A Temptation of Angels

by Michelle Zink

  “Word travels fast in our circle, Miss Cartwright. And, lately, we have become accustomed to bad news.”

  The silence, full of dark matter, sat between them.

  Finally, Griffin broke the quiet. “Helen needs some things made quickly, Andrew. Can you help?”

  He rubbed his hands together, already heading toward the back of the shop. “Of course, of course. Come. I’ll get Lawrence.”

  Helen looked questioningly at Griffin, but he only held out a hand, indicating she should follow Mr. Lancaster. He was already well ahead of them, almost invisible in the dim recesses of the shop. Helen hurried forward, following the sound of his voice as it rang through the dimly lit rooms.

  “We have company, Lawrence. Bring the tape and scissors, will you?”

  The store was cluttered with rolls of fabric and pieces of parchment depicting various costumes. They lay atop tables and were pinned to the walls in odd places. When they reached the back of the store, Mr. Lancaster pulled out a chair from underneath a table, indicating that she should sit. When she did, he handed her a piece of parchment and a quill.

  “Write down everything you need. Be specific now, or you never know what you’ll end up with.” His eyes twinkled with mischief.

  Looking down at the paper, she began pondering how to word her request. Griffin, standing near her shoulder, cast a shadow across the parchment, and she looked up, suddenly shy about her needs. Raising her eyebrows, she met his gaze.

  “What?” He looked around like the answer to her gesture was in the cluttered room. “You want me to leave?”

  “You don’t have to leave. You could simply… move to the front of the store or farther to the back.”

  He sighed, running a hand through his tousled hair. “Very well.”

  He walked toward the front of the shop as Helen turned back to the table, bending her head to the parchment as she wrote. She had already given consideration the things she would need. With Griffin gone, she wrote in a flurry, citing the things that needed replacing and the special instructions for her new attire.

  Finally, her hand cramping from all the writing, she slid the list to Mr. Lancaster.

  He surveyed it with concentration before raising his eyes to hers. “My dear girl, are you quite sure?”

  She nodded. “I know it seems strange, but it’s necessary to be able to defend myself. And if there’s one thing my father taught me, it’s to depend only on myself, wherever possible.”

  Mr. Lancaster’s eyes softened. “Your father sounds very wise.” He leaned in, speaking in a low voice. “Though, if I may say, the Channing brothers are a safe place to put your money when the chips are down. If anyone can protect you, it will be them.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. But I’d just as soon be able to protect myself.”

  He nodded, seeming to find deeper meaning to her words. “Of course.”

  She stood. “May I ask how soon you’ll be able to deliver the items?”

  Mr. Lancaster looked around, the oil lamp on the table causing his bald head to shine. “Lawrence!” He lowered his voice to a mutter. “Where in God’s name is he?”

  A tall, stout man appeared a moment later as if conjured by Mr. Lancaster’s voice.

  “I was looking for the good scissors and the tape you left by the machine upstairs,” he grumbled.

  Mr. Lancaster looked at him. “Are the reinforcements available tonight?”

  “I believe we can count on them.”

  Mr. Lancaster nodded with satisfaction, looking back to Helen. “We will make delivery tomorrow afternoon. I assume you’re staying at the Channing house?”

  “Yes, but, are you certain? How will you get it all done?”

  Mother’s seamstresses had taken at least a week for the first fitting of a dress.

  Mr. Lancaster tipped his head. “Miss Cartwright, Lawrence and I have a number of… ah… resources we call on in times like these. Desperate times, aren’t they?”

  She nodded slowly. “I suppose they are.”

  He met her gaze. “You will have your things tomorrow.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  He stood. “And now, we need to get you behind the screen and take some measurements.”

  He led her to the back of the shop and a large fabric-covered dressing screen. With both Lawrence and Mr. Lancaster measuring her every which way, there was no room for inhibitions. By the time she left the store an hour later, she felt as if she’d known both men forever. It was only as she and Griffin approached the door on their way out, Mr. Lancaster and Lawrence already beginning work in the back of the shop, that she realized they had not given her a bill. She had a feeling it was no accident. She slipped a thick stack of currency under a vase by the door, closing it behind her with a quiet click.

  TWELVE

  The sun was setting against an ominous gray sky as they made their way back to the house. They hurried through London in companionable silence, and Helen marveled that she could be so at ease with someone she hadn’t known even the day before.

  Darius was waiting in the library, sitting behind the desk and toying with something in his palm. The scar on his cheek made him appear menacing in the shadows of the coming night.

  “Well, well,” he said. “The prodigal brother returns.”

  Griffin seemed to stiffen as he walked farther into the room, sitting in a chair opposite his brother. Helen felt sparks trip through her veins until she could no longer hold her tongue.

  “Yes, and he has a companion with him! Unless…” She looked around in mock confusion. “Unless she is invisible.”

  Darius leveled his gaze at her. “I don’t find sarcasm amusing.”

  She took the seat next to Griffin. “You find directing it at others amusing.”

  He surveyed her coolly. She wondered how someone she hardly knew could bring out the very worst in her each and every time she was confronted with his presence.

