Demon's Bride

Chapter 18

Chaos reigned at the foot of the stairs. Aside from the riot at the Drury Lane Theatre, Anne had never seen such destruction. The few pieces of furniture lay in splinters. The chandelier hung crookedly, swaying like a glittering pendulum above the melee. Demon bodies were everywhere, sprawled across the marble floor or slumped against the walls.

In the midst of this stood Lord Whitney and Zora, standing back-to-back. Hard to believe that Lord Whitney had ever been one of the idle elite, wasting time and money at the gaming tables, for now he fought like a born warrior, his fire-wreathed sword hacking down three demons.

Zora, too, made an awe-inspiring sight as she snapped her flaming whip, felling two creatures and pushing back two more who sought to advance. Distant crashes in the front chambers of the house revealed Livia locked in combat with more demons.

“This cannot be Bloomsbury,” Anne murmured as she and Leo stood at the top of the stairs.

He quickly readied his pistols and musket, tamping down the powder and loading the bullets. “It’s the first circle of Hell.”

And so it looked. Two humans fought at the center of a dozen writhing, snarling demons, with a specter providing reinforcement.

Leo brought his musket up to his shoulder, took aim, then fired. A demon attacking Zora fell as the bullet shattered its chest. The Gypsy woman looked up and offered a nod of thanks.

“The geminus,” she called up, “is it dead?”

Lord Whitney glanced toward Leo, then answered before Leo could. “Aye. I suffered the same wounds sending my geminus back to Hell.”

Anne and Leo hurried down the stairs. Leo used his pistols to take down two more demons, then wielded his musket like a club, knocking the monsters down with brutal efficiency.

“Most of the demons have fled,” Lord Whitney shouted above the din. “These are the holdouts.”

“They’ll regret their obstinacy,” growled Leo.

Anne guided her magic, throwing demons into the walls. The creatures twitched, then fell, landing in broken heaps. She directed gusts of wind to take up tongues of flame from Zora’s whip and set several of the demons alight. Their screams echoed in the vaulted room as their bodies burned, filling the air with noise and the stench of charred flesh.

And then, suddenly, the humans outnumbered the demons. Only two monsters still lived. With terrified screams, the demons clambered toward the door, anxious for escape. Anne and the others found themselves standing in the middle of the entryway, panting and bloodied, but alive. Leo’s coat was torn, revealing angry gouges across his body, he had a cut across his cheek, and crimson dripped down his hand to mingle with the black pools of demon gore. Yet he stood tall amidst the destruction.

“The final retreat,” Zora said, staring at the open, empty doorway.

“A wise decision.” Leo glanced at the walls.

Anne gasped. Fire crawled up the walls in a blazing webwork, catching on draperies. The banister became a line of flame leading up to the first floor.

Zora’s whip of fire immediately disappeared. “Apologies.”

Yet Leo merely shook his head. “Couldn’t be helped. But we need to get out. Now.”

Smoke filled the entryway, and Anne coughed as it saturated her lungs. She took Leo’s offered hand, and together they ran from the house. Lord Whitney and Zora followed, with Livia meeting them on the sidewalk outside. The street glowed in the lurid illumination. Soon, the fire inside the house would find its way outside.

Anne turned to Livia. “We cannot let the house burn, or it will spread to the other homes.”

“Air will merely encourage the fire to burn,” the specter answered.

“I’ve another idea.” One she was not certain would work, but she hoped the natural science lecture she had attended long ago had been accurate.

Closing her eyes, Anne focused all her energy on the power within her. She held out her hands, calling to the air. She sought not to create air, but to draw it into herself. This was a new challenge, one beyond anything she had attempted before. It took every ounce of her will, fighting to drag the air out of Leo’s house. Her teeth clenched with the effort and sweat dampened her clothing as she struggled.

She cracked open one eye. Her heart leapt to see the flames within diminish. Yet it took far more strength to smother the fire than she knew she possessed. Abruptly, the burden lessened. Anne glanced over to see Livia also working to draw out the air. The ghost’s head was thrown back, and her image flickered, taxed almost beyond endurance.

With a final, hard pull, Anne and Livia stifled the fire. The last tongue of flame guttered, then went out.

Anne sank to her knees. She felt herself carefully pulled to her feet, and she leaned back into Leo’s firm, strong body, weary beyond imagining.

He murmured her name, lips pressed against the crown of her head. She felt utterly spent, and he formed a solid wall behind her, around her. She fought against a wave of exhaustion, released in the aftermath of battle. It was over. Finally.

Leo tensed. She felt his every muscle contract into readiness. “Hell,” he growled, looking off into the darkness.

She turned her head to see what set him on edge. Her own body stiffened when she beheld the new threat.

Three silhouettes. One long and lanky. Another shorter, but ready for combat. And the third, tall and broad-shouldered, with the distinct posture of a battle-hardened warrior.

Like omens of disaster, the Hellraisers emerged from the shadows.

Here, then, was the biggest threat of all.

As Leo watched the men he once considered friends stride toward him, he understood how dangerous the Hellraisers truly were. He’d been one of their numbers, capable of anything.

All three men carried swords, and as they appeared out of the darkness, their faces wore similar expressions: hard, determined, pitiless. Even Edmund, the most affable of the Hellraisers, looked ready for violence. John appeared as though he wanted done with this pesky annoyance so he might return to more important matters. And Bram, with his cold eyes, his long dark coat flaring behind him, resembled the tough, merciless soldier he had been after returning from the brutality of war.

Leo gathered Anne close, sheltering her with his body. None of the Hellraisers would touch her. He would wet the cobblestones with their blood before he allowed any of them to hurt his wife.

Damn it, he hadn’t the time to reload his firearms, and he wasn’t trained to use a sword. Bare hands, then. He knew plenty of strategies for fighting against an armed enemy. Even enemies he once thought of as his brothers.

They faced one another in the middle of the street: Leo, Anne, Whit, Zora, and a flickering Livia standing against Bram, Edmund, and John. Yet despite the uneven numbers, it would be a fatal mistake to think the Hellraisers at a disadvantage. Leo had fought beside them enough to know the threat they presented now.

“Never believed you so weak,” Bram said on a growl.

“Not weakness, but strength,” countered Leo. “The same strength that’s in each of you.”

John snorted. “This isn’t the Exchange, Leo. You can’t wheedle your way into our favor.”

“Leo does not wheedle,” Anne said, rousing. Strength gained in her, and though she kept close, she stood upright on her own. “He is trying to save your cursed souls.”

Edmund started, as if suddenly becoming aware of her presence. “You ... know about everything? And yet you remain at your husband’s side?”

“Where else should she be?” rumbled Leo. Yet he knew that Anne’s continued presence next to him counted as one of the greatest marvels of his life—if not the greatest marvel. “It was she who finally managed to reclaim my soul.”

He turned slightly and pulled at one of the tears running along the back of his coat. The tear went all the way down, through his shirt, to his flesh beneath. Tugging on the slashed fabric, he revealed his shoulder.

Anne gave a small inhalation, Whit chuckled lowly, and Bram muttered a curse. For the skin on Leo’s back was unmarked. The images of flames were gone. He knew he would find the same on his calf.

“A soul is a very little thing.” John sounded unimpressed. “Compared to what we might have, the power we can wield, who requires a soul?”

“Even the greatest emperor has one,” Whit said. “Without it, he becomes nothing more than a tyrant.”

“I’m certain I’ve no soul to save,” countered Bram. “What I do have is pleasure in abundance, and that is my only necessity.”

“Bodily pleasure,” said Leo, “but what of your heart?”

