“Just . . .” A heavy sigh propelled him forward and out of the space which the two had welcomed themselves into. The last thing he needed was more distractions, especially when Emma consumed most of his mind’s focus. He barely understood it himself, so he couldn’t explain it to Farah or Logan.
“Are you coming, Logan?” he asked as he reached the stairs.
His friend’s voice echoed up the corridor. “There’s no chance I would miss out on this. I’m right behind you.”
9
Of all of the people Emma had imagined she would need to spend the most time convincing of such urgency, never had she imagined it would be Henrietta.
Victoria had listened to her quickly spilled tale and with great efficiency had put on her most maneuverable gown tucked with weapons of her own variety. A bonus to the visit had been the addition of another she hadn’t considered. Brett Galloway, another slayer, had been visiting Victoria, and from what Emma could tell of the woman’s flushed cheeks, there had been more than business discussed. Unfortunately, such gossip needed to wait for later.
With the three trailing along, Emma had explained they would go first to Callom’s home to group up before going after their foe.
“Why would we need the help of the dragonborne?” Henrietta had scoffed for what felt like the thousandth time. “We can handle this on our own.”
“I’ve told you already, history had it wrong. We were never meant to become one another’s enemy.”
“But, what—”
“Look,” Emma said, “those creatures attacked my father and me once. They were no easy foe to match. Some are half-man, half-machine, and they’ve some innate ability of magic or something similar that I’m unable to explain. And why wouldn’t they when their creator is believed to be a user of dark magic? A warlock, Henrietta. We may be facing down more than we could hope to easily overcome.”
The speech was enough as Henrietta quieted, and Emma was given her first glimpse of Brett’s true personality in his pinched lips to restrain his laughter. Emma had always thought him pleasant looking but too boring. Now she knew there was much more to Brett Galloway then she’d first imagined. Perhaps if Victoria did fall for him and one day wed him, she’d have nothing to complain over.
Unlike Emma. The moment Frederick entered her mind, she shoved the thought aside, and when they reached Callom’s home, she inhaled before the inevitable. A solid knock brought Callom and Logan swiftly out the door, and after a moment of terse introductions, an awkward silence enveloped them.
“Let’s go.” Emma’s voice startled everyone but with quick steps, she dragged the group of unlikely allies forward. Unfortunately, she soon realized she had no idea where she was going. “So, where exactly are we going?”
Happily, Logan grinned. “Oliver kept on Graves’s trail and will have marked the way. Come on.”
Dressed like high society, the group didn’t expect to turn down a dingy street. Logan halted and Victoria’ gasped at an open manhole that wafted out thick, horrid-smelling air.
“You can’t possibly expect me to go down there,” Victoria said.
“It can’t be all that bad,” Brett said as he descended the narrow ladder first and his head vanished beneath ground level.
“Well,” Victoria said as she gathered up her skirts and shoved them haphazardly through, “we’ve things to do. We best hurry.”
Emma surprised herself by placing a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Logan was barely able to contain his laughter as he plucked up the sides of his coats with finger and thumb, pretending to wear a dainty dress of his own.
“Don’t you dare get us in trouble with her,” Callom said with light laughter to his friend before they all hurriedly went down the manhole.
The moment Emma dropped to the sewer’s floor with a pair of hands guided around the small of her waist, she cursed the flooding heat of her cheeks. It had been Callom’s hands aiding her, and she freed herself in a hurry to keep up with the others.
Bonded allies or not, she desired to keep her distance, even as she was drawn to him.
“This way.” Logan’s whisper instructed from farther ahead.
From dry metal grates, they walked in cold sludge , drowning their feet along the wet sewer floor. The stench had her hand clamped over her nose as quiet curses flew from Victoria’s lips. It was quite an unladylike behavior, but given the circumstances she knew all would be forgiven.
The group stopped at the next juncture of dripping pipes and dark walls, giving Emma her first preview of a dragon’s magic where she hadn’t feared for her life.
A tinge of blue light glowed upon Logan’s fingertips, gathering and growing until bursting forth in a bright flash of light. A single blink at the wrong time would have left anyone unaware as to what had happened. Footprints lit across the murky water’s surface. In a hurry, the group raced after the path Oliver had left behind.
Henrietta shored up at Emma’s side as they sloshed up onto slightly higher and drier ground. “Why can’t we do that?” she whispered, much to Emma’s amusement as a lifted hand silenced them all. Voices drifted toward them from ahead and hands itched toward hidden weapons.
“All right, we work together,” she said quietly, just as a figure stepped into view, startling them all. Victoria and Henrietta were ready to pounce with the sharp ends of their blades just as Logan and Callom stopped them.
“He’s with us,” Callom hissed sharply as Oliver ran up to join the fray.
“You aren’t going to like what you’re about to see,” Oliver said.
The group crept toward where the tunneled corridors opened up into a vast space lit with lamps flickering with electricity and humming with a dark energy.
Emma shivered under the feel of it and saw a weariness in the eyes of all of those with her.
Flitting about the room was Chester Graves, looking pleased with his results. The room was filled with men that looked to be exact replicas of the ones that had attacked Emma and her father, replete with top hats and coats that let them drift into society without warning.
