“I wondered, but he was always a simpering sort. Weak, could never bring himself to do what needed to be done.” The precise click of heels on the hardwood floor belied Evans’ exact position in the room. His steps moved closer and closer, a purposeful taunt.
Heat flickered through Johnathan’s veins. Could he duck around the corner and punch his mentor in the jaw?
Vic violently shook his head, reading the intent in Johnathan’s face, and gestured back towards the open window in Lydia’s room. The thought of running set Johnathan’s teeth on edge.
“It’s no surprise he betrayed his own kind for another blood drinker,” Evans drawled. “He enjoyed being a pretty plaything far too much. Too in love with death, that one. Would have stayed with his master until the fiend drank him down. Couldn’t even strike the killing blow. Pathetic little wretch.”
Johnathan dug his nails into his palms until the sting of fresh cuts sliced through the roar in his ears. Vic went still, a predatory air stealing over his features. Alyse looked between them, wearing a mask of ill ease.
“I should have written him off then and there. It would have been a mercy to slide a blade through his heart—”
To Johnathan’s great surprise, it was Vic who snapped. Snarling, he spun around the corner, but he didn’t have the chance to attack.
Dr. Evans rammed into Vic and pinned him to the wall, a spear through his shoulder. They neither heard nor saw the man exchange his choice of weapons, catching them both off guard.
Alyse’s shriek rose over Vic’s scream. Johnathan yanked her back a second before Evans’ second weapon—a blade—could slice her face. Droplets of black fluid slid off the blade in an arc.
Evans had coated his weapons in dead man’s blood.
Johnathan shoved Alyse behind him. “She’s human,” he shouted.
Evans heard him. That didn’t stop him.
The man grunted, pivoting to swing the blade in a downward arc. Sharp agony bloomed down Johnathan’s chest where the knife caught him.
Alyse swore behind him. She didn’t try to insert herself into the fight, quick to realize her vulnerability against someone of Evans’ skill, but it was clear the Hunter wasn’t trying to strike her. Evans watched him too closely, too expectant. Johnathan couldn’t stop his body from purging the poison.
An unpleasant smile lit his mentor’s face when the cut steamed, expelling the poison in the same peculiar fashion as when the Morrigan clawed him.
“You did kill Sykes, didn’t you, boy?” said Evans.
“What does it matter?” Johnathan snapped. His gaze darted to Vic’s pale face, who pulled the spear from his shoulder in a slow, painful slide. It was almost free, but the wound was full of dead man’s blood. Johnathan wanted—needed—to tell Vic to flee, to drain the wound, but he didn’t dare give away how close Vic was to unpinning himself.
“It matters, boy.” Evans was close, too close. His dark eyes bore into Johnathan, a feral hunger that spooked him to his core. “I knew that day, when I brought your shuddering sobbing body to the barracks, you were exactly what I’d searched for all those years. I merely needed to shape you. Tainted and pure.”
Johnathan stared at the man who’d mentored him for the past eight years. The truth of Evans’ involvement with the Nether’s presence in Cress Haven was something Johnathan had accepted the moment he sat across from him in the tavern. But to hear from the man’s own mouth that he’d manipulated Johnathan so deeply since their first interaction, that the root of their entire relationship was a great lie, punched down in a way that rocked his foundations.
Evans had guided every aspect of his training. Gave Johnathan his first weapon. Showed pride in his pupil’s accomplishments, and took time from his immense duties at every turn to lend an ear to Johnathan’s fear and uncertainties. The relationship he thought existed between them was a greater myth than the many creatures he’d encountered since his arrival in Cress Haven.
“Do you know how difficult those conditions are to foster in a male child?” Evans spat on the ground at Johnathan’s feet. “Two decades, three, I devoted my life to procuring the rarest of beasts for the Society’s use. And now here you are, in the flesh, but not for long.” He jerked his head to the side. “Take them.”
Johnathan was too rattled to react, too slow to dodge the net that closed around him. The heavy net seared every inch of his skin that it touched.
