Gaslamp Gothic Box Set

by Kat Ross

  “We both know you won’t do it,” he whispered.

  “Then you don’t know me.”

  “Of course I do.”

  He sounded so much like Alec at that moment, Vivienne couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down her cheeks. She barely noticed them. The daemon was much cleverer than she’d given it credit for. It had taken the one person on the face of the earth she couldn’t bring herself to kill, even if it meant her own life.

  But there was still a way.

  “Take me instead,” she said. “Take me, or I swear to the Goddess Innunu, I’ll kill you and then I’ll kill myself.” She slid a small triangular dagger into her palm and placed the tip beneath her own jaw. “You know I’m telling the truth. I’d rather die than let you have him.”

  His eyes darkened. Something gathered there, in the irises.

  “You give yourself to me willingly?”

  “Yes.”

  “His life for yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would control his power through the bond.”

  She nodded.

  And I hope he kills me the first chance he gets.

  Alec looked up at her, considering.

  “Touch me, Tijah.”

  Vivienne held out a hand, biting back her revulsion. Alec took it and twined his fingers with hers. His lips parted slightly. Heat radiated from his palm, warming her frozen limbs. It slowly built in intensity and Vivienne felt a bead of sweat roll down her neck. Alec watched her, hazel eyes locked on her face. The daemon was enjoying the sensation, she realized. The powerful pleasure of two bonded touching each other. He would feel her reaction, the echo of her emotions.

  It sickened her. And yet part of her couldn’t help herself.

  Not Alec. Not Alec.

  She bit the inside of her cheek, tasted blood.

  “Just take me,” she whispered. “Please.”

  He watched her for a long moment, dark lashes beaded with water. Vivienne waited for that vile consciousness to slither into her mind, to make her its puppet, but all she felt was searing pain in her hand. The skin began to blister. Vivienne smelled burning flesh and tried to pull away. He wouldn’t let go.

  Betrayed.

  Before she could stick him with the sword, he gave a hard yank. The breath left her lungs as she slammed onto her back. Alec knelt on her chest. He shoved her face to the side. She sputtered, dirty water filling her nose and mouth.

  “Sorry, love,” he whispered. “But your daēva is already dead.”

  28

  Harry spun in a circle, her feet sliding on the treacherous logs. She held her arms in front of her face, palms out. Not a sliver of light could be seen in any direction.

  “John!” she cried.

  No answer came.

  The last she’d seen, he was diving after the amulet. But there were other things in the water too. Her mind shuddered away from the thought.

  Small white hands tugging at Mary’s dress….

  She listened intently for any sign of movement. The water still sloshed and echoed beneath the platform of the gallows, so she knew which direction it lay. Part of her wanted to swim to it and climb up. Anything was better than standing waist-deep in the gate. But if she did, she knew she’d never have the courage to climb down again.

  She could wait there. Maybe Lady Cumberland would find her.

  Or maybe Lady Cumberland was dead too.

  Harry didn’t want to think that, but it was a possibility.

  “John!” she cried again.

  Still, there was no answer.

  Without a light, she’d never find him. He should have come up for air by now. If he hadn’t, it must be because they had gotten him.

  Harry covered her face with her hands and drew a ragged breath. She had no idea how to find the crevice leading back to Mary’s cell. In the blackness, it would be next to impossible.

  What would Myrtle do?

  The thought came unbidden, but it wasn’t the first time. During the Hyde investigation, when Harry had posed as her older sister, she’d asked herself the same question on an hourly basis. In fact, though Harry didn’t care to admit it, she’d been emulating Myrtle since she was old enough to toddle around the house behind her. For years, Harry had hated her own blonde hair and freckles, her shortness and rounded hips. She wanted to be tall, thin and saturnine.

  The darkness weighed on her now, thick and suffocating. How easy it would be to simply stand there forever, afraid to move. Afraid to give herself away. Harry took a steadying breath.

  For starters, Myrtle wouldn’t panic. She’d examine the situation from a logical standpoint and choose the best course of action.

