Brimstone Seduction

by Barbara J. Hancock

  “I saved something for you. Eric insisted and I agreed,” Sybil said. She smiled, and it was a Mona Lisa tilt of her lips.

  “Thank you. Tess said I should ask you about a costume for the masquerade, but I’ve been busy with other things,” Kat said.

  She followed as the other woman wordlessly nodded and led the way down one packed row. Instead of ending in darkness, this row curved into a well-lit alcove where an old theater ghost light had been left burning. She’d seen its light from a distance before. She wasn’t surprised that one large globe was the only light in the warehouse. It was fitting. Sybil wasn’t afraid of shadows. It also amused her to see that the dust motes that swirled in the glow of the light resembled smoke. Sybil was no caterpillar in wonderland, but she was as confounding. The ghost light’s glow revealed a ball gown that was out of place among the old costumes.

  Constructed of delicate, uneven layers of ivory tulle and white satin, the voluminous skirts were more modern than vintage, an almost sculptural masterpiece. Above the skirts that had been calculated to be jagged—a fairy-tale dress, but one with dark Gothic edges—there was a gossamer bodice constructed of thousands of tiny, clear gems.

  The gown was perfect for a masquerade at l’Opéra Severne.

  Kat wasn’t sure if she was bold enough to wear it.

  To wear this dress would be to embrace the very things she should have been resisting—Severne, mysterious shadows, daemon desires.

  When Sybil lifted the dress from its form, which was eerie in its mimicry of Katherine’s own figure, the fabric shimmered in the ghost light like a candle’s soft champagne glow come to life. The fluttering edges of fabric as Kat took the dress in her hands mimicked flickering flame.

  “Severne will be all in black, of course. Unrelieved as usual. I admit I had that in mind when I designed this dress for you,” Sybil said.

  “You made this for me?” Katherine asked.

  “For you,” Sybil said. “From the day you arrived.”

  “That’s impossible. A gown like this would take months to construct...” Kat protested.

  Sybil turned fully toward her. She’d been hidden behind the folds of dress, but now she was illuminated by the ghost light’s bulb. Kat felt it only then. The burn of Brimstone. Dim, banked, a fire that had been allowed to turn to ash, but definitely there. Beneath Sybil’s beautiful skin, far less lined than it should have been if she’d served as costume matron of l’Opéra Severne as long as it seemed.

  Kat stepped back. The dress was no shield between them. The light of it no protection from Sybil’s darkness.

  “Don’t be afraid. You have nothing to fear...from me,” Sybil said.

  “But from others? From icy shadows? From Severne?” Kat asked.

  “Much to fear from those things. Much to face. But you can do it. Eric told me how you saved him,” Sybil said.

  “His mother died,” Katherine said.

  “She isn’t dead. You can still save her. And all the others,” Sybil said.

  “But Severne...” Kat began.

  “Fear him. Definitely. You are a pleasure to him, and he cuts pleasure from his life, ruthlessly. No quarter given even if it causes him pain. Especially if it causes him pain. He’s determined to be damned, you see. It’s his price to pay. His personal penance. He believes in redemption only for others. Not for himself.”

  “Daemons can’t be trusted,” Kat said.

  “Never. You’ve taken the ball gown I designed for you, Katherine D’Arcy. I have sewn it with my own hands. You owe me something in trade. I will tell you when it’s time to pay,” Sybil said.

  Her words rang out with a formality Katherine recognized. The moment stilled and crystalized just as back in Savannah, when John Severne had traded her cello for Eric. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t drop the dress. She suspected it would cling to her fingers like a glistening spider web even if she could force her digits to open and release it. She’d made another agreement with Brimstone blood. It was too late to reject the dress. Her heart had accepted it. Her skin already flushed against the tickle of tulle and satin. The bejeweled bodice might as well already cup her breasts. It would fit her perfectly.

  The costume matron had the experience of immortal eyes.