John made another dismissive sound. “Marriage has transformed you into the veriest weakling.”

Gazing at Anne, he saw the ferocity in her face despite the exhaustion beneath her eyes, her torn and dirty gown. And her arm, around his waist. “It has made me far stronger than I could have ever dreamed.”

Her grip tightened, sending another pulse of energy through him.

Bram rolled his eyes. “Enough of this maudlin twaddle.” He raised his sword. “You have chosen your allegiance just in time to die.” Assured as an officer, he commanded, “Hellraisers, advance.”

Leo braced his feet wide, making himself ready. Whit brandished his saber, and the fiery whip reappeared in Zora’s hand. Anne, weary as he knew her to be, still prepared herself for battle, her chin tilted and hands upraised as she stood beside him.

Edmund’s gaze continued to move back and forth between Leo and Anne, and Whit and Zora. Leo saw what Edmund saw: men willing to fight and die for their women, and women just as ready to do the same for their men. A pained look crossed Edmund’s face.

Both John and Bram edged forward. But Edmund remained where he stood. “I ... I cannot.”

“Edmund,” snapped Bram over his shoulder. “This is no time for tender sentiment. Move. Now.”

Leo watched, warily amazed, as Edmund slowly lowered his sword. He wore an almost baffled expression. “No. This must stop.”

Clever as always, John said, “Do you want to lose Rosalind? For surely you will if these traitors have their way.”

Yet Edmund shook his head. “I never truly had Rosalind. Since I received my gift, she has not been the woman I wanted, the woman I loved. Merely an empty shell that looked like Rosalind.” He stared at Whit and Zora, and then Leo and Anne, his gaze hollow with longing. “I merely own a thing. But I do not have love. And I know ...” His voice thickened. “I know that the Rosalind I love would hate the life I’ve given her.”

“Edmund,” said Leo, but he did not know what he could tell his friend. If Leo were in Edmund’s place, if he had Anne but not Anne, missing the crucial essence of who she undeniably was ... Leo could not endure it.

“You mean to turn traitor, just like these two?” John snarled. “Take up arms against us?”

Carefully, as though releasing an adder, Edmund set his sword upon the ground. “I’ve no wish to fight you. All I seek is to relinquish my gift that I might set Rosalind free.”

Bram and John hissed in frustration and anger, but Leo felt the blossoming of true hope. With Edmund as an ally, surely they could defeat the Devil. He might wish to retire from the battle, but Leo knew that Edmund was too gallant to turn away from such an important fight. It might take a little while, yet he would come to their aid. In this war, they needed every ally, every advantage.

And Edmund was far too good a man to be damned. Of all the Hellraisers, he had been the one who preferred laughter to rowdiness, friendship over debauchery.

Edmund moved toward Leo. “I will need your guidance.”

“You have it.” Leo held out a hand.

“No,” growled Bram.

“He is our enemy,” John snarled. Swift as a viper, he lunged forward, sword upraised and aimed at Leo.

Leo moved to dodge the blow, but it never came. Instead, the tip of John’s blade protruded from Edmund’s chest. Edmund had leapt in front of John, blocking him from running Leo through. And had taken the sword strike intended for Leo.

Anne gasped in horror, and flung out her hands. A blast of wind tossed John backward. Both Leo and Whit ran forward. But they were too late. Edmund stumbled for a step and sank to his knees. John got to his feet, still holding his sword. Blood streaked the metal, and he gazed at it dispassionately.

Gently, Leo lowered Edmund to the ground, careful to support his head. Edmund’s wig slid off, revealing his closely shorn hair. Leo tore off his coat and wadded it up to press against the wound, but blood spilled from Edmund’s chest and back, coming up in pulses as his heart beat out his life. Already, Edmund turned ashen, his eyes glassy.

“Help him,” Leo shouted to Livia. Out of all of them, the ghost possessed the most power.

Yet Livia only shook her head as she hovered near. “Were my strength not so diminished, even then I could do nothing. I’ve no authority over life and death.”

“He’s not dying,” Whit insisted.

“And you ... call yourself a ... gambler,” gasped Edmund. “Terrible at ... bluffing.”

“I’ll fetch a surgeon.” Leo started to rise, but Edmund gripped his hand with surprising strength.

“Give me this ... one favor.”

“Anything.”

Edmund fumbled weakly to pull his shirt up from his breeches. Helping him, Leo tugged on the fabric when his friend’s strength failed.

“On my ... right hip,” Edmund whispered.

Leo examined his hip. “You are not wounded.”

“And the ... marks?”

He saw only pale flesh. “If they were there, they have gone now.” Edmund’s sacrifice had done that, restored his soul.

A small smile appeared on Edmund’s mouth. “She is ... free. Make certain ... she is ... cared for.”

“I swear it.”

“And I,” added Whit.

“Tell her I ...” Edmund’s words trailed off, and his chest went motionless. His hand fell away from Leo’s, lying on the blood-slick cobblestones, the wedding band on his finger gleaming dully.

Only when he had closed his friend’s sightless eyes did Leo surge to his feet. John stared back at him, his expression tight. Bram was a dark, motionless figure, his face wreathed in shadows.

“You damned coward,” snarled Leo. He hardly believed what had just happened. Only a few weeks ago, they had all sat around his table, taking a meal together. And now Edmund lay dead in the street, murdered by his friend.

“I take all threats seriously,” said John.

“He was no damned threat to you.” Leo’s hands were wet with Edmund’s blood.

“Everyone is a threat. Especially you.”

Leo dove for Edmund’s sword. He hadn’t training in the weapon, but the need for retaliation would make him a quick study. All that mattered was avenging Edmund.

Seeing the fury in Leo’s face, John edged backward. For the first time that night, John seemed uncertain, his gaze flicking between Leo and the others. All of them, even Anne, stood ready to fight.

Everyone jumped back when a thick column of smoke suddenly appeared in the middle of the road. Not smoke, Leo realized, but a concentration of darkness, drawing in all light as if consuming it. The shadows swirled, then collected into the form of a man.

The darkness dissipated. A figure stood between the Hellraisers and Leo. Though Leo had seen this man only once before, he recognized him immediately. Immaculately groomed, he wore a gentleman’s suit of ash gray satin, his dark red waistcoat covered in rich embroidery and gems. He wore a fashionable bag wig, tied with black silk. A ring, topped with a large, black stone, adorned one of his slim white hands. In every way, even in his upright posture, he looked an elegant, wealthy gentleman.

But he was no gentleman. He was not a man at all.

“My dear Hellraisers,” he drawled, his diamond white gaze glancing down at Edmund’s body, “this was not how I envisioned our reunion.”

The Devil had returned.

Anne had not yet recovered from the shock of seeing Sir Edmund Fawley-Smith murdered by the Honorable John Godfrey. The poor man had surrendered his life trying to protect his friends. He had been run through like meat upon a skewer. His blood was everywhere. And there had been nothing she could do to help.

Now his lifeless body sprawled upon the ground, and someone, something had appeared. Her every nerve tensed, and chill spread through her body. For she knew instinctively who stood before her, wearing the guise of a nobleman. She had seen too much to be astounded, and yet there was no way to prevent the shock that froze her in place. To have heard so many times about the Devil, and now, to see him made real ... If Anne lived to see the dawn, she doubted she would ever forget this sight, burned as it was into her mind.

She sidled closer to Leo, threading her fingers with his.

“Two of my Hellraisers gone in a single night.” The Devil shook his head, a disappointed tutor. “Edmund offered me little, but you, Leo, you could have been such a wonder.”