  Harry couldn’t see anything, but she could still feel. After probing a bit with her feet, she realized they had been walking across the logs lengthwise, and if she just proceeded slowly, she could stay on a single log. With any luck, it would lead her to the edge of the cavern near to where they’d entered.

  She didn’t want to think about what else was swimming in the pond with her.

  I’ll get a light and come back for you, John—that I swear, even if I have to follow you into the Dominion itself.

  Harry started along the log. With her sight extinguished, other senses rushed to the fore. The briny scent of the water. The harsh rasping of her own exhalations. The copper taste of adrenaline. She estimated she’d gone about thirty feet when the water stirred off to her left. It was such a small sound, she’d never have heard it if she hadn’t been listening so hard.

  Harry froze. Her mind conjured up an image of pale things with fixed grins silently coming toward her in the darkness. She launched forward, swimming as hard as she could. Her heart clawed at her ribcage. A hand grabbed her foot and she lashed out with a wild kick, connecting with something solid.

  “Ow!” came a muffled voice behind.

  “John?” she cried.

  Sudden light bloomed, and she squinted, momentarily blinded.

  “Thank God,” he whispered.

  He held the talisman in one hand. It lit the planes of his face with an eerie green glow. A shock of wet hair fell into his eyes and he shook it impatiently away.

  “It’s rather nasty down there. I think I touched a dead rat.”

  She laughed aloud, shaky with relief. “However did you manage to get it back?”

  “Honestly, I think I just got lucky.” He sounded dubious. “It was very odd, Harry, I didn’t need to hold my breath. It’s not water, really. Anyway, I just crawled around, groping on those slimy logs until I found it. Thank Christ Mary and…the others seemed to be gone.”

  Harry stared at the amulet in fascination. “May I see it?”

  “Of course.” John pressed it into her palm. The amulet felt heavy—solid gold, she reckoned. The moment he withdrew his hand, it winked out. Darkness rushed in on all sides.

  “What happened?” Harry whispered in alarm.

  “I don’t know.” His fingers trailed along her arm. When they brushed the amulet, it sparked to life again.

  “Oh!” Harry said in surprise. Then she screamed, for not three feet behind him stood Mary Elizabeth Wickes.

  She looked the same except for her eyes, which had gone yellowish, and her hands. The nails were ragged and filthy and curved into sharp talons.

  “Stay with us.” She gave Harry a red smile. “We’ll show you such terrible, awful, wonderful things.”

  29

  Vivienne’s mind drifted as the daemon’s boot ground down on her neck, forcing her head beneath the floodwaters. She’d been close to death before, but the closest had been the day Achaemenes bonded her. It was an act of extraordinary generosity.

  He had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

  When Tijah met him, he was seventeen and she was twenty. Her first daēva, Myrri, wasn’t even dead a fortnight. Tijah had sought her own death, courted it with reckless indifference. She’d found it on the sword of a necromancer. Then Achaemenes had bonded her with a set of cuff
s he found inside the prison fortress of Gorgon-e Gaz. It was done while she was unconscious. He’d seen no other way to keep her alive. When she’d woken up and discovered what happened, she’d thrown a water jug at his head.

  It had taken her years to get over Myrri. Once she accepted him, the thought of losing Achaemenes was unbearable. Now Vivienne was just thankful she would be the one to die first.

  Her lungs burned as she resisted the urge to take a great, gulping mouthful of water. It was habit. Reflex. The body didn’t want to die, even when the mind gave it permission. Even after all these years, more than she was meant to have.

  Darkness pressed at the edges of her vision. Her skirts billowed in the water, heavy and tangled. Vivienne’s fingers scrabbled for a hidden slit that gave access to a sheath around her thigh. Her last knife. So many layers of clothing in this age. Tijah had worn a simple tunic and trousers. She would have been out of this mess already.

  Her hand finally brushed a metal hilt. The knife caught in her skirts so Vivienne worked the edge like a saw, slicing through multiple petticoats, a chemise, and finally the gown itself. When the blade broke free, she stabbed it into Alec’s bad knee. With the other hand, she pressed her own cuff against the bare skin of his forearm.