Alyse screamed when Evans’ men seized her from behind. They’d entered through Lydia Fairchild’s bedroom window while Evans kept Johnathan and poor Alyse distracted. Johnathan fell to his knees, unable to think through the pain. His gaze slid to Vic.
The bloodied spear lay on the floor, the vampire nowhere to be seen.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The world came to a fine point of pain until Johnathan found himself torn free of the infernal net. The first thing his conscious mind registered was the clang of metal when Evans’ man shut the cage door.
A cage. They put him in a bloody cage!
Johnathan did a quick study of his prison. It was a cage alright, on wheels, akin to the sort used in carnivals for display. It had a barred, wooden door surrounded by iron slats wide enough to put his arm through, if he dared. Two horses were bridled and hitched to the wagon, surrounded by a mass of agents who traipsed through the Fairchild’s back yard, ready for battle.
Evans watched Johnathan through the bars, close enough to grasp, but Johnathan hesitated. There was a chill in the air; it licked his skin and wafted off the metal, a whisper of promised pain if he touched. He settled back on his haunches and returned the stare.
Evans crossed his arms. “Excellent. Your instincts are working.”
Johnathan’s jaw flexed. “What, exactly, am I to you?”
His mentor took another step forward, daring Johnathan to reach through the bars and grab his sagging neck, pain be damned.
“What you’ve always been. A tool for the Society’s use.”
Johnathan’s attention snagged on one of the Society’s men, dragging Alyse from the house. She struggled at first, but once her gaze found Johnathan, she ceased, holding her head high as they led her to the cage.
The man opened the cage’s door, roughly pitching her inside. Johnathan caught Alyse before she hit the floorboards.
He bent over her, but there was no sense of privacy under Evans’ gaze. “Are you okay?”
She nodded. A bruise bloomed on her cheek, which made him furious, but Alyse shed no tears. Her expression was cold, clear-eyed fury, leveling a glare at Evans. “Vic got away.”
Johnathan closed his eyes, lest his reaction give away even more under Evans’ watchful gaze. Good. His heart ached that he was unable to see Vic one last time, to pursue all the things he wished to experience with the beautiful vampire, but ultimately, he was relieved that at least one of them would survive this.
Alyse jerked her chin forward. “Why is he watching us?”
“No doubt it’s for something horrid and nefarious.”
Johnathan didn’t like the smirk that drew across Evans’ mouth. The man slapped the frame of the cage. “Move out.”
The floor lurched under them. The horses moved away from the Fairchild estate, into the old pine trees behind the house, following the path he took, chasing after the beast that was Lydia Fairchild. Johnathan had a sinking feeling that he knew where they were headed.
He inhaled the woody scent of the forest and attempted to distract himself with the construction of their cage. He’d been so sure the bars were iron, but now, with a closer look…
“Are you any good at recognizing metals?” he asked Alyse.
“They’re silver,” she said. “I heard the men talking.”
“Silver? Why silver?”
Alyse’s eyes went wide, and what color remained in her cheeks drained away. “My God. You really are a lycanthrope—”
The rap of wood on metal made them jump.
“Iron for the Other, silver for the Neth
er, gold for the Benign,” said Evans. He fell in pace with the momentum of the cage, knocking his wooden cross against the bars. The dry pine needles crunched audibly beneath his heavy steps. “The gifts bequeathed to Adam and Eve to protect their mortal lineage from the taint of the realms.”
“Never read that verse in scripture,” said Alyse.
“Oh you wouldn’t, my dear. Over the centuries, the Society made it their mission to remove all mention of these realms, to erase them from the minds of man. We’ve scrubbed every study, every account, even the scripture of the church until fairies became nothing more than children’s stories, while demons and angels were moral tales for the wavering wills of adults,” said Evans.
“Don’t call me ‘dear,’” Alyse snapped.
Johnathan glared at him. “Why?”
Evans shrugged. “Man is too corruptible. Better they dismiss such creatures as tall tales than seek them out.”