“I’ll live with the disappointment,” he answered flatly.

The Devil offered a chill smile. “Not for much longer.”

Anne stiffened. She did not care for those ominous words.

“I believe it was one of your natural philosophers who said, Actioni contrariam semper et æqualem esse reactionem. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The loss of two Hellraisers, and their power, means that the two remaining Hellraisers shall have more power.” The Devil curled his fingers as he turned to face Bram and John. Black energy gathered in his hands, seemingly drawn from the night itself.

Both men drew upright, as though preparing themselves. John looked eager. Bram’s expression was opaque. He had not spoken since Edmund’s death, and continued to maintain his silence. Yet he did not turn away from the Devil’s offer.

Good God, Anne already felt Bram’s menace. She could not begin to fathom what he might become if further corrupted. And John had already proved himself a villain. With more power at his disposal, he would transform into a monster.

Sensing this, both Leo and Lord Whitney sprang forward, swords upraised as if they meant to strike down the Devil. Yet before either could land a blow, energy poured from the Devil’s hands, directed toward Bram and John. At that same moment, a flash of light streaked in front of Bram.

It was Livia, crying out, “Stop!”

Her cry cut off abruptly as the dark energy pierced her. The energy pulled her into a small, single point of light, shrinking to almost nothing. Momentum carried this tiny gleam back, and into Bram. It sank into his chest, then vanished. Bram staggered back, his hand pressed between his ribs, looking down with a bewildered glower.

Livia was gone.

But Anne could not wonder at the ghost’s disappearance. Though somehow Livia had managed to deflect the Devil’s magic from going into Bram, John had not the same protection. He would not want it, for he wore a rapturous expression as dark energy coursed into him. The Devil was imbuing him with greater power—and he gloried in it.

Leo cursed and started forward again, sword upraised. The Devil snapped his fingers, and the sword spun out of Leo’s hand.

Seeing this, Lord Whitney also moved to strike, but the Devil flung him back with a flick of his wrist. Zora cried out and ran to him, sprawled on the sidewalk nearly fifty yards away. Anne breathed out in relief when she saw him stagger to his feet, though he favored one leg as Zora helped him stand.

Shouts sounded down the street. As if coming out of a trance, the city finally roused. Men’s voices called out, and feet and hoofbeats pounded against the cobblestones.

The Devil lowered his hands, and gave an irritated growl. “Do what you must,” he barked at John. “See my work come to fruition. And you.” He turned to Bram. “I will see you again very soon. As I will all of you.”

With that, shadows engulfed him, and then he was gone.

The sounds of approaching men, and the rumbling of the wheels of fire wagons, drew closer.

“We must go,” Bram said on a growl to John.

Yet John seemed reluctant to leave. A sinister smile crossed his lean face. “I can take them. The things I can do now ...”

“Immediately, John.” The order in Bram’s voice could not be disobeyed, not even by John. Both men turned and hastened down the street, away from the oncoming commotion. Before he disappeared into the darkness, Bram turned and stared back at where Anne and Leo stood. His hand lingered on his chest, over his heart—the place into which Livia had seemingly disappeared. And then he sped off, melting into the shadows.

“Don’t want to be here, either,” Leo muttered, “when there are questions that demand answers. Come.” His hand clasping Anne’s, they hurried toward Lord Whitney and Zora. “Can you run?” he demanded of the other man.

“Aye.”

“Then we move.”

“What about Edmund?” Anne asked.

Leo looked grim. “He will be found, and ... tended to.”

The four of them ducked into the mews just as throngs of men crowded the street. Anne and the others ran down the dark streets, and time blurred as she forced her body to move through the night-shrouded city. Finally, they reached a weedy, overgrown burial ground. Some of the headstones tilted precariously, and a freshly dug grave awaited its occupant.

Gasping for breath, she braced her hands on her knees. She felt Leo’s warm hand on her back, steadying her. Brittle earth and dead grasses crunched beneath their feet as their group drew together in a close circle.

The wind shook the bare branches of the trees, the sound mournful, ominous. Surely the Devil would come for them again, send more and more demons, run them all to ground. No wonder Lord Whitney had such caution and alertness in his gaze. He and Zora were hunted, as she and Leo would be. And the four of them together presented a substantial target.

“We have to part,” Leo said, as if hearing her thoughts. “Safer that way.”

“There is a band of Rom near the Scottish border,” said Zora. “They will take Whit and I in for a time.”

“And what of you?” asked Lord Whitney.

“I’m a saddler’s son,” Leo answered with a small, wry smile. “That makes me well versed in being inconspicuous.”

Anne almost laughed at that. Leo could never be inconspicuous. He radiated presence, whether he was dressed in silk or tattered muslin. She had known that from the moment they had exchanged marriage vows—he was a man of uncommon strength.

“I shall believe that when the proof stands before me,” said Lord Whitney. Clearly, he also knew Leo well.

“We cannot run and stay hidden forever,” said Anne.

“And we won’t,” Leo answered. “A bigger battle is coming, and we must be there to fight it.”

“What became of Livia?” asked Zora.

“No idea,” said Leo. “But of a certain, we will need her for that battle.”

“It’s to happen, then.” Anne rubbed her hands on her arms against the chill. Leo moved to offer her his coat, then stopped when he realized he had none to give her. His borrowed coat was now soaked with Edmund’s blood, pressed uselessly to the fatal wound. “The fight between us and the final two Hellraisers.”

“That it will,” said Lord Whitney, somber. “I do not know what happened with Bram, but John’s power has grown terribly. Of that, I am certain.”

“With his influence in Parliament,” muttered Leo, “God knows what kind of chaos he will lead us into.”

“We’ve faced demons,” Zora countered, “and won.”

“John and Bram are by far more dangerous.” Lord Whitney spoke with certitude. “They are the demons we know.”

“Then that should make them easier to vanquish,” said Anne.

“I know my own evil,” Leo answered. “Defeating that was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It will be the same for John and Bram. The darkness, it countermands everything. Devours everything.”

She shivered at the hard-won experience in his voice. “It cannot be hopeless,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as the others.

“There will always be hope,” Leo replied.

Silence fell as each of them considered what lay ahead. It was to be a struggle, one they were not confident of winning, yet they had to try.

At last, Lord Whitney extended his hand to Leo. “It does my heart good to have you my ally again.”

Leo took the offered hand and shook it solemnly. “The loss of our friendship haunted me, Whit. I’m glad to have it back again.”

After releasing Leo’s hand, Lord Whitney offered Anne an exquisite bow, and kissed her knuckles. “Madam, you surpassed my every expectation.”

“I surpassed my own, as well,” she answered, then added feelingly, “My greatest thanks, Lord Whitney.”

“Whit, if you please. Those who slay demons at my side I consider my greatest friends.” He added lowly, for her ears alone, “And for what you have done for Leo, I consider you an angel.”

“Hardly an angel.” She was all too human, too fallible.

“Whatever you call yourself, you’ve earned my gratitude. And his soul.”

The moment Whit released her hand, Anne found herself pulled tight to Zora in a fierce embrace. “Sister,” Zora said, “I take back everything bad I ever said about gorgies.”

Anne was not certain she wanted to know the bad things Zora might have said about gorgies, whatever they were. But she returned the Gypsy’s embrace, knowing that she could rely on her far more than any of her own kin.

As Whit and Zora headed off into the night, a pang of sadness threaded through Anne.

“I hardly know them,” she murmured, “yet I will miss them.”

“We’ll all meet again.” He took her hand in his. “We’re an army now. The four of us fought together, and won.”

“We won this battle. But what about those yet to come?”

