Sinner's Heart th-3

by Zoë Archer

  With Minerva’s shield on one arm and the edged Akkadian spell in her other hand, she fought off more demons, wave after wave of the awful beasts.

  “Livia!” Bram shouted again. As she battled back more demons, she looked for him.

  He pushed his horse through the throng toward her, his brows drawn down in a savage scowl. Baring his teeth, he hacked down any demon standing between her and him. Resolute, ferocious, he carved a path to her.

  Then he was in front of Livia, one broad hand reaching for her. She took his offered hand, and he lifted her up in a swift motion. Seating herself behind him, she saw the field of battle from a better vantage. The Hellraisers had managed to carve paths of destruction out of the demons’ ranks.

  Bram glanced down and saw the beasts she had felled on her own. He gave her a vicious smile. “Lucky we’re on the same side.”

  She struck out with a spell just as a demon charged. At the same time, Bram stabbed the creature through the throat. Hardly anything was left of the beast as it fell to the ground. “We didn’t start out that way, but it was meant to be. Besides,” she added with her own cutting grin, “no one of sense will have us.”

  There was no further opportunity for conversation. Though a goodly number of the demons in this arena of the battle had fallen, many still stood.

  John, too distracted by the battle to summon more demons up from Hell, hoarsely shouted orders at the creatures that had made it above ground. He kept casting alarmed glances at Bram.

  “There’s my target,” Bram growled. He urged his horse toward John, but more demons blocked the way. He hacked at scaled arms that tried to pull him from the saddle, and she drove her own magic blade into the throats of two-headed, four-legged monsters.

  The Hellraisers briefly converged.

  “Report,” Bram commanded.

  “Took out two dozen of those slithering bastards.” A trickle of blood dripped in the corner of Leo’s mouth, and he wiped it onto the sleeve of his torn coat.

  “A third of those flying things have been thrown halfway to Portugal,” Anne added, looking windblown.

  “Zora’s turned a score of demons to ash,” Whit said. A rip along the sleeve of his coat revealed a long, shallow cut.

  “And Whit’s carved twenty into nothing but meat,” said Zora. Ash streaked the hem of her skirts.

  Something was missing. Someone. Livia scanned the ranks of the demons. Chaos reigned, yet she finally grasped the crucial element.

  “Where is John?”

  Bram gazed at the ongoing battle. He cursed.

  John was nowhere to be seen. Rather than be comforted by this, panic gnawed at Livia. An unseen enemy was even more dangerous than a visible one.

  “There.” Bram pointed to the tree line, where the woods abutted the field. John, on foot, ran into the forest.

  Livia knew better than to mistake it for a retreat. A regrouping, perhaps, but not a retreat. Whatever he intended, it meant certain disaster.

  She wrapped her arms tightly around his narrow waist. “You know what we must do.”

  “Aye,” he answered, grim. “And I’m eager for it.”

  “Go,” said Whit. “We’ll hold this end.”

  Pressing his heels into his horse’s sides, Bram urged the animal to give chase. Livia and Bram raced away from the demon-choked field of combat. Death and danger were everywhere. Yet the true threat lay not on the battlefield but up ahead in the trees. The sounds of combat faded as she and Bram plunged into the dark forest in pursuit of their enemy.

  Chapter 17

  Trouble, almost at once. The trees grew too thick and close to pursue on horseback. Only a moment earlier, there had been more than enough room for a horse and riders. Now they crowded in on every side. It had to be John’s doing. No choice but to dismount and follow on foot.

  Bram kept ahead of Livia, the stride of his long legs twice the length of her own. And she was not as accustomed to running as he. She cursed herself as she fell behind, her body already weary and taxed from the battle.

  Seeing that she lagged, Bram slowed.

  “No, keep with him,” she said.

  “I stay with you,” Bram growled.

  “He cannot have an opportunity to collect himself or summon reinforcements. Go,” she added, when still Bram lingered. “Don’t insult me by thinking you need to protect me.”

  He sent her a glance that clearly indicated his displeasure with this arrangement, but, seeing that John was indeed disappearing further into the woods, he seemed to understand there was no choice. With a final, searching look, Bram sped off.