“But they do seek them out. In ignorance, with no idea what dangers they are dealing with,” said Johnathan. “The Society is supposed to protect humanity, not leave them to fumble blindly into a bargain with spirits they don’t realize are demons.”
That line was meant directly for Evans, a nod to his role in their situation— the stranger who slipped a suggestion in Mr. Fairchild’s ear.
Evans took the jab in stride, his expression smug. “Words of naivete, boy,” he countered. “The sacrifice of a few is worth the advancement of our goals. We’ve saved countless more by erasing the truth from collective memory, enough pieces and hearsay left intact for their own superstitions to protect them.”
“Our mother used to pin iron horseshoes over our windows to protect us from the fairies,” said Alyse, the words begrudging, as if she hated to contribute to the conversation but couldn’t help herself.
“You see,” said Evans, “there are always a few from the Nether who stray, no matter the precautions taken. We’ve dealt with each incident over the centuries, but it’s left us at a deep disadvantage.”
Alyse sneered. “You seem to be doing well enough for yourselves.”
Evans waved his hand. “We keep the regular rabble in check with relative ease. The Other are troublesome but have low tolerance for the growth of industry. Too much iron in the air, you see. The Benign were always standoffish. They rarely bother in this age. The Nether, however, their hunger is ever reaching, and their bargains are disastrous.”
“How disastrous?” Johnathan hated how the man’s words hooked him, his reluctant need to know Evans’ secrets.
Evans gave a casual shrug. “History is rife with their influence. The fall of Rome, the plagues, the great London fire, the disappearance of the colony at Roanoke, each born from the vicious greed of the Nether.”
“Seems humans couldn’t forget the Devil,” said Johnathan.
“Indeed,” said Evans. “We underestimated the influence of the Nether on man, the depth of their corruption. The Nether doesn’t simply play or hunt humans, they taint them, change them into something else. They whisper and convince, their methods deceptive and secret until it is too late.”
The grand-standing confession put Johnathan on edge. It was never a good thing when a man like Evans readily told their secrets. It usually happened when they knew, without a doubt, they had nothing to fear from revealing their truth.
They plunged beneath the shadowy canopy of the woods near the rift. Johnathan’s unease grew the closer they drew to the inevitable showdown that waited.
Evans’ voice continued to wash over him. “Massive casualties, loss of good agents, hours of manpower and effort to contain each incident, we were hard pressed to find an advantage.”
A thread of pressure unwound around Johnathan’s spine. He faced the man who’d made him. “What does this have to do with me?”
“Your existence was a boon, the answer to a long-sought question,” said Evans.
Alyse had no compunction to grasping the bars, taking a swipe at Evans that he easily avoided. “More cryptic offal,” she snarled. Her sensible wool skirts had been torn up to her knees when the Society agents dragged her from the Fairchild’s house. There was little sense for propriety as she crouched back beside Johnathan, not quite touching him but not keeping her distance either. She spat her words at Evans. “Why hold back? Crow about your grand victory. You don’t intend for me to survive this night.”
Johnathan didn’t bother to silence her. She was right.
She was in a cage with a beast for a reason.
Evans had the nerve to chuckle. “You will serve your purpose. You seem attached to the theory of lycanthropy. An intelligent deduction for a young woman such as yourself, but the hounds of the Nether follow far different rules, rules that can be manipulated.”
“Hounds of the Nether…” Alyse mumbled the words, then shut her eyes, pressing her fingers to her temple, clearly searching her own thoughts. Suddenly, she gasped, grasping the bars of the cage, her expression incredulous. “You’re trying…you’re trying to catch a Hellhound?”
“Catch?” Evans laughed. “Caught.”
Alyse glanced over her shoulder, wide-eyed, at Johnathan. The pit of his stomach writhed.
“You set me up for this,” said Johnathan.
“The best method of tracking creatures of the Nether is to use one of their own, one we could control,” said Evans. “I’ve spent the last eight years grooming you for this purpose, seeding suggestions in every fool’s ear. When that idiot Fairchild finally made his bargain, we merely had to put the pieces into play, allow the lure of your tainted innocence to draw the demon to you. Let it turn you. Then you would be ours, a tool to fight the Nether, created within our halls.”