He brushed his thumb over her ring, and waited. After a moment, he exhaled. “It’s gone—my power to see the future.”

“You miss it,” she said flatly, fearing his regret.

Yet he shook his head, and his eyes were bright in the darkness. “Its loss holds no value. There is only one thing, one person, I cannot lose.”

Emotion burned her throat, and she struggled to speak.

He thought her silence meant doubt, and he continued, his words low and fierce. “Tonight, I saw my friend murdered. Edmund sacrificed himself for something he wanted desperately. Something he saw in us.”

“Love,” Anne whispered.

Rare uncertainty knotted through his voice. “You said that we can never get back what we once shared. Do you still believe that?”

After a moment, she spoke. “I do.”

He seemed to turn to marble, his face and body rigid.

“You and I,” she continued, “we aren’t the same people we were. Both of us have changed.”

“I love you. That hasn’t changed.”

“And I love you,” she answered. “But my love has changed. It’s stronger now—because I know who you truly are. Just as I know who I am.”

“You are remarkable.”

She felt remarkable. “And you are a very complicated man.”

“A complicated man and a remarkable woman shouldn’t be apart.” He gazed at her as though he did not ever need to look upon anyone or anything else.

This man had fought demons and his own dark self this night, yet here, with her, he showed his vulnerability. To her, this made him all the more powerful.

“We cannot go back,” she said, “but we can go forward. We can build something even stronger than before.” She stared at the rips in his shirt and the bloodstains. “I don’t know what the future holds. We’ll face it together, though.”

Even the shadows could not hide the blaze of pleasure in his face. He drew her close, and kissed her. Despite the chill night, his lips were warm and firm. “My love,” he murmured, “the future is ours to write.”

Did you miss DEVIL’S KISS,

the first book in Zoë’s Hellraisers series?

A HANDSOME DEVIL

1762. James Sherbourne, Earl of Whitney, is a gambling man. Not for the money. But for the thrill, the danger—and the company: Whit has become one of the infamous Hellraisers, losing himself in the chase for adventure and pleasure with his four closest friends.

Which was how Whit found himself in a Gypsy encampment, betting against a lovely Romani girl. Zora Grey’s smoky voice and sharp tongue entrance Whit nearly as much as her clever hands—watching them handle cards inspires thoughts of another kind ...

Zora can’t explain her attraction to the careless blue-eyed Whit. She also can’t stop him and his Hellraisers from a fiendish curse: the power to grant their own hearts’ desires, to chase their pleasures from the merely debauched to the truly diabolical. And if Zora can’t save Whit, she still has to escape him ...

Sussex, England, 1762

The Gypsy girl cheated.

James Sherbourne, Earl of Whitney, could not prove it, but he knew with certainty that she cheated him at piquet. She had taken the last three hands, and his coin, brazenly. Whit did not mind the loss of the money. He had money in abundance, more, he admitted candidly, than he knew what to do with it. No, that wasn’t true—he always knew what to do with money. Gamble it.

“How?” he asked her.

“How what, my lord?” He liked her voice, rich and smoky like a brazier, with an undercurrent of heat. She did not look up at him from studying her cards, arranging them in groups and assessing which needed to be discarded. Whit liked her hands, too, slim with tapered, clever fingers. Gamblers’ hands. His own hands were rather large, more fitting for a laborer than an earl, but, despite their size, he had crafted them through years of diligence into a gamester’s hands. He could roll dice or deal cards with the skill and precision of a clockmaker. Some might consider this a dubious honor, but not Whit. His abilities at the gaming table remained his sole source of pleasure.

And he was enjoying himself now, despite—or because of—the cheating Gypsy girl. They sat upon the grass, slightly removed from the others in the encampment. Whit hadn’t sat upon the ground in years, but he did so now, reclining with one leg stretched out, the other bent so he propped his forearm on his knee. Back when he’d been a lad, he used to sit this very way when lounging on the banks of the creek that ran through his family’s main country estate in Derbyshire. Years, and lifetimes, ago.

“How are you cheating me?”

She did look up at him then. She sat with her legs tucked demurely beneath her, a contrast from her worldly gaze. Light from the nearby campfire turned her large dark eyes to glittering jet, sparkling with intelligence. Extravagantly long black lashes framed those eyes, and he had the strangest sensation that they saw past his expensive hunting coat with its silver buttons, past the soft material of his doeskin waistcoat, the fine linen of his shirt, all the way to the man beneath. And what her eyes saw amused her.

Whit wasn’t certain he liked that. After all, she was a Gypsy and slept in a tent in the open fields, whilst he was the fifth in his line to bear the title, lands, and estates of the earldom that dated back to the time of Queen Elizabeth. That merited some respect. Didn’t it?

“I don’t know what you are talking about, my lord,” she answered. A faint smile curved her full mouth, vaguely mocking. The sudden desire to kiss that smile away seized Whit, baffling him. He enjoyed women—not to the same extent as his friend Bram, who put satyrs to shame and even now made the other Gypsy girls at the camp giggle and squeal—but when gambling was involved, Whit usually cared for nothing else and could not be distracted. Not even by lush, sardonic lips.

It seemed he had found the one mouth that distracted him.

“I know you aren’t dealing from the bottom of the deck,” he said. “I have had the elder hand twice, the hand with the advantage. We know what twelve cards we both have. Your sleeves are too short to hide cards for you to palm. Yet you consistently wind up with one hundred points before I do. You must be cheating. I want to know how.” There was no anger in his words, only a genuine curiosity to know her secrets. Any advantage at the card table was one he gladly seized.

“Perhaps I’m using Gypsy magic.”

At this, Whit raised one brow. “No such thing as magic. This is the modern eighteenth century.”

“There are more things in heaven and earth,” the girl answered, “than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Whit started at hearing Shakespeare from the mouth of a Gypsy. “You’ve read Hamlet?”

Her laugh held more smoky mystery. “I saw it performed once at a horse-trading fair.”

“But you do believe in magic?” he pressed. “Gypsy curses, and all that.”

Her slim shoulders rose and fell in a graceful shrug. “The world is a labyrinth I am still navigating. It is impossible for me to say I don’t believe in it.”

“You are hedging.”

“And you’re gorgio, and I always hedge my bets around gorgios.” She gazed at him across the little patch of grass that served as their card table, then shook her head and made a tsk of caution. “They can be so unpredictable.”

He found himself chuckling with her. Odd, that. Whit thought himself far too jaded, too attuned only to the thrill of the gamble, to enjoy something as simple and yet thrilling as sharing a low, private laugh with a beautiful woman.

She was beautiful. Perhaps under the direct, less flattering light of the sun, rather than firelight, she might not be as pleasing to the eye, though he rather doubted it. Her cheekbones were high, the line of her jaw clean, a proud, but proportioned nose. Black eyebrows formed neat arches above her equally black eyes. Her mouth, he already knew, was luscious, ripe. Raven dark and silken, her hair tumbled down her back in a thick, beribboned braid. She wore a bright blouse the color of summertime poppies, and a long, full golden skirt. No panniers, no stiff bodice or corset. A fringed shawl in a vivid green draped over her shoulders. One might assume such brilliant colors to jar the eye, but on the Gypsy girl, they seemed precisely right and harmonized with her honey-colored skin.

Rings glimmered on almost all her slim fingers, golden hoops hung from her ears, and many coin-laden necklaces draped her slim neck. Whit followed the necklaces with his eyes as they swooped down from her neck to lie in sparkling heaps atop her lush bosom. He envied those necklaces, settled smugly between her breasts.