  She allowed herself a moment to gather her breath, summoning reserves of energy. This was not the time to let mortal weakness hinder her. Surrounded as she was by the woods, she drew on the true strength of the trees, their primal living strength, green and nourishing. This was not the trickery used by John to slow their advance. The Druids had worshiped these forests and the spirits within them. Once, Livia had stolen magic from a Druid priestess for her own avaricious purpose. Now, she called upon that ancient force once more, in service to a higher cause.

  It flooded her in warm verdant waves—renewing strength, lifting her heart. She felt alight with primeval strength. With reawakened energy, she picked up her skirts and ran after Bram.

  Noises of struggle sounded just ahead. She emerged from a thick stand of trees and skidded to a stop. Bram grappled with a giant beast, its skin rough and brown as bark, its long, clawed fingers gnarled like branches. It had a vaguely lupine face, and serrated yellow teeth. Bram swung his sword at the creature, hacking into its limbs and torso, but the blows hardly slowed its assault.

  Just beyond where Bram and this monster fought, John stood, his lips moving silently as he spun out the spell that controlled the beast. Livia darted toward him. But she only took a step when another of the tree-like monsters emerged from the darker shadows and attacked.

  Thus distracted, she could do nothing as John turned and fled deeper into the forest.

  She bit back an oath. Then shouted, “Incendia!”

  Flames leapt from her hands. Fire caught on the beast’s limbs, spreading up, until the whole of the monster burned. It thrashed around, nearly striking her and Bram. Roaring, it collapsed, turning to smoldering carbon.

  Bram followed her example. He ducked past the beast’s limbs, then stuck his sword into its chest. As Bram pulled his blade free, the creature’s woody flesh ignited. It flailed for several moments, but the fire crept inside, and glowing red appeared in cracks in its body. Bram struck with his sword again. The monster shattered in an explosion of charred debris.

  Ash dusted Bram’s shoulders and streaked his face, and there were rips in his coat, yet he appeared largely unhurt.

  “Bastard doesn’t fight fair,” he muttered.

  “Neither should we.”

  They took up their chase. For a man more familiar with books and the corridors of power, John proved himself remarkably fleet. He kept ahead of them. Energy gathered between his hands. She knew the words his lips formed, recognizing the spell. But not in time. He wildly flung bolts of violent energy from his hands. Livia and Bram dodged as they ran, trees and earth exploding all around them.

  “Damned tired of this,” Bram said through gritted teeth.

  “This must stop.” Fury coursed through her. “It can only end where it truly began.”

  Bram kept John in his sights, but he was a wily bastard, weaving between the trees and holding them back with a mad barrage of dark, jagged flame.

  As he and Livia ran, he felt the change before he saw it. The trees turned white, the rough texture of their bark becoming fluted as their trunks straightened. Branches disappeared. The wood turned to marble. The trees were now pillars. Roman pillars.

  Dread scraped down his back. They looked distinctly familiar. He realized where he had seen them before: at the ruined temple, the place where he and the other Hellraisers had freed the Devil.

  He glanced at Livia.
She murmured words in Latin, and she glowed with power. This was her doing.

  “You couldn’t bring us to the temple. So you brought the temple to us.”

  And that’s precisely where they were. The forest that bordered St. George’s Field had become a Roman ruin. Some of the columns stood upright, whilst others had toppled. Weeds choked what had once been a tiled floor, and everywhere hung a low mist, just as it had on that night months before. The ruin itself stood atop a steep knoll. Its solidity was deceptive, however. The true temple was within the hill. On that fateful night, Bram, Whit and the others had discovered a heavy stone door leading beneath the hill’s surface. Like starving wolves lured by a fresh kill, they had followed. Straight toward their doom.

  It would have been their doom, had not a headstrong Roman priestess not intervened.

  In an eerie echo of that night, Bram saw John at the entrance to the underground temple. Unlike the first time he and John had been here, though, there was no hesitation in John’s step as he hurried below, disappearing beneath the hill’s surface.