  A moment later, he slid something across the surface of the desk. Griffin picked it up.

  “Another one,” he said quietly.

  “Another what?” Helen leaned forward to get a better look.

  “Another key.” He handed the object to her.

  She looked at the object in her hand, something teasing the winds of her memory as she ran her fingers along the its edges.

  “What is it?” Griffin asked her.

  “I don’t know.” She turned the key over in her palm. “I feel as if I’ve seen this before.”

  “You have,” Darius said. “It’s similar to the ones that keep Galizur’s compound secure. With one difference.”

  She looked up at him. “What difference?”

  “It’s blank. It hasn’t been cut to fit anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Griffin spoke from beside her. “It works like any traditional key, though it’s more elaborate and difficult to copy. It has to be cut to match its lock before it can open anything. All of the ones we’ve found after the killings haven’t been cut.”

  “You’ve found others?” she asked.

  “One at each of the execution sites,” Darius said.

  Now she understood.

  “This one was found at the house. My house.” She was surprised to hear her voice emerge calm and steady.

  “That’s right,” Darius confirmed.

  “So they’re really dead.” She looked up at Griffin. She knew the answer, but she couldn’t bear its confirmation to be delivered with Darius’s characteristic lack of emotion. “My parents are really dead.”

  Griffin nodded. “I’m sorry, Helen.”

  She looked away, trying to bring forth the sorrow lurking like a prowler in the heaviness of her heart, but there were no tears. She had known all along, though she had nurtured a secret hope that her parents had somehow managed to escape the fire.

  “What of their… remains?” She tried not to choke on the question.

  “They’re in care of the Dictata until you can se
e to the arrangements.” Darius’s voice was surprisingly kind. “There’s no rush.”

  Helen nodded, taking a deep breath and forcing her mind from the past. She could only look forward now, if she wanted to find her parents’ killer. She returned her attention to the strange key.

  “What does it mean?” she asked. “Why would someone leave something like this after murdering each of the Keepers?”

  Darius stood, pacing to the window. It took him a moment to begin speaking. “Three years ago, one of the most powerful of all the Alliance families, the Baranovas, was caught selling classified information to the Syndicate.”

  “The Syndicate?”

  Helen had a flash of memory. She and Father were taking breakfast at the long mahogany dining table, the newspaper folded next to his plate as he explained the state of corporate affairs in England and the world. She saw the way his face tightened when he mentioned the Syndicate, his eyes growing dark, as he explained their role in the worldwide marketplace.

  “It’s never wise to have too much power in the hands of too few people, Helen.”

  “But the Syndicate is an industrial organization, isn’t it?” she had asked. “A group of business leaders?”

  “Four of them, to be precise,” her father had said, “representing the most powerful companies in transportation, communication, government, and finance. Four areas that give them complete and total control over the entire world of commerce.”

  She pushed the memory aside, as Griffin’s voice brought her back to the present.

  “Why would the Syndicate want information about the Alliance?”

  Griffin answered. “We think they were trying to find out which Keeper held the key to the records. Andrei Baranova was in possession of a skill that gave him access to just such information.”

  “What kind of skill?” Helen asked.

  “He was a key maker for the Dictata.” Griffin plucked the key from Helen’s palm, holding it up to the light. “This is one of his keys.”

  “Freshly cut and from the same machine as all the others,” Darius added.

  Helen shook her head. “How can you be sure?”

  “There are only two machines in existence that can make such a key,” he said. “One of them is with the Dictata, who now have the keys made outside the mortal world to insure such betrayal doesn’t happen again.”

  “And the other one?” Helen asked.

  “We assume it’s still in the abandoned factory once run by the Baranovas,” Griffin answered. “After their betrayal, everything was re-keyed by the Dictata using new machines. The old ones were never reclaimed. No one in the mortal world would have known what they were, and since they weren’t used anyway…” He shrugged. “They were left to rust.”

  “What happened to them?” Helen asked. “To the Baranovas?”

  “They committed suicide shortly after being banished from the Alliance.” Darius’s tone made it clear he harbored no sympathy for the traitors.

  “Then who is murdering the Keepers and leaving the keys?”

  Griffin looked at his brother as if for approval. Darius gave a small nod, and Griffin turned his eyes back to Helen.

  “We can’t be sure. But we might know where to start looking.”

  After much debate, the brothers finally allowed Helen to accompany them. Though “allowed” hardly seemed accurate since Helen had crossed her arms over her chest and flatly refused to remain at the house. Still, it was only after she threatened to follow them, with or without their approval, that they gave in.

  They descended the front steps together. Helen stopped at the bottom, waiting for the brothers to provide directions, but neither of them moved.

  “Aren’t we going?” she asked them.

  “We’re going,” Darius said with a smirk.

  She made an effort to control her anger. She had a sneaking feeling his humor was at her expense. “Well, don’t we need to walk, then?”

  “Not necessarily.” Darius crossed the sidewalk, holding the long, slender object he and Griffin called the glaive. “There are other ways to traverse the city. And you will be doing so with Griffin.”