Whit had a purse full of good English money. He wondered if this girl, this cheating, sardonic siren, might consider a generous handful of coins in exchange for a few hours of him learning the texture and taste of her skin. Judging by the way she eyed him, the flare of interest he saw shining in her gaze, she wouldn’t be averse to the idea.

“For God’s sake, Whit.” Abraham Stirling, Lord Rothwell’s voice boomed across the Gypsy encampment, tugging Whit from his carnal musings. Bram added, “Leave off those dull card games for once and join us.”

“Yes, join us,” seconded Leopold Bailey.

“We’ve wine and music in abundance,” said Sir Edmund Fawley-Smith, his words slurring a bit.

“And dancing,” added the Honorable John Godfrey. Someone struck a tambourine.

The men’s voices blended into a cacophony of gruff entreaty and temptation. Whit grinned at his friends carousing on the other side of the camp. True to form, Bram had his arms around not one but three girls. Leo and Edmund busily drained their cups, whilst John received instruction from a Gypsy man on how to properly throw a knife.

Hellraisers, the lot of them. Whit included. So the five friends called themselves and so they were known amongst the upper echelons of society, and with good cause. Their names littered the scandal sheets and provided fodder for the coffee house, tea salons, and gentlemen’s clubs, their exploits verging on legendary.

Bored with London’s familiar pleasures, the Hellraisers had all been staying at Bram’s nearby estate, spending their days hunting, their nights carousing. Yet they had soon tired of the local taverns, and the nearest good-sized town with a gaming hell was too far for a comfortable ride. It seemed more and more lately that the Hellraisers grew restive all too quickly, Whit amongst them, seeking novelty and greater heights of dissolution when their interest paled. He was only thirty-one, yet he could gain excitement only when gambling. Lounging in the gaming room of Bram’s sprawling estate, Whit and the others had considered returning to the brothels, theaters, and gaming hells of London, but then Bram had learned from his steward that a group of Gypsies had taken up temporary residence in the neighborhood, and so an expedition had been undertaken.

The Gypsies had been glad to see the group of gentlemen ride into their camp, even more so when liberal amounts of money were offered in exchange for a night’s amusement. Trick horse riding. Music. Dancing. Fortune-telling. Plenty of wine. And cards.

“How much wine have you drunk?” Whit called to Leo.

It took a moment for Leo to calculate, swaying on his feet. “’Bout four or five mugs.”

“Ten guineas says you don’t make it to six before falling arse over teakettle.”

“Done,” Leo said immediately. The nearby Gypsies exclaimed over the absurdly high amount of the wager, but to Leo, and especially to Whit, the amount was trivial.

Whit smiled to himself. Leo was the only son of a family who made their fortune on the ’Change, and he was the only one of the Hellraisers who wasn’t a gentleman by birth. He felt this distinction keenly and, as such, met any challenge with a particular aggression. Which meant that Leo took any bet Whit threw his way.

“Your friends seem eager for your company,” the Gypsy girl said wryly.

Whit brought his gaze back around to her. “We do everything together.”

“Everything?” She raised a brow.

“Nearly everything,” he amended. Bram might have no shame, but Whit preferred his amorous exploits to be conducted in private. He wondered how much privacy he could secure for himself and the girl.

A striking older Gypsy woman walked up to where he and the girl sat and began scolding her. Whit could not understand the language, but it was clear that the older woman wasn’t very pleased by the girl’s behavior. The girl replied sharply and seemed disinclined to obey. The older woman grew exasperated. Interesting. It seemed as though Whit’s saucy temptress proved as much as a termagant to her own people as to him. Though Whit wasn’t exasperated by the girl. Far from it. He felt the stirrings of interest he had believed far too exhausted to rouse.

“My granddaughter, Zora,” huffed the older woman. Her accent was far stronger than her granddaughter’s. “Impossible. ’Ere the fine gentlemen come for dukkering, and she does not dukker.”

“What’s dukkering?” asked Whit.

“Fortune-telling,” the girl, Zora, answered. A fitting name for her, perfumed with secrets and distant lands. “Is that what you want, gorgio?” She set down her cards, then held out her hand. “Cross my palm with silver, and I shall read the lines upon your hand. Or I can use the tarot to tell your future.” She nodded toward a different deck of cards sitting nearby, upon a scarf draped over the grass.

“I don’t want to know the future,” he said.

“Afraid?” That mocking, tempting little smile played about her lips.

“If I know the future,” he replied, “it takes away all of the risk.”

This made her pause. “You like risk.” She sounded a bit breathless, more than the heat of the nearby fire reddening her cheeks.

He gave her a smile of his own, not mocking, but full of carnal promise. “Very much.”

Zora turned to her grandmother and spoke more in their native tongue. With a loud sigh and grumble, the older woman trundled away.

Whit seized his opportunity. “I can give you five times what you’d win from me if you tell me how you keep winning at cards.”

“I thought you enjoyed risk,” came her quick reply.

“There’s a risk in cheating, as well. Someone might catch you. And if they do catch you, who knows what they might do. Anything at all.”

She gazed intently at him, then shook her head, firelight lost in the darkness of her hair. “No. It would be too dangerous to give those skills to a man such as you.”

“A man such as me?” he repeated, amused. He set his cards down upon the ground. “Pray, madam, what sort of man am I?”

Her fathomless eyes seemed to reach deep inside him. He felt her gaze upon—within—him, a foreign presence in the contained kingdom of his self. After a moment, she said, “Handsome of face and form. Wealthy. Privileged. Bored. Throwing years of your life upon a rubbish heap because you seek something, anything to engage your restless, weary heart and prove you are still alive.”

Whit laughed, but the sound was hollow in his chest. He didn’t know this girl. Didn’t know her at all, having met her for the first time earlier that very evening. She certainly did not know him. He was an earl, for God’s sake, with a crest emblazoned upon his carriages. No fewer than three substantial estates belonged to him, all of them staffed with small armies of liveried servants.

She lived out of a tent. Whit wasn’t sure she even wore shoes.

Yet a few words from her cut him deeply, far sharper than any surgeon’s blade, and much more accurate. Why, he wasn’t even aware he bled, but he was certain he’d find droplets of blood staining his shirt and stock later as he undressed for bed.

His solitary bed.

“If you won’t divulge your secrets with the cards,” he said with an insouciance he did not quite feel, “perhaps I can tempt you to reveal other, more personal secrets.” There could be no mistaking his intent, the suggestive heat of his words.

She drew in a sharp breath, but whether she was offended or interested, Whit couldn’t tell. Despite her insight into him, he possessed none of the same insight into her, making her as opaque as a silk-covered mirror. When his physical needs required satiation, Whit knew women of pleasure in London, Bath, Tunbridge-Wells. Actresses, courtesans. He knew their wants, their demands, the systems—both crude and elegant—through which they negotiated their price. A mutually beneficial relationship, and one he could navigate easily.

When it came to offering a night of pleasure to a fiery Gypsy girl, here, Whit found himself happily at a loss. Happily, because he had no idea how she might respond, and the inherent risk made his pulse beat a little faster.

“Would you see me financially compensated for revealing those personal secrets?” she asked, her own voice sultry.

“Absolutely,” he said at once. “If that is what you wish.” He moved his hand toward the purse he kept tucked into his belt, but then he stopped in surprise when she reached over and clasped his wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong, surprisingly arousing. He felt her touch spread like a lit fuse through his body, beginning the reaction eventually leading toward explosion. Whit stared down at her hand, her dusky skin tantalizing against his own lighter-colored flesh, then up at her face as she leaned close.