  They had to pursue.

  Voices stopped him and Livia before they could give chase.

  “We gather again.” Whit led Zora, Leo, and Anne up the hill. Blood crusted along Whit’s temple, Zora walked with a slight limp, Anne’s once-tidy hair was wild, and half of Leo’s coat was missing. Yet they were here.

  “Courtesy of our sorceress,” Whit added.

  Livia tilted her head, regal, though she swayed with weariness.

  “He’s down there?” Leo nodded toward the entrance to the subterranean temple. “Why corner himself?”

  “Desperation,” Bram said.

  “There’s yet more power he can summon.” Livia looked grim.

  “Enough chatter.” Bram strode toward the entrance to the temple. “This fight ends now.”

  No sooner had he taken a step, however, than the hill began to shudder. The marble columns shook like the trees they had once been, and pieces of stone rained down as the pillars cracked.

  Demons clambered up the hillside. Each of them stood as tall as a man, with long bodies and stinging tails like scorpions, but having human torsos and heads covered in an insect’s glinting armor. Pincers rather than hands snapped at the ends of their arms.

  The monsters appeared on all sides of the temple, scuttling up, their legs making clicking sounds and shaking the ground with every step.

  At once, Bram, Livia, and the others faced this new threat. They formed a ring, weapons and magic at the ready.

  Seeing the Hellraisers positioned to make a stand, the demons shrieked and brandished their claws. One snapped at a nearby column, and the stone pillar shattered. Venom dripped from the creatures’ stingers. One sting, Bram knew, meant death.

  He glanced quickly at the entrance to the temple. It had been dark below, but now an unholy light glowed. John had to be the source, summoning more demons—or worse.

  Looking back to the massive, crawling demons encircling the Hellraisers, Bram cursed, and Livia echoed his sentiment. Costly time slipped away.

  “Go.”

  Bram scowled at Whit’s directive. “A damned poor friend I’d be, to abandon you to this.”

  “It’s not abandonment, but strategy. A veteran like you knows that.” Whit jerked his head toward the entrance to the temple. “You and Livia. Send that bastard to his deserving reward.”

  “Most eagerly.” Bright streaks of magical energy danced along Livia’s fingertips.

  “And you?” Bram asked.

  Leo grinned like a fiend. “Fighting is the only vice left to us.”

  “No more carousing,” said Anne.

  “Or wenching,” Zora added.

  “Don’t deny us our final pleasure,” Whit said.

  Bram gave a clipped nod. If this was how the Hellraisers were to meet their end, so be it. All of them fighting to their very last exhalation, without regret.

  “Time to redeem the Hellraiser name,” he said. He turned and, with Livia beside him, sprinted toward the temple entrance.

  Carved stone steps led from the surface to the underground chamber. Bram took the lead, his sword drawn, whilst Livia kept sharp vigil at his back. They cautiously descended the stairs, and he was struck with a sense of symmetry, time folding in on itself. When last he’d walked down these steps, he’d no awareness of what awaited him. He had been driven by a compulsion he hadn’t understood, a force outside of his will, and a dark, grasping hunger.

  The Devil’s pawn. It maddened him now—how easily he and his friends had been manipulated, how ripe they had been for the plucking. For all their claims of jaded sophistication, they had been no better than rustics at a fair, gaping in wonderment at a magician’s tricks as an accomplice lifted their purses.

  He’d grown wiser since then. Humbler. Yet more certain. This was the moment he needed all of his wisdom and confidence.

  Livia’s hand pressed between his shoulder blades, anchoring him.

  They delved further down the stairs until they stood in the underground chamber. It looked precisely as it had months past. A large room had been carved out of the rock—walls, floor, and ceiling all made of stone. Torches set into the walls threw shuddering light. At one end of the chamber rested the skeletal remains of a Roman soldier still in his armor. The intervening months and exposure to air had hastened the skeleton’s decay. Bones had turned chalky, and the once-pristine armor had dulled, the leather rotting. Whoever that soldier had been, he’d given his life to guard the Devil’s prison.