  “There’s always a price to be paid,” Katherine said.

  She was as she had been in Savannah, under the influence of a daemon bargain she hadn’t meant to accept.

  “Please feel free to explore for shoes or accessories. I must see to Eric before nightfall. He wanders around the opera house more than he should,” Sybil said.

  “Would Grim bother the boy?” Kat managed to ask. Sybil had taken the dress from her hands and placed the gown back on the dress form while Kat still struggled to make her body respond to her will.

  “No. I don’t think the hound would harm him. He’s in no danger...from Grim,” Sybil said. The new knowledge Kat had gained about the costume matron’s daemonic nature made every word from her mouth seem mysterious and vague. But the daemon woman covered the dress she’d made for Kat with a sheet using regular, unhurried movements, taking care of business as usual before she nodded a goodbye.

  Kat watched her leave until only a rattle of keys in the distance proved she’d been there in the first place.

  She was left in the warehouse.

  Alone.

  The sheet-draped figure was almost sentient beside her. It stood, keeping the secret of what Sybil might want in exchange for its Gothic beauty in the future. It took several more long minutes before she could breathe normally. Before she could move.

  Kat backed away. She didn’t turn off the ghost light. It was the only illumination she had. She didn’t intend to search the gloomy warehouse for shoes with Sybil gone. The discovery that the costume matron was a daemon with hidden motives and desires had given the warehouse a creepier atmosphere. Now its shadowy depths were threatening, the looming props more grotesque. Mephistopheles grinned and seemed all-knowing as if the giant papier-mâché devil had foretold the surprise of Sybil’s nature and enjoyed Katherine being trapped into another bargain she hadn’t intentionally sought.

  But as she made her way back down the aisle, footsteps interrupted her progress. They were slow, measured and unhurried.

  Someone else was in the warehouse.

  Probably another performer who had been encouraged to look for accouterments for the masquerade or a technician who had come to hunt for a replacement for a prop that had failed. Definitely not dress forms or papier-mâché come to life to intercept her retreat.

  Kat stopped and turned to confront whoever or whatever controlled the steps that approached.

  Somehow, a few seconds of waiting told her heart who the other person in the warehouse would be.

  John Severne came out from the shadows surrounding the jumbled props town. He wasn’t in workout clothes or a suit. He wore jeans and a faded T-shirt, form-fitting but more casual on him than she’d previously seen. He looked dusty, ordinary and too approachable. His approachability was far more frightening than a shuffling dress form or an animated prop with evil intentions would have been.

  “I heard Sybil leave. Did she give you a key?” Severne asked.

  The only key she had was hidden in her pocket. She didn’t want to admit the key to Victoria’s dressing room was still in her possession.

  “She wouldn’t lock us in,” Kat said.

  “Wouldn’t she? Sybil often has her own agenda,” Severne said. He seemed intrigued. Maybe amused. But not alarmed.

  She hurried to the doors she’d opened to enter the warehouse. They were shut tight. When she tried the handle, it wouldn’t budge beneath her fingers.

  “I’m supposed to be looking for shoes,” she told the door. She almost hated to turn around and face Severne, though she could tell he had wal
ked up behind her.

  “I’m sure someone will come down to let us out soon,” he said.

  Locked in a deserted warehouse with an approachable Severne. Kat tried to breathe normally. She willed her heartbeat to calm. It wasn’t claustrophobia or panic. It was anticipation. Okay, maybe a little bit of panic.

  She turned to face him. Better late than never. She was cautious, but she was no coward. In fact, just like the night when he’d come to her with her cello in Savannah, she felt an adrenaline response to being near him when she shouldn’t have been. Being trapped near him was a whole other level of temptation. She couldn’t flee, so why not enjoy the fall?

  “We could call for help,” she suggested. “Maybe Grim would come?”

  “There’s no danger here. I don’t think there’s cause for alarm. Let’s finish what we started and see if someone comes by the time we’re ready to leave,” Severne suggested.