“Romani chis are not your gorgie whores, my lord. Especially me.” Her voice was steady, yet her eyes were hot. “I may lie to you, but not with you. Not for coin.” She released her grip and sat back, and Whit felt the echo of her touch. “If I were to take any man to my bedroll, it would not be for money.”

Which seemed to imply that she might share her bed with a man, only without any sort of monetary inducement. That sounded promising.

Before Whit could speculate on this further, Bram staggered over with his arm hooked around the neck of a Gypsy man. The Gypsy looked a little alarmed to be so close to the tall, somewhat inebriated stranger, but could not easily break free.

“Taiso here just told me something very interesting,” Bram said. “He said that a few miles from here is a Roman ruin. Isn’t that right, Taiso?”

The Gypsy man nodded, though from eagerness to rid himself of Bram or ready agreement, Whit couldn’t tell. “Aye,” Taiso answered. “To the west. On a hill. Many old columns, and such.”

“Bram, if your estate is nearby, wouldn’t you already know about a Roman ruin?” Whit asked.

Apparently, this had not occurred to Bram. He frowned. “Must be a new ruin.”

The Gypsy girl, Zora, snorted. Whit found himself smiling.

“We should go investigate,” Leo said, ambling forward with John and Edmund trailing.

“No!” yelped Taiso. “Ye oughtn’t go there. ’Tis a place of darkest magic. The haunt of Wafodu guero—the Devil!”

“So much the better,” said Leo. “We’re Hellraisers, after all.”

Edmund and John chortled their agreement. “This place is getting deuced dull,” Edmund added.

Whit didn’t think so. Though he was uncertain whether the tantalizing Zora might share a bed with him, he wanted to stay with her longer, even if it meant simply talking. He couldn’t remember being so engaged in a conversation for a long, long time.

“It’s settled, then,” declared Bram. “We go to the ruin.”

Cheers of approval rose up from Leo, John, and Edmund. Bram fixed Whit with a stare that held far more strength than one might expect from his inebriated state.

“You’re coming, aren’t you?” Bram asked. The question verged on a command. In some ways, Bram styled himself the de facto leader of the Hellraisers, even though, as a baron, he ranked beneath Whit. Yet Whit had no desire to lead this band of reprobate men—he wanted only the thrill of the gamble—and so left the decisions to his oldest friend.

Yet it was all a ruse. Bram mightn’t say so, but he needed to have Whit with him during their many escapades, and if Whit refused to go, Bram would stay.

Whit looked at Zora, who watched the whole exchange with an incisive, speculative gaze. “What say you, Madame Zora?” he asked. “I could go to the ruin, where the Devil is rumored to reside, or remain here, with you. Shall we wager it on the flip of a coin or turn of a card?”

Her expression turned opaque. “The disease of your boredom has nearly claimed you if you can’t make decisions for yourself.”

He didn’t care for the edge of censure in her tone. Whit spent much of his time avoiding anyone who might reproach him, which was why he hadn’t seen his sister in nearly a year. It was not this Gypsy girl’s business if he liked to gamble. It was no one’s business but his own.

Resolved, Whit smoothly got to his feet. He hadn’t been imbibing at the same rate as his friends, so the world remained steady as he stood. “Let’s see where the Devil lives.”

Bram exhaled, as if holding a breath in anticipation of Whit’s answer. Seeing Whit make his decision, Bram grinned his demon’s grin, the same he made whenever he was on the verge of doing something truly fiendish—like that time he entertained an entire troupe of ballet dancers in his London town house.

Zora arose to standing in a sinuous, graceful line.

“A kiss for luck,” Whit said to her. He stared at her lips, the color of a rose just before sundown. He needed to know her taste, her warmth, when his own world felt so flavorless and cold. God, he wanted that, wanted her mouth against his, and the sudden strength of that want hit him like a cannon.

At that word kiss, her gaze went directly to his mouth. And heat and heaviness shot directly to his groin. Desire gleamed in her eyes.

Which she quickly shut away. Her expression cooled as her gaze moved up to his eyes.

“It would be a shameful thing to kiss you in front of my family. But I will wish you kosko bokht.” There was something almost sorrowful in her words, in her eyes, as she stared up at him.

He felt it then. An icy sense of premonition sliding down his back, like a cold hand tracing the line of his spine. Though he was not a superstitious man, just then some strange other sense of foreboding tightened his muscles and bones. He had the oddest desire to stay in the encampment and avoid the ruin.

“Time to ride, lads,” Bram commanded. He and the other men strode off to where a Gypsy boy had brought their snorting, impatient horses.

Whit laughed at himself, shaking off the sense of dread as he might hand a rain-soaked greatcoat to a servant. Nonsense, all of it. As he’d said earlier, this was the modern age, and the Devil and magic did not truly exist.

He reached out, requesting Zora’s hand, and after she slowly gave it to him, he bowed over it and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. Her eyes widened. Beneath his lips, her skin was silk and warmth; he barely resisted the impulse to lick her to learn whether she tasted as spicy as her spirit.

Their eyes met over their clasped hands. “Farewell, Madame Zora.”

“Be careful, my lord.”

“There’s no amusement in careful.”

“There is more to life than amusement.”

“If there is,” he answered, “I have yet to encounter it.”

She slid her hand from his, and her gaze also slid away.

“Whit!” came a chorus of voices from across the encampment.

He gave her one last, searching look, as if trying to etch her image on the metal of his mind. A silent entreaty for her to meet his gaze one final time. Yet she would not, staring fixedly at the ground, and the flickering firelight turned her into a distant gold-and-ebony goddess. He wondered if he might ever see her again. The thought that he might not filled him with an inexplicable anger.

He made one final bow, as sharply elegant as a rapier, then turned and strode off. Whit swung himself up into the saddle. Bram and the others kicked their horses into a gallop. Whit’s horse wheeled and danced in a circle as he took one last glimpse of the Gypsy encampment, of her, before he set his heels into the beast’s flanks. They darted off into the night.

The gorgios were gone, having left some hours ago. Yet Zora could not be easy, could not still the beating of her heart or whirling of her mind. She paced as everyone else in the camp amused themselves with music and stories. It had been a good night. The wealthy gorgios had thrown coin around like handfuls of dust, and the mood amongst the families was high and celebratory. Even the best day of horse trading and dukkering at a fair could not bring in as much money.

Zora alone could not enjoy the remains of the evening. She walked up and down the camp—careful to keep her path behind the men who sat around the fire, as custom and belief demanded. Amongst the Rom, it was considered dangerous for a woman to pass in front of a seated man, though no one explained the reasons why in a way to ever satisfy Zora. That had been her way, since her earliest years—Zora demanding why, and the answer: because.

“Sit, girl,” commanded Faden Boswell. “Ye make my head spin with yer to-ing and fro-ing.”

Zora ignored him. Faden claimed he was the king of their group, but he talked more bluster than he did enforce order. Everyone knew that Faden’s wife, Femi, held the reins of control and made the major decisions.

“She’s thinkin’ of her handsome gorgio,” teased Grandmother Shuri. “With the pretty blue eyes and deep pockets.”

“He is not my gorgio,” Zora said immediately, yet she knew the truth. She was thinking of him. Whit, his scoundrel friends called him. A suitable name for a man possessing much intellect, yet also ironic, for he squandered his wits on ephemeral pursuits. What drove a man to live from one game of chance to the next? He had wealth, privilege, friends—though those friends were as wicked as demons. Yet he staked his happiness on the brief excitement of the wager.

It troubled her. He troubled her, far more than she would like.

There was passion in him—and no true channel for that passion. Nothing that engaged him fully.