  The skeleton rested near a stone altar, and Bram heard Livia’s shaky inhalation as she beheld the place where she had performed her greatest sin.

  They had both done much sinning in their lives. Here, ultimately, they must undo their wrongs.

  John had no such intention. He stood before the altar, arms flung out with his back to Bram and Livia. Seething red light eddied around him. The chamber itself felt like an inferno, the air sizzling in Bram’s lungs and sweat dampening his back. John chanted in a foreign tongue, but his words stopped abruptly and he whirled to face Livia and Bram.

  Any semblance John once shared with the man he’d been was gone. The shrewd scholar, who preferred long, arid discussions about politics to wine-soaked merriment, who never lost at chess and always held the box for the other Hellraisers at the theater—that man had vanished. He had always been a lean man. Now he appeared gaunt, as if the Devil’s power fed upon his very essence. His sunken eyes were glazed and hectic. And everywhere upon him twisted the marks of flame. Grotesque.

  “You poor, sodding bastard,” Bram muttered.

  Hate burned in John’s gaze. “It’s inexorable. The world you know will fall.”

  “Spoken with the certainty of the doomed,” Livia answered.

  John sneered. “How quick you are to decide who will emerge victorious.” The chamber shook and the sound of human shouts comingled with demon screams tumbled down the stairs. John smiled. “A lovely tune in three-part harmony. I’d never dabbled in music before, but perhaps I ought to take up composing. I call this melody, The Slaughter of the Hellraisers. Ah,” he added at the unmistakable sound of Whit yelling in pain, “what a perfect note.”

  Bram no longer felt the wound of betrayal, for this thing standing before him bore only the slightest resemblance to his old friend. All he felt now was cold fury.

  He lunged at John. At the same moment, Livia threw a bright bolt of energy toward the enemy. John cut the air with his hand. Livia’s killing spell and Bram were thrown back. The ricocheting spell punched a deep indentation into the wall, whilst Bram stumbled backward, struggling to gain his footing.

  All the while, the red light whirling around John grew larger and more frenzied.

  “He means to pull more demons up from the underworld.” Livia spoke under her breath, just loud enough for only Bram to hear when he stood beside her. “Our forces aren’t strong enough to repel anymore.”

  “Then we stop him before he g
oes any further.” He charged John once more.

  John made a fist. He muttered an incantation. A sword of black flame appeared in John’s hand, and he narrowly blocked Bram’s strike. They crossed blades again. Heat burst from both swords, coursing up Bram’s arm, bathing his face. Sweat ran into his eyes. He knew he was the better swordsman, yet somehow John continued to parry his blows with an inhuman speed. John’s attack was equally fast, a blur of movement, and Bram grappled with keeping pace.

  Bram hissed as the edge of John’s sword cut him across the thigh. A searing pain, unlike any wound he’d ever received.

  “All those hours,” John said, derision seeping from his voice, “spent in that grim practice chamber of yours with those dummies and targets. Wasting time.”

  “Won’t be a waste when I run this through your heart.” Bram feinted, a move that always drew blood from his opponent when they’d attempt to counterattack. But John seemed to know the gambit, even though Bram had never dueled with him before this moment. With a burst of unnatural swiftness, John evaded the feint and made his own attack, cutting Bram again. This time, the wound crossed his arm.

  Bram and John circled one another.

  “Besting me is hopeless,” John taunted. “Not so long as the Devil’s power courses through me.” He shook his head. “Simple Bram—led by your cock, not your brain. You’d never understand.”

  “Fortunate, then,” said Livia, “that I do not have a cock.” Her gaze turned hard as obsidian as she spoke. “Veni, Maleficus.”

  A tolling like thunder, and then there stood the Devil himself.

  And he looked furious.

  The first time Livia had summoned the Dark One, she’d had to steal the power of a Druid priestess and an Indian slave. The ritual itself had taken careful planning, the spilling of blood—and wicked intent. She had not realized her mistake until far too late, the world turned to fire. But at the moment when she first beheld the Dark One stepping through the gate between realms, triumph had filled her, all her labors rewarded.