Worst of all, they were far outnumbered.
A strategy was necessary, and one had just formed in Emma’s mind when Victoria sneezed, alerting all of their presence. For a moment, sound ceased to exist as opposite sides stood in watch of one another before all hell broke loose.
“Back up, back up!” Callom cried out. “Funnel them through here!”
Against the slop of the ground, they ushered themselves backward, forcing the creatures into the confined pathway before them. It would be an advantage, but only a slight one given their numbers.
Emma’s ears ached from the first shot of Henrietta’s gun, and in quick order the two women shot in a perfect tandem that never let up.
Until it was necessary to reload.
Footsteps thundered toward them, and behind the wall of her allies, Emma shoved more bullets into her revolver. Inhuman screams flashed through the air as fire forced from the dragonborne’s hands felled their enemies, and just as Emma cocked back her gun and raised to aim, a single top hat sailed through the air toward them.
The ticking she’d once heard echoed through her head, and without thought she took the shot. Her bullet ripped through the velvety fabric and rocked the tunnel with an explosion that had them all dropping to their knees.
Rubble and dust blanketed them, making it difficult to tell who was friend or foe.
“Emma!”
A heaving cough cleared her lungs of a thick dusting as hands grasped at her arms in the thick of her disorientation.
“Emma.” She heard the call of her voice again, and several heaving coughs later realized it was coming from her side. Golden eyes stared at her with grave concern as the hot rubble from the blast left her wincing in shock.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, and with a lackluster tug of her arm set herself free.
“You killed a great deal of them with that blast, but now we’re just aware of one
more thing to deal with.”
Another of the horrific creatures stormed in through the far doorway, his features masked by the settling dust. Yet there was something different from the others that heightened Emma’s nerves. The creature’s face had drooped like melted wax, dripping from bone and metal as he trundled toward them.
“Stop.” The single, booming voice halted the creature where he stood as if he’d been under a spell. He rocked atop crumbled concrete and the fallen bodies of his own men in wait.
No one knew what to do, and in some unspoken order, their weapons held in wait as well.
“So good to see you all.” The same voice echoed down the corridor, turning their heads in search of where the man stood.
“Chester,” Logan grumbled, “you little shit. Show yourself.”
Just beyond the stature of the halted creature, a shadow of Chester’s figure appeared. In a knee-jerk reaction Henrietta’s finger pulled upon the trigger of her revolver, letting off a single shot that sailed straight through the apparition’s outline.
A bone-shaking laugh reverberated through the corridor. “It seems you’ve deciphered at least half of my plan by now. Oh, how often your foolish slayer allies fell for the ruse of the dragonborne attacking.”
Emma’s teeth grit as she burst to race forth but was halted by Callom’s sturdy grip on her wrist. “Don’t,” he whispered, his breath hot against her ear in an attempt to hide their words. “We won’t defeat him here, not like this.”
Forward down the single corridor was too dangerous, and Emma wanted to tell Callom before he dragged her backward, away from the action.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“We’ll go another way.”
In a hurry, they trudged back through the thick sludge as worry ticked in the back of her mind. If Graves was powerful enough to parade a vision of himself for them to see, what else was he capable of?
They ran through a snake of turns until the same vast room was suddenly visible in the distance.
“What if—”
Callom’s finger pressed sturdy against Emma’s lips, silencing her words and leaving her acutely aware of the salt his skin had left behind. His same finger pointed forward toward where Chester, the real man, stood.
Great machines twisted into the air in front of him, and from their heavy pipes the same blue dust she’d once seen puffed out.
The moment Graves spun away and busied himself with what looked to be a grouping of vials, the pair sprinted forward.
Something clicked within Emma, as if she felt the push of Callom’s feet across the ground. They ran in tandem, connected somehow in a way beyond comprehension.
The moment his hand lifted and energy crackled, she knew what to do.
Fire flung forward, sailing from Callom’s open palm, while his hearty cry intensified its power. It blazed so brightly, Chester’s eyes as he flung himself clear of the flame.
It was then, in the space toward which he fell, that Emma’s gun rang out.
Doors all around them flung open in the seconds in which it took her bullet to reach him. Time seemed interminable as the fleshed creatures of childhood nightmares flooded forward, surrounding them just as her bullet reached its mark.
A scream piercing with energy cried out from Chester’s lips as the bullet sank into his leg, leaving him limping as he ripped parts of the machine off in an effort to drag himself to his feet.
“Emma!”
She positioned her back against Callom’s back. In the distance she heard cries of battle from their friends, but here, now, there were more than they could face alone.
Giving up, though, had never been her style.
The rest of her bullets emptied into the creatures rushing for her before she grabbed her trusty knife from her skirts. She’d slice them to ribbons, if necessary. Another blast of energy burst out in a shockwave so thick, everyone within flew off their feet.
Dazed from the crash, Emma’s hand lifted to find blood trickling from the side of her head as a pair of arms snaked around her neck. In desperation she grasped at them, her urgent, crescendo of a cry growing.
“You’re on my list, Miss Clearwater.”