  “Are we splitting up?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” Darius’s voice was wry.

  She looked at Griffin. “Would you care to fill me in?”

  Griffin opened his mouth to explain just as Darius stepped into the light leaking from one of the streetlamps.

  He grinned. “Have fun, brother.”

  And then he was gone.

  “Darius? I… Where…” She looked back to Griffin. “Is he traveling the way the wraiths did last night?”

  Griffin nodded, sheathing his own glaive in a loop at his belt. She still didn’t understand how the object, nothing more than a very long cane, could be a weapon, but there hadn’t been time to ask.

  Griffin stepped into the empty pool of light, holding out his hand. “You can travel with me. It will be safer than walking.”

  She looked at the proffered hand, her stomach knotting with anxiety. “Is this what you meant last night? About traveling with the light?”

  His expression softened. “I know it seems strange, but scientifically, it makes perfect sense. And I don’t want to risk leading you through the streets of London. Not after last night.”

  His words confirmed what she had already suspected: Her mother’s fevered packing had been the beginning of the end. Every moment since had taken her further from the reality she had always known. And led her to the brothers and their strange isolation in the great house. To Galizur and the underground bunker holding the Orb that seemed to whisper her name. To a place where demons stepped from light on the street and one where she would consider stepping into that same light, knowing it would carry her through time and space.

  Nothing would ever be the same again. Expecting it to be was the worst kind of denial.

  She stepped toward Griffin, taking his hand. It was warm and dry. “If it’s so dangerous, why did we walk back from Galizur’s last night?”

  “Traveling this way is dangerous, too. It’s impossible to know what might be waiting on the other side. It’s a risk, but one we have to take, given the appearance of the wraiths last night.”

  “Lovely,” she said, gritting her teeth.

  She felt the chuckle rumble through his chest as he wrapped his arms around her waist. He was surprisingly strong and smelled of mint and fresh linen.

  “Don’t worry. This is the safest means of travel for us at the moment. And the light, our bodies…” Something tingled in her stomach at his mention of the word, although there was no earthly reason for it. She sucked in her breath as he pulled her against his muscular chest. “It’s all energy. We simply merge one with the other in order to harness that energy for travel.”

  “So anyone could do it, if they knew how?” she asked.

  “Not exactly. The pendants allow us to tap into the ability, among others.”

  “It sounds confusing. And frightening,” she added, trying not to think about his proximity.

  “Trust me, Helen.” His voice was a caress near her ear. It took effort to hold her body still as a shiver rushed up her spine. “I know what I’m doing. Darius is excellent at jumping, and I learned from him.”

  She tried to slow her breathing. “Jumping?”

  “Light jumping,” he said. “That’s what we call it, anyway.” He pulled her more tightly against him. “Hold onto me. And don’t worry; I’ve got you.”

  She reached down, grasping the arms that held her waist. “Will it hurt?”

  He hesitated, as if surprised by the question. When he answered, there was tenderness in his voice. “I wouldn’t let anything hurt you.”

  She thought he might need to say something to conjure the power to jump. That it might require some kind of magic. But a moment later, everything disappeared in a blinding flash. For a split second, she felt herself dissolving, breaking into a million tiny pieces of light. And then, all at once, she
felt herself coming together again. Dark spots danced in front of her eyes as the flash faded. When her vision cleared, she was still wrapped in Griffin’s arms, but now, they were standing under a streetlamp in the midst of what looked like a questionable neighborhood.

  “It’s about time.” Darius stood, leaning against the stoop of a crumbling building.

  “Give it a rest.” Griffin stepped away from her. “I thought it might be a good idea to explain before I made her disappear into thin air.”

  “Well, I suppose chivalry is alive and well, then, isn’t it?” Darius started across the street.

  Griffin looked down into Helen’s face. “Everything okay?”

  She nodded. “I feel like I was taken apart and put back together slightly askew, but other than that, I think I’m fine.”

  He smiled. “You’ll get used to it. And eventually we’ll teach you how to do it yourself, so you won’t have to depend on us to get you from place to place safely.”

  Helen wasn’t certain she wanted to disappear into the light all alone, hoping she would show up at the right place a moment later. But she didn’t get the chance to say it aloud. A second later, Griffin surprised her by taking her hand and leading her across the street after Darius.

  THIRTEEN

  They made for a massive building of deteriorating brick. Two nights ago, Helen would never have imagined that she would be an orphan, living in the home of two brothers she hardly knew, crossing a deserted street in the middle of the night, and feeling more secure in shadows than she did in the light.

  Things had become very strange, indeed.

  Griffin leaned down and whispered, “Stay close to me.”

  Helen nodded.

  His eyes met hers. “I mean it, Helen.”

  “I know!” she whispered emphatically, wondering if he thought her a complete idiot.

  She looked up, noting the darkness as they reached the other side of the street. There were four darkened streetlamps in front of the building. Their glass covers were broken. Helen thought it no accident they weren’t in working order.

  The street may be in decline, but the lamps on the other side were working well enough.