“I will do nothing for you,” snarled Johnathan.
“Once we bind you to this plane, you won’t have a choice,” said Evans. “The Hellhounds are servants, be they bound by a demon master or a human one. Your will shall be the will of the Society, our greatest weapon and most obedient soldier. No protest shall pass your lips. You shall carry out every task without question, without fail.” There wasn’t a hint of fondness or familiarity in his mentor’s expression, his cold gaze watching Johnathan. “There will be nothing left of the feckless, fiend-sympathetic whelp you were.”
Johnathan launched himself at the bars. Evans took a step back, laughing, while the scent of burnt flesh overwhelmed Johnathan’s senses. The pain seared him, a lance to his rage. He collapsed back onto the floor of the cage with a gasp. Evans observed his reaction and he walked away to join the other agents. There were over thirty men with him, far more than Johnathan noticed skulking around Cress Haven, waiting in the wings. They walked around the cage in a loose formation, weaving between the bare-bone pine trunks, their packs heavy with silvered weapons and nets meant to trap more Hellhounds. Dread pooled in his gut. Johnathan knelt on the cage floor, trying to block out the clank of their metal-bound packs.
“I do not like that man,” said Alyse. She settled in her skirts beside him and grasped his arm to assess the extent of the damage. “Good lord, silver does this?”
“Aren’t you afraid of me?” Tears tracked across his temples. Eight years, he’d lived a lie. Sir Harry died for a lie. The Society didn’t save him from a fiend, they merely killed off his surrogate father so they could use him. It would have been better to die by Sir Harry’s hand. He would have died at the hand of someone he loved.
Alyse gently pulled his head onto her shoulder to stroke his hair. Her thumb swiped the side of his face. She winced.
“Your tears are scalding.” She stopped him when he tried to turn away from her. “Of course, I don’t fear you, idiot. You’re still a silly man-child who can’t grow a beard to save his life.” Her fingers maneuvered around his tears, continuing her ministrations of comfort. “Are we headed where I think we are?”
Johnathan nodded. “He’s bringing us to the rift.”
“We can’t let that bastard win.” Alyse set her chin. “Do you know anything
about how this binding works? This isn’t servitude. He said he’d take your will. That’s enslavement.”
“I do not know.” Johnathan was sick of figuring out riddles. He wasn’t sure it mattered anyway. The point was that Evans intended to use him, a lure once again.
“I didn’t know I was becoming a Hellhound until you put a name to it,” said Johnathan. The question was, when would he change? Did it require a trigger? Or was there some sort of maturation process he wasn’t aware of, a delay before he shed his human skin? He knew so little of the process or how Lydia changed back and forth from monster to girl. Cernunnos was the demon responsible for his condition, but it was Evans who raised him to be a target. The man had crafted this situation, planting the suggestion in a man willing to believe and greedy enough to take the risk. He’d plucked Johnathan from the streets, nurturing him along, unaware of his purpose, until his grand scheme came to fruition.
Johnathan didn’t know who the greater monster was, the demon who sought to consume the town and beyond, or the fanatical zealot who decided a few human lives were worth the cost of procuring a Hellhound weapon for the Society.
The pine trees were thinning around them, the trunks of many blackened, as if they’d been licked by flame. A muted heat steadily grew the closer they drew to the rift. Grim determination settled on the agents, their steps slowing the closer they came. Johnathan watched them, torn, wondering how many knew the details of Evans’ plan, men he once admired and emulated.
“I think they intend to seal the rift,” he said. “The Morrigan said something about the Nether reclaiming any ‘unfettered ilk’ still on this plane.”
Her fingers stilled. “That includes you now,” she said.
“I think Evans has planned this long enough to account for that,” said Johnathan.
Alyse grasped his hand. “Vic will come.”
He sat up at that. “He better grab you and run like hell. Where’s the coin?”
Alyse looked at him, knowing in her eyes. “You are not sacrificing yourself—”
A Bargain of Blood and Gold Page 25