No, that was not true. He seemed very much engaged and passionate when he looked at her.

Zora suppressed the shiver of awareness that danced through her as she remembered him. Grandmother Shuri was right. The gorgio Whit was indeed a most handsome man, and extremely well formed. He might be a scoundrel of the worst order, but it left no toll upon his face and body. Tall, his broad shoulders admirably filling out his costly coat, his long legs encased in close-fitting doeskin hunting breeches and high boots polished to brilliance.

And his face. She recalled it vividly as the firelight painted him a dark angel. Unlike other wealthy gorgios, he wore no wig but pulled his deep brown hair back into a queue. She imagined what his hair might look like loose about his shoulders, and knew he would appear a very incubus, sensually tempting a woman to wickedness. He had a square, strong jaw. A bold, aristocratic nose. Full lips. Dark, slashing brows above eyes the color of the sky at midday. Sharp, those eyes, and hungry.

Hungry for her. He made himself very plain. He wanted her for a night’s pleasure. And, God preserve her, she wanted him, too. That lean body. Those clever hands. But she’d spoken true. She was no whore, and would not take his coin in exchange for her body. Even if he had not offered to pay her for the privilege, Zora knew that such affairs with gorgios were dangerous for young Romani chis.

She might not have taken him to bed, but she had not wanted him to go, either. She enjoyed talking with him, the way in which he truly seemed to listen. He was not afraid or dismissive of her opinions, not like other men—especially Jem, her former husband. Whit’s mind was sharp, and he played the bored rogue, but she saw in him a yearning for meaning, for connection to something real, beyond the gloss and polish of his wealthy, wastrel life. She had that own yearning for herself, for a life away from telling fortunes and speaking in deliberate riddles. There had to be more than that.

There had been a palpable connection between her and Whit, which was indeed strange. Two people could not be more different. He lived trapped within walls, and she had the freedom of the road and the sky. He was a wealthy gorgio man of privilege, whilst she was a Romani chi who wore her wealth around her neck and upon her fingers. The sun and the moon. Yet the connection had been there, just the same.

She could not quite dismiss the disquiet she felt when he and his attractive, scapegrace friends decided to visit the Roman ruin. She might not adhere to the old folk beliefs of her family and the other Rom—it all seemed rather superstitious and silly to her, frankly—but something seemed deeply unsettling and wrong about the fact that the one gorgio who lived nearby had never heard of the ruin before tonight. Almost as if ... it had been hiding, waiting for him and the other men.

“Ach,” she growled to herself. “Enough of this.” She had grown weary of pacing like a cat and would divert her restless thoughts.

Zora threw herself down onto the grass and shuffled her tarot deck. She did not believe the dukkering cards could actually tell the future, just as she did not believe the lines on a person’s hand foretold anything. When she dukkered for the gorgios, she let them focus on the cards or their hands, while she actually read their faces, their postures and silent, subtle, unaware ways that revealed who they were and what they desired. Easy for them to think she had the gift of magic. But all Zora truly had was a knack for seeing people and telling them what they wanted to hear.

Still, dealing the tarot for herself usually soothed her. The proscribed patterns in which the cards were laid. The pictures printed upon their faces, older than history. Calming.

After shuffling the cards several times, Zora began to lay them out in the ten-card cross with which she was most familiar. She did not pay much attention, simply allowing her mind to drift as her hands moved, setting down the cards. When she did finally bring her attention down to the cards, what she saw made her gasp aloud.

Evil. A great evil is coming, unleashed by the five.

Zora shivered. The warning was plain, spelled out in the cards.

She shook herself. Yes, the tarot had its meaning, and she knew what each card was supposed to represent, but they were merely suggestions, not actual truth. Not genuine prophecy of what was to come.

She quickly gathered up the cards she had laid, shuffled them again, then laid them out once more in the cross formation.

Her breath lodged in her throat.

The cards came out the same. Exactly the same. The five of swords. The inverted knight of wands. Culminating in the fifteenth card of the Major Arcana: the Devil. Zora stared at his horned, goatish face contorted in a sinister grin, batlike wings outstretched, as he presided over two figures chained at his feet. A pentacle marked the ground where the chained figures knelt.

Coincidence. That was all it could be. She would prove it.

She scooped up the cards and shuffled them a third time. And for the third time, she set them out. By the time she turned over and placed the final card, her hands shook.

The same. Each and every card. Their meaning clear: A great evil is coming, unleashed by the five.

Her heart pounded, her palms went damp, and her mouth dried. She never believed it possible, and yet ... it was. The tarot predicted the future, a terrible future. Which meant—

Zora jumped to her feet. She ran to her family and the other families who made up their band. At her approach, the men stopped playing their fiddles and took their pipes from their mouths, and the women left off their gossiping. They all stared at her, and she knew that her face must be ashen, her eyes wide. She likely looked like a phantom.

“We have to stop them,” she announced without preamble.

“Who?” asked Litti, her mother.

“The gorgios who went to the ruin.” Her hands curled into fists by her sides as she fought to keep her voice level. “I have seen it. The cards have shown me. If we do not stop them, those five men are going to let loose a terrible evil.”

No one laughed. Everyone knew that Zora put no faith in dukkering or magic. Yet it was for that very reason that they all took her seriously now. In fact, looks of pure terror filled their faces and the firelight shining in their rounded eyes turned them glassy and blank. Zora stared at them, at the men, and they stared back.

Not a single man moved.

Impatience gnawed at her. She took a step closer. “Why are you all sitting there like frightened goats? Get up! You must ride after the gorgios and stop them!”

The men exchanged glances until, finally, Zora’s cousin Oseri stood up. Zora exhaled in relief, but her relief was short-lived. From the terrified expression on his face, it was clear Oseri had plans only to hide in his tent.

“The Wafodu is too great,” he stammered. “The evil will hurt us.”

“So you are going to do nothing?” Zora demanded.

The men all shrugged, palms open. “What can we do against such powerful, bad magic?” someone bleated.

“Anything!” she shot back. But every last one of the men refused to move, while the women crossed themselves and muttered prayers.

There was no hope for it. With a growled curse, Zora turned on her heel and walked into the horse enclosure, but not before grabbing a crust of bread from the cooking area and slipping it into her pocket. It was said that bread held the Devil at bay, and she needed every bit of assistance she could scrounge. She also had her knife, tucked into the sash at her waist.

“Where are you going?” Zora’s mother cried.

Zora did not stop until she slipped a bridle onto one of the horses and then swung up onto its bare back. Once mounted, she trotted forward until she stared down at the trembling men and women of her Romani band.

“I’m doing what needs to be done,” Zora said. “I’m going to stop those lunatic men before they do something we shall all regret.”

Despite her fear, she kicked her horse into a gallop. She had never faced anything like this in her life, and had no knowledge of what awaited her. How might she prevent the evil from being set free? All she knew was that she must.

Atop a rounded hill, the ruin formed a dark, jagged silhouette against the night sky, like a creature rising from the earth. As the riders neared the hill, Whit felt himself drawn forward, pulled by a force outside himself. He did not know why he had to reach the ruin, only that he must, and soon. His companions must have shared the feeling, for they also urged their horses faster, their hooves pounding beneath them as thunder presaged a storm.

At the base of the hill, all of the men fought to control their shying, rearing horses, trying to urge them up toward the ruin. None of the beasts would take the hill, though it was surely traversable by horse. The men alternately cursed and cajoled. Yet the horses refused to go farther.

“On foot, then,” grumbled Bram.