  That, at least, still had an effect.

  White-hot pain rebounded through the bond. Alec screamed. It gladdened her and broke her heart at the same time. She tried to roll away, but he was on her again in an instant, wrenching the knife from her hand.

  “Oh, you poxied bitch,” he growled.

  He adjusted his grip for a gutting slice. Images of the White Chapel women flashed through her mind, the things Dr. Clarence had done to them before and after death. Vivienne fought back but knew she was no match for him. The fact that it wasn’t Alec didn’t matter. It was his body. His daēva physiology, superficially human but so much more. She’d never bested him without weapons. Not even once.

  The knife came down in a descending arc. Vivienne shut her eyes. She didn’t want to see Alec’s expression as he carved her up.

  “Farrumohr!”

  The hand pinning her tensed. She heard Alec draw a slow breath.

  The voice seemed to come from miles away, echoing down the stone corridors of the Tombs. It was accented, the R slightly rolled. A Russian?

  “Do you remember me?” Louder now. Closer.

  Alec emitted a bestial growl of hatred. The weight on Vivienne’s chest shifted. She blinked, trying to make out the speaker’s features. He was tall and dark-haired, handsome in a wolfish way. He was also dressed for a party, in a formal tailcoat, starched shirt and white cravat. She felt certain she didn’t know him. She had an excellent memory for voices and she’d never heard this man’s before.

  Vivienne scooted away. Pain flared through her body. Her right arm was swelling and wouldn’t move right. It felt broken, although at least the bone hadn’t pierced the skin. The hand burned like fire where Alec had touched her. She used her left to scrub dirty water from her eyes. A sharp snick of metal jerked them open.

  The man had snapped an iron collar around Alec’s neck. Chains led from the collar to a bracelet around the man’s wrist. They clanked as he jerked them tight. Alec let out a wail of fury. His fingers clawed at the collar.

  What madness was this?

  “I should have killed you before,” the man said to Alec. He gave a strange laugh. “We went our separate ways, you and I. And yet here we are, together again.”

  Sounds of inarticulate rage bubbled from Alec’s throat. He writhed and bucked, tearing at the collar. The man watched him without emotion for a long moment. Then he jerked the chain again. This time, a look of blank dullness fell across Alec’s face like a curtain. A thread of drool dangled from his lower lip.

  A necromancer.

  Did he help summon the daemon? If not, how had he found them?

  Vivienne’s pulse raced. She had to do something before he collared her, too. It was a fate far worse than death to be a necromancer’s slave. She would become an automaton, subject to his will as surely as if the daemon had taken her. He would drain her life force, quickly or slowly depending on the temperament of the necromancer. Sometimes it was very slowly indeed.

  Seeing the thick collar around Alec’s neck made her physically ill. She groped in the water for her knife.

  “Don’t interfere,” the man said, shooting her a warning glance. “I won’t harm him. Trust me, Lady Cumberland, this is the only way.”

  Trust him?

  Vivienne almost laughed. She ignored the pain shooting through her arm and kept rooting around for the knife.

  The man dragged Alec away from her by the chain. Then he took out a straight razor. Her breath caught in her throat, but he used it to open a shallow cut on his own palm. Blood dripped into the water. He muttered to himself. Not Russian, she realized. Hungarian. A dialect from the Transylvanian Plain, or possibly Székely. She had an ear for languages, and once Vivienne heard an accent, she never forgot it.

  Still gripping the chain in one hand, the man used the other to remove an object from his coat pocket. It looked like a shell, the edges twisting so that they blurred the eye. Vivienne recognized it as a talisman of Traveling. He spoke more words, this time in a language far older and harsher, a stream of guttural consonants and jagged syllables that made her think of a snapping dog.

  The words of opening for a lesser gate.

  “I suggest you hold onto something,” he said without looking at her.

  Vivienne swore under her breath. She knew what was coming. She managed to pull herself to standing and locked her uninjured arm around the bars of the cell.

  The floodwater began to swirl, slowly at first but quickly gathering speed. Wind howled down the length of the corridor. The gas jets blew out, leaving only the fey light of the talisman.