  She should leave. Now. Because she didn’t really want to go.

  This down-to-earth Severne was worse than the stoic opera master. His raven hair was liberally sprinkled with dust. His handsome face was smudged. His jeans were worn until they fit his hips and thighs like a well-loved denim glove.

  “And what were you doing down here?” she asked.

  “I was revisiting old friends from Turandot, Parsifal and The Nightingale. I usually choose what the company performs after the summer’s Faust,” Severne said.

  He’d named a few of the most popular operas for children, dark fairy tales full of fanciful music and colorful costumes.

  “Shows very different from Faust,” Kat noted.

  “Yes. They are,” Severne said. “They were my favorites once. I like to recall a simpler time.”

  They stood face-to-face in the shadows, and she suddenly wished for more ghost light. A nostalgic daemon was intriguing. Too intriguing. It hinted that she’d been right. Severne might have a heart beneath his hard, muscled chest.

  “I’m here for the masquerade. Sybil gave me a dress. I still need shoes,” Kat said.

  A daemon drawn to operatic fairy tales was a dark contrast she didn’t dare explore. Not when her eyes already searched his for traces of green.

  “Ah, speaking of fairy tales, Cinderella, then,” Severne said.

  Unexpectedly, he reached and took her hand. She didn’t pull her fingers from his. She didn’t jerk away to pound on the door and demand her release. She probably should have. In Severne’s strangely playful company, this dusty prison might prove too decadent.

  But it was only shoes, after all.

  How dangerous could that be?

  She followed where Severne led.

  Thankfully, they avoided the all-knowing smile of Mephistopheles.

  Instead he pulled her toward another row she’d yet to see, where floor-to-nearly-ceiling racks of cubbyholes were filled with shoes to accompany the costumes. They’d passed the alcove where the dress was still covered in its sheet. The way Sybil had revealed it to her made her feel that Severne hadn’t seen it before.

  Yet he seemed to know exactly where he was going.

  With no hesitation, he searched the racks of shoes until they came to a numbered slot with too many digits for her to note. He left her standing near it until he disappeared around the corner and then reappeared with a stool.

  He unfurled its folded legs and set it near her. He nodded toward the seat, but she remained standing while he turned to retrieve a pair of shoes from the cubbyhole. They weren’t glass slippers, but Kat stared at the delicate pumps made of gossamer strands as if artistic spiders had woven them with sparkling thread. The heels looked insubstantial, as if she’d be expected to walk on air.

  She sat.

  The dark opera master of l’Opéra Severne knelt in front of her, a daemon Prince Charming with dusty hair and faded jeans, as if the fairy-tale shoes in his hands were a practical offering and not some kind of unexpected magic so perfectly suited to her dress.

  He placed one to the side and lifted the other for her to see.

  They were closer to the ghost light’s glow than they’d been at the door. It illuminated the waves in his hair and the very green glitter in his eyes when his gaze met hers. Not a practical offering, then. Not if it inspired the light of unspoken emotions to show in his dark irises.

  She should refuse, but she couldn’t break the spell of the find, not when she wondered how the perfect shoes could possibly fit her feet when chosen from their hiding place among thousands of others.

  Kat bent to remove her everyday shoes. The worn ballerina flats came off easily while Severne watched. But when she reached for the shoe he held, he shook his head.

  “No. Allow me,” he instructed. He was on one knee. His tone was polite. But it brooked no refusal.

  He took her bare foot in his warm hand and slipped the gossamer shoe on her foot.

  It fit.

  He continued to hold her foot in his hands, and their eyes met again.

  “Fairy tales are dangerous. In Cinderella, the stepmother danced until she fell down dead,” Kat said.

  She needed the reminder.

  Any magic John Severne possessed was damned. Daemons couldn’t be trusted.

  “Still, I do believe l’Opéra Severne would be the perfect place for deadly dancing,” Severne said.