After dismounting, as directed by Bram, the men gathered up fallen tree branches. Bram used skills honed during his time fighting the French and their native allies in the Colonies and quickly made torches from the branches. He set them ablaze with a flint from his pocket.

“Don’t we look a fine collection of fiends,” drawled Whit. For that is what they resembled as light from the torches bathed the men’s faces in gaudy, demonic radiance.

At this notion, they all grinned.

“Shall we investigate, Hellraisers?” asked Edmund.

“Aye,” the men said in unison, and Whit felt almost certain he heard a sixth voice hiss, Yes.

They climbed the hill, using torchlight to guide them. The shapes of toppled columns and crumbling walls emerged from the darkness, gleaming white and dull as bones. Everyone reached the top and surveyed the scene. Whatever the building had once been, its glory had long ago faded, becoming only a shade of its former self. A strange, thick miasma cloaked the ruin, its dank smell clogging Whit’s nose, and it swirled as the five men prowled through the ancient remains. Examining a partially standing wall, he touched the surface of the stone. A cold that seemed nearly alive climbed up through his hand, up his arm, and would have gone farther had he not pulled back.

Their murmured voices were muffled by the heavy vapor, but Leo said, loud enough for all of them to hear, “What the hell is this place?”

“Appears to have been a temple,” answered John, their resident scholar. He crouched and brushed away some dirt until he revealed what appeared to be a section of stone floor. “See here.” He pointed to the ground as everyone gathered around. Holding his torch closer to the stonework, he indicated the faded, chipped remains of mosaic lettering. “Huic sanctus locus. ‘This sacred place of worship.’”

“Worship of what?” asked Leo.

“Bacchus, I hope,” said Bram. He gazed critically around the ruin, the torchlight turning the sharp planes of his face even sharper, his black hair blending with the night. The light gleamed on the scar that ran along his jaw and down his neck, a souvenir from his military service. “It’s dull as church up here.”

“What were you expecting?” said Whit. “It’s a ruin, not a bordello.” He thought of Zora, her refusal to take his money in exchange for a night in his bed, and wondered if he would ever see her again. He decided he would, and planned to return to the Gypsy encampment on the morrow, though he did not know how pleased she might be to see him.

Bram made a noise of displeasure and paced away, kicking aside a few loose rocks in his impatience. Whit, John, Edmund, and Leo all exchanged rueful smiles. Of all of them, Bram pushed the hardest for yet greater depths of debauchery, as if continually trying to outpace something that chased him.

The friends broke apart to drift separately through the ruin. Whit ambled toward a collection of five columns that had all toppled against each other, barely standing but for the tenuous support they gave each other. Fitting, he thought. He found himself possessed by the oddest humor, a moody melancholy that sought some means of release. Too late he realized he should have placed a wager with Leo as to what the ruin might have once been. The opportunity was gone now. Perhaps there was something else here upon which he might gamble. Leo had not gotten to a sixth cup of wine back at the Gypsy camp, so that bet could not be won or lost.

A gleam at the base of the leaning columns caught his attention. He slowly neared and peered closer. Yes, something dully metallic appeared on the ground. As he edged closer, he saw that the metal was, in fact, a large, thick rusted ring, the size of a dinner plate. Whit thought at first the ring simply lay in the weeds. A second ring, exactly the same, lay some three feet away. Closer inspection showed the rings were attached to something in the ground. Whit crouched to get a better view.

“Come and have a look,” he called to his friends.

The men assembled around him, and the light from their collective torches revealed that the iron ring was affixed at one end to a large, square stone block. Whit handed his torch to Edmund and cleared away the rocks, weeds, and debris that nearly obscured the block, with Bram and Leo assisting. Soon, the block was completely uncovered. It was roughly three feet across and three feet long, with a metal ring set at each end.

“Looks like a door,” said John.

“If it’s a door,” Bram answered, “then we should open it.” His voice sounded slightly different from normal, a deeper, harsher rasp.

At once it seemed to Whit to be not only the most sensible thing to do, but the most essential. A burning need to see what was behind the door seized him, as strong as any need to gamble. He gripped one iron ring, and Leo gripped the other after giving his torch to Bram.

“On my count,” said Whit. “One, two, now!”

Both he and Leo pulled with all their strength. Whit’s muscles strained and pulled against the fabric of his shirt and coat, against the doeskin of his breeches as he dug his heels into the ground and fought to wrench open the heavy stone door. He grunted with exertion through his gritted teeth. Pull, pull! He had to get the door open.

Bram, Edmund, and John shouted their encouragement, their eyes aglow with the same fevered need to breach the door.

A deep, heavy wrenching sound rumbled up from the ground, as if the very foundations of the world were being rent asunder. Whit and Leo pulled harder, encouraged by the sound. Inches of stone emerged up as the stone slab rose in clouds of dust. Suddenly, with a final growl, the stone broke free from its earthen prison.

Whit and Leo heaved the block to one side, and it thudded on the ground, barely missing John’s toes. But John didn’t complain. He, like the other Hellraisers, was all too captivated by the sight of the opened door.

A black square, the doorway, and through it the scent of long-buried secrets came wafting up. It wasn’t a damp smell, rather hot and dry, the scent of singed fabric and burnt paper. Whit grabbed his torch from Bram and thrust it through the doorway in the ground. The firelight illuminated precipitous stone stairs that disappeared into the gloom.

“A hollow hill,” murmured Whit.

“I’ve read about them.” John gazed avidly down. “From ancient legends about fairy kingdoms.”

They paused for a moment, each taking in the wonderment of an actual hollow hill. In silent agreement, they descended the stairs. Their boots scraped over the stone, and the sound echoed as they delved farther. They found themselves in an underground chamber. Whit could not imagine what kind of ancient tools had the strength to carve a large chamber out of solid rock, yet somehow, some ancient laborer had done just that. The room itself was almost entirely bare, just a floor and sloping walls that arched overhead. Whit was surprised at the height of the ceiling. He was a tall man, yet he did not have to stoop or bend in the chamber. Instead, he stood at his full height as he and his friends slowly turned in circles as they gazed at the incredible room hewn from a stone hill.

Yet the chamber was not empty.

“We have a companion, lads,” said Whit.

At one end of the chamber, on a crude seat carved from solid rock, sat a man—or at least his skeletal remains, remarkably preserved given that they had been buried in this chamber for what had to be over a thousand years if the age of the ruins above was any indication. Whit and the others pressed closer to stare at this new discovery.

“He’s wearing the uniform of a Roman centurion,” John whispered. “His helmet has the horsehair crest, he has medals upon his chest, and—this is astounding—his wooden Bacillum Viteum stick has not decayed.” Sure enough, a knotty stick rested in the crook of the centurion’s arm.

“I’m more interested in that,” said Whit. He pointed to what the long-dead soldier held in his bony hands. A bronze box, the size of a writing chest, with images of twining snakes worked all over its surface. The centurion gripped the box tightly, holding it snug against his breastplate. Whatever was inside the box must have been extremely valuable, valuable enough to consign a Roman officer to death.

Bram stared at the box, then at the faces of his friends clustered around. He grinned fiendishly as he placed his hand upon the box. “Let’s have ourselves a look.”

Whit stared as Bram forcibly pried the box from the skeleton’s grip. The bones cracked as the box was wrenched free, yet Whit did not wince at the sound. All he wanted was the box, to learn what it contained, and he gazed avidly as Bram began to open it.

Be careful, Zora had warned him. Yet he shoved her warning aside. The answers to everything were inside the box.

As the lid opened, the flames from the torches were suddenly sucked inside the box. The chamber plunged into darkness.