Chester Graves stood with the solid aid of his machine. The dots which danced before her vision refused to diminish under the rapidity of her blinks. Chester stepped forward through a wall shimmering with a darkened swirl of night. The moment the last of his tailcoat vanished, so too did the portal.
Every creature’s body upon which she had come to rest sunk into piles of ashes shrouded only by the coats and hats left behind. Each one sounded like a swift hourglass which had met its end too soon.
Thunderous steps flooded nearer, and she was relieved at the sight of their friends.
“What happened?” Oliver asked, as the group strategically poked at each pile of clothing to be certain nothing remained behind.
“Oh, just a psychotic man escaping into a portal.” Callom shrugged before he jumped to his feet and plucked Emma up.
“Oh,” Logan drawled, “that’s all?”
Henrietta’s concern for Emma had her prodding the wound on the side of Emma’s head. “You do make terrible company at times, I hope you know,” Henrietta said with the softest of grins.
“Oh, I’m well aware. I don’t suppose you have a spare gown, do you?”
Brightly, Henrietta laughed
“Does anyone here know dark magic?” Brett’s question seized everyone’s attention toward the center of the room. “I have no idea what any of this means, but I can’t imagine it’s good.”
In a hurry they all crowded around him to see the book cradled in his hands. Each page seemed more sinister than the last, crowded with sharp-edged symbols and dates yet to come.
Wherever Chester Graves had gone, he wouldn’t be gone for long.
10
Whether it had been fate or destiny that led him to Emma, he now sat within her father’s home with leaders from both sides. More lives would have been lost by their petty feuds, and now, nearly to the end of their meeting, they’d managed to convince both dragonborne and slayer that they weren’t always natural-born enemies.
Callom nudged the book that had started it all into the table’s center. “The translations within explain that once the slayers were called Siraeses. They acted as guardians and protectors of the dragonborne, and their bonds were strong.”
He glanced toward Emma, who plucked her amulet out from beneath her neckline. “Many of us have long since had pieces of jewelry with missing stones. In both text and practice, we discovered that dragonborne, at least some of you, may hold the missing pieces. When placed together, a bond is created that fortifies strengths and abilities.”
For a moment, Emma hesitated. “In the heat of battle, I instinctively knew where Cal—Mr. Smythe was. Our actions worked in tandem and made us more effective in battle. Together.”
Murmurs drew up around the table, with Callom’s snow-haired father the loudest. Callom reassured his worries. “She speaks the truth, Father. Either one of us would have perished had we not been so in sync.”
“Then,” Emma’s father sighed heavily, as if such an admission would maim him, “we must make search of these amulets and stones.”
Emma herself smiled, and the sight of it warmed Callom.
“And,” she added, strong of voice, “we must agree to an alliance and move forward stronger together.”
For a moment Callom’s eyes connected with his father’s. For years the man had staunchly detested the slayers. He had killed them when he had the chance and would have slaughtered entire villages in search of someone he thought had wronged his people. Now, the man offered a single nod that brought Callom to his feet.
“As the newly appointed King of the dragonborne, I hereby extend a hand in offer of an official alliance. On my honor, never shall we harm a Siraeses and always shall we work together.”
With a nudge from the others, Emma’s father rose to his feet. “W
e of the Siraeses accept such an alliance and hereby extend the same offer. If once we were protectors, then protectors we shall be.”
Much to Callom’s amazement, a ripple of cheers erupted, mainly from their friends who’d escaped to a nearby room to eavesdrop after giving their own testimonies involving their fight against Chester Graves.
“Well then, if that is all,” the head of the Collins’ family and Henrietta’s father said, “I must be off. I’ve brandy to drink and jewelry to find.”
It was the perfect farewell to send everyone scattering. Callom shook the hand of every passing Siraeses family head, except for Thomas Clearwater, who’d dawdled behind in his own home. When everyone had left, Callom still lingered. He stood within the front parlor, staring out the window with watchful eyes as their carriages set off into the city.
On the street, Logan himself turned back to offer him a quizzical look. It took a single wave of his hand to send his friend on his way.
Though his back faced the door, he felt Emma’s presence in the room long before he heard her quiet steps nearing the crackling fire. In the window’s reflection, he saw her sit.
“It seems you’ve earned yourself a rest,” Callom said, breaking the silence and concentrating on the gentle curve of her lips.
“And you as well, though you don’t strike me as a restful type of man.”
“Neither do you, Ms. Clearwater.”
Quietly, she laughed. “My father could tell many stories of my restlessness.”
“None which ended well!” Thomas shouted from the hall as he walked back toward his private study.
Her father’s interruption stirred anxiety in Callom.
“Emma.” He hesitated as she turned casually toward him.
“Yes?”
“I wanted to—”
A voice interrupted as the footman appeared. “Miss Clearwater, Mr. Milton’s carriage has just arrived.”
“Thank you,” she said before the man left.
“I need to return home,” he said as Emma rose to her feet.
They walked toward the door in silence, as Callom struggled with warring desires. He agonized over Emma’s engagement, wishing he could remove her fiancé and claim her, without putting a caveat into their newly formed alliance.
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