal, patting its flank and nose. Briefly, he rubbed his cheek against the horse’s face as he stroked its sleek neck. The mare snorted with pleasure.

Livia discovered she was jealous of a horse.

Once the animal had been taken care of, Bram approached his house’s back door. Unsurprisingly, it was locked. He moved to a window and slipped off his coat. With one hand, he held the coat up to the glass, as the other drew back and curled into a fist.

Wait, she said. No need to break into your own house. Lend me some of your magic.

My way’s more satisfying.

And noisier. Even if you muffle the sound.

Grumbling, he donned his coat, then closed his eyes. She did the same, and felt the gleam of her power rising. His own magic reached toward hers, its heat filling her, sifting through her body. She ought to be used to the sensation by now, this intimate merging. Ought to be, but was not.

Once she had gathered enough power, she directed the energy toward the keyhole. She shaped it, guiding it to match the tumblers, seeking the perfect fit.

This reminds me of something, he said, wry.

She didn’t bother with a reply, though a different kind of heat suffused her. Instead, she made sure the key fit precisely, then turned it.

The door opened. Its hinges complained, but it was still quieter than smashing a window.

Bram stepped inside. As he did, Livia allowed herself to materialize just behind him. They moved through what appeared to be the kitchen. A cold, ash-strewn hearth was set into one wall, and a few earthenware bowls squatted on shelves. A desiccated lump of meat lay in the middle of the single table—once it must have been a roast. Now it was grayish brown stone.

“Don’t need to light a lamp.” Bram glanced at her. “You illuminate.”

“I always have important knowledge to convey.” She smiled, however, seeing how her ghostly radiance bathed the room. “Think of all the lamp oil that can be saved.”

“Very economical.”

They drifted from the kitchen, down a cramped corridor. An empty storeroom and an even more cramped closet lay off the passage. Judging by the cot and battered chest in the closet, it once served as a servant’s chamber. They ascended a staircase to the main floor. One room was empty of everything but a broken mirror leaning against the wall and a dented metal serving platter. At some point, the room might have served as a place for dining. Now, one would receive a mouthful of grime for a meal. The other, larger room still had furniture, but dust filmed everything. Bram discovered a nest of mice within a chair’s stuffing, a mother and her wriggling pink young. Pellets were scattered across the floor, evidence that other creatures called this place home, and spiders presided in the corners.

“The world goes wild so easily,” Bram murmured. To her surprise, he did not disturb the spiderwebs, nor toss out the mice. He left them as they were. At Livia’s questioning glance, he said, “I’d be a terrible landlord if I threw out the only occupants with nary a warning of eviction.”

She shook her head, and glided up the narrow stairs. He followed, the steps groaning beneath his weight. Shadows were thick here, scarcely pushed back by her glow. More cracks threaded up the plastered walls. Something scuttled across the floorboards as Bram reached the top of the stairs. Two doors led off the hallway.

Before he could open the first door, Livia glided straight through it. Bram made a soft snort of amusement. He entered the chamber in a more customary fashion. They didn’t linger in the chamber—moth-eaten curtains covered the windows, and more broken bits of furniture were scattered around like the bones of slow-moving herd animals.

The front-facing room revealed its purpose by the presence of a canopied bed. The canopy itself had been removed, leaving behind the bare wooden posts like trees in winter. No blankets covered the mattress. Bits of horsehair poked through the ticking. Bram gave the mattress a shove. Apart from a cloud of dust that made him cough, nothing else came out.

“Don’t want to share my bed with rats,” he said.

Aside from the bare bed, the chamber’s only other furnishing was a small table that listed on a splintered leg and a few piles of debris huddled in the corners. Bram toed through the debris, shoving aside rags and broken ceramics, but seemed to find nothing of value.

“A poor protector, your father,” Livia murmured, peering through the grime-streaked window. It looked out onto the street. After the chaos and noise of the earlier fight with the demons, the utter absence of sound and movement here felt yet more ominous, as though in suspension, awaiting a greater threat.

“This place has fallen into disrepair since Mrs. Dance’s time. He kept her in fine style. A live-in servant, and a maid. A line of credit at the mantua maker’s. She never complained.” He stared at the sagging bed. “She may have even cared for him. Arthur said she went into mourning after Father died, and didn’t live much longer beyond that.”

“You might’ve installed your own woman here, when the house became available.”

“I never had a mistress. As well you know.”

That, she did. She did not know what humor provoked her to make such a comment. Untrue. She knew precisely why she had mentioned his nonexistent concubine. They were in a small bedchamber, utterly alone in this narrow house, and had fought side-by-side this night. Were she flesh, she would have pushed him back to the bed—though she suspected he would allow her to push him to the bed—and put her hips to his hips, her mouth to his mouth. Felt him. Tasted him.