  “Agzardamon, Farrumohr!” the man cried. “Dhest kundixighan!”

  Alec’s jaw clenched, every muscle tensing. Black fog oozed from the corners of his eyes. It hovered in the air for a moment, a writhing ball. Then a single hair-thin tendril stretched toward the whirlpool of darkness at the man’s feet. The substance of the daemon fought, but the thread grew into a thick tentacle. A low, moaning wind battered against the walls of the old prison.

  Vivienne’s ears popped as the daemon vanished through the lesser gate and it winked shut. Alec slid into the water. She crawled over to him, the collar ice cold beneath her fingers. Almost as cold as his skin.

  The man leaned down until his face was close enough to touch. He reached for Alec and she knocked his hand away.

  “Don’t, or I’ll kill you myself,” Vivienne snarled.

  The man took a deep breath. His eyes had a hunted look.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

  The man’s hand slipped around the back of Alec’s limp neck. Vivienne slapped him across the face. When she tried to do it again, he grabbed her wrist. She heard a click and the collar fell open. He’d been feeling for the catch. One smooth movement and he was on his feet, the chains trailing into the water.

  “Who are you?” she demanded. “What’s your name?”

  He stared at her for a moment. Then he strode away down the corridor.

  “Who are you?” she screamed at his back.

  He didn’t turn around.

  It didn’t matter. She’d find him if it took the rest of her life.

  Vivienne pressed her face against Alec’s icy cheek.

  30

  John spun around, the iron knife materializing in his hand. Mary hissed when she saw it. She swiped at him with clawed fingers and John pressed the flat of the blade to her cheek. The skin sizzled and smoked. Mary made a thin whining noise and scrabbled backward. There was neither fear nor fury on her face. Just a kind of mindless hunger.

  “Come on!” Harry urged.

  She grabbed John’s shirt and dragged him toward the edge of the cavern. The rough stone walls loomed ahead, but she couldn’t see the crevice they
’d emerged from and the current kept pushing them back. It was like swimming against an incoming tide. Harry dug in with her toes on the slippery log. She could hear John breathing hard next to her.

  “Come, my angels,” Mary cried. “Come feed and grow strong!”

  Harry risked a glance over her shoulder. Mary had recovered from her brush with the iron blade and was wading after them, her jaundiced eyes flat and reptilian. Somewhere in the darkness, Harry heard a childish giggle.

  And out of the mist, the children came. White, shiny faces with black holes for mouths. Sixteen of them, the taller ones carrying the littlest in their arms. The girls wore pretty white dresses with ribbons in their hair. The boys had been combed and looked ready for Sunday School. Harry guessed with a sick feeling that they had, in fact, been dressed for church, but by hands accustomed to carrying out a more macabre task.

  The children were clothed for their own funeral services.

  The cavern wall rushed up to meet her. Harry pressed her back against the jagged rock. It looked unbroken. They must have gotten turned around in the middle of the pond, for the exit had vanished. Cold water crept toward the neckline of Harry’s gown—the green silk dress with pearl buttons she’d worn to Count Koháry’s house. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  Mary had paused to wait for her “angels.” Now they advanced together in a tight semicircle, undeterred by the current and rapidly rising water. Only the children’s eyes could be seen, black stones beneath white smudges of forehead. John put his arms around Harry, drawing her close. She pressed her face against his chest. His heart pounded like surf in her ear.

  “The will of the user,” he muttered. “The will….”

  Even with her eyes closed, Harry flinched at the sudden flare of light. A great cracking sound followed and dust rained down from above. The surface of the water churned.

  “I think I see it,” John cried, pulling her past the momentarily stunned ghouls—for that is what they were, Harry knew. “The way out!”

  What she had taken for a shadow resolved into narrow crevice. They dashed inside just as chunks of the ceiling smashed into the water behind them. John held the amulet up for light, but it dimmed the further they went from the gate. Water still cascaded down from above. It was like climbing up a sewage pipe, Harry thought, while someone repeatedly flushed the water closet. When the amulet finally went dark, they made their way by touch.