  He placed her foot back on the ground. He stood and paced several steps away with his back to her. Kat slipped the shoe off her foot and put her own shoes back on. She left the perfect shoes lying on the floor beside the stool as she stood.

  “Maybe we should call for help now,” Kat suggested.

  There was tension between them that couldn’t be blamed on Heaven or hell. It was a purgatory of unexplored feeling somewhere between paradise and devastation. She couldn’t accept the shoes, no matter how badly she ached as she left them behind. It wasn’t safe to indulge in happily-ever-after dreams with a daemon. Even if the shoes weren’t a daemonic bargain, they were a heart’s bargain she couldn’t afford to make.

  “Help never comes, Katherine. We have to save ourselves,” Severne said.

  He ignored the shoes as he turned back to face her. He pulled a key from his jeans pocket.

  “You had a key all along,” Kat said.

  In spite of her distrust of daemons, she hadn’t expected him to be playfully tricky.

  He led the way back to the door and easily unlocked the latch. The opening yawned wide enough for her to pass, but she hesitated.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Would you have stayed if the door had been open?” he asked.

  She was afraid of the answer. He suspected that she wouldn’t have stayed. She was fairly certain he was wrong. He didn’t move aside as she passed. She brushed lightly against the wall of his chest, all steel once more. He closed the door behind her once she had stepped outside. She heard him turn the key.

  As she made her way back upstairs, she worried about Sybil. Severne had said the daemon woman often had an agenda of her own. What favor would Sybil require of her now that their bargain was sealed? And how did her agenda collide with the secrets surrounding her sister’s disappearance? The costume matron was a fixture of l’Opéra Severne. She must know something about Victoria that she hadn’t seen fit to share.

  Katherine tried not to think about John Severne shut in the shadowy warehouse with all his fairy tales that could never be.

  Chapter 13

  The men stood before him.

  Many of them had traveled hundreds of miles to reach the enclave. He could see their exhaustion in the way several of them swayed on their feet. One had suffered a daemon bite that festered on his neck. Black ooze didn’t stop him from standing tall with his stoic face firm and his shoulders squared as he faced his master. Another had a broken leg. He had
n’t even gone to a hospital to have it professionally tended by a doctor. Instead it was splinted, and Reynard could see how it pained the monk because of the sweat running down his face and staining the robe he wore.

  His chair was positioned on a dais so he could peruse their ranks from above.

  They stood at attention while he inspected them. They had changed from traveling clothes into the robes that they were expected to dress in while training in the enclave. Many of them wore the robes even when they were away. He wouldn’t have been surprised if these, his best men, wore them always, even though he’d chosen the material for the roughness of the cloth. Most of the men had permanent skin conditions from the wool rubbing their skin raw for decades.

  In spite of the obedience and devotion that had brought them here so quickly in response to his summons, Reynard found fault with them all. They were too tall, too muscular, too young, but he didn’t share his disappointment at their perfection.

  He would relish the opportunity to wear them down.

  He would enjoy breaking them.

  His heartbeat had quickened. He shifted in his chair. His current favorite, Joshua, stepped closer with a tray, and Reynard reached for a hammered copper goblet, which held his wine. The wine was bitter, mixed with an herbal cocktail that would soothe him.

  If he broke them, the duty of fathering the next generation of D’Arcy Seekers would fall to him. It was a temptation and a trial at the same time. He must not be greedy or presumptuous although anticipation hummed beneath his healing skin.

  He drank the full goblet of drugged wine and sat back in his chair. Joshua took the goblet from his slackening fingers. Like a good servant, Joshua also gave the signal for the monk near the stairs to sound the gong that would allow the sparring to commence.

  It would be a sacred duty to father the next generation of Seekers, not a forbidden fantasy he indulged in late at night when the blood ran too hot in his veins. He was healing. He could feel the blood strengthening him and making him whole once more.