Angel of Ruin

by Kim Wilkins

  She looked at him warily. Father’s words returned to her; I advise no greater loss for such a gain. He would not want her to endanger her soul.

  “Is this the sin that Lucifer has named for my soul?” she said suddenly.

  “Deborah, if you do not believe me, you must at least believe the signs that you experience. Did not the demon key hurt you when you used it then?”

  “Yes, it did.”

  “And has it ever hurt you when I have used my magic.”

  “You have never used it to my benefit.”

  He shook his head with a smile. “I should cry for your ingratitude. Did I not ensure that you were not separated from your sisters when they were under threat of apprenticeship?”

  She regarded this information carefully. It was right. She had thought nothing of using his magic then, and she had felt no unnatural pain as she felt when she used the demon key. And it was true that this bag of money would eventually need to be replenished. Father may live another thirty years — was she willing to do it more than once? What harm would be caused if she did?

  “Very well, Lazodeus. You have another chance to prove your trustworthiness. With no ill effects caused to anyone, you may attempt to reinstate my father’s fortune.”

  He approached her, and she felt her skin prickling lightly. No man had ever looked at her in such a way, as though she were the sole focus of his life, as though he wished to express it in unimaginably sweet ways. He placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “I shall prove myself to you yet, Deborah. It is my dearest wish that you should come to consider me with the deep regard I feel for you.”

  She pushed his hands away, but felt her fingers linger involuntarily on his warm skin. “We shall talk anon. Go to. I have mats to beat.”

  He disappeared, and Deborah picked up the bag of money. Perhaps she should hide it away and never look at it again. But she pressed it against her as she climbed out the window, and it sat cold next to her heart as she stood on the crumbling edge, drawing air deep into her lungs.

  “Anne, Anne.”

  A soft voice close to her ear. But no, she didn’t want to wake up. Lazodeus had burned to death in the church and Deborah was in prison for the crime, and somehow it was all Anne’s fault and she wouldn’t wake up, she wouldn’t come up through those grey layers to look at a world without her angel.

  “Anne, my love. Awake.”

  Mary had said such awful things, and to stay under here was better than to consider them, because if they were true, she found herself wishing Deborah had remained in the church. A hundred years was a long time, a long, long time. “Leave me be,” she said, burrowing further under the covers.

  “Anne, look at me.”

  “I killed my sister and I wish she had stayed dead,” she whispered.

  “Look at me.”

  The voice was familiar, achingly familiar. The grey began to swirl around her and she couldn’t make sense of the shapes. “I want to stay under here,” she said.

  A firm hand took her chin and turned her towards him. She opened her eyes. Through the gloom she could see a face.

  “I do not believe it is you,” she said to the angel.

  “I assure you I am here.”

  “I have dreamed so many times and been disappointed.”

  “You know I am real; you can feel I am real.” He took her hand and led it to his face. Her fingers clutched at his skin. The grey was tumbling backwards.

  “Lazodeus?” She struggled to sit up. “Can it be that you have come at last?”

  “Anne, my Anne.” He enclosed her in his arms, and it was real, thrillingly real.

  “Oh, my angel.” The relief was overwhelming. In his arms clarity began to return. “Oh, thank God you are safe. Thank God you are returned to me.”

  “Yes, I am returned to you,” he said, his warm voice rumbling in his chest. “But, Annie, we have a problem.”

  She sat back and gazed at his beloved face. “A problem?”

  “My love, how far will you go to keep me?”

  23

  Devising Death to Them Who Lived

  “Tis a miracle, Mary. Your sister is well again.” Mary eyed Liza warily. “What do you mean?”

  “Come down and see her. She sits up and speaks perfect sanely, she eats and she has asked for you.”

  Mary threw back the bed covers and approached Liza in puzzlement. “What, overnight?”

  “Yes, she has woke recovered.”

  Mary saw Deborah idling near the entrance to her closet, watching the proceedings with curiosity.

  “I shall come and see her anon,” Mary said. “Tell her I shall be with her as soon as I have dressed.”

  Liza backed out and Mary pulled open her chest of drawers to find clothes.

  “Miraculously recovered?” Deborah said.

  “Yes, no thanks to you.”

  “I should have wished upon her another year of suffering, and two years for you.”

  Mary did not answer. She dressed hurriedly and went downstairs. Anne sat up in bed, eating leftover soup. She smiled when Mary came in.

  “Sister, I am eager to speak with you. Go, Liza. Mary and I need privacy.”

  Liza took Anne’s empty bowl and left them alone. When Mary was sure she was gone, she said, “You are completely recovered then?”

  “My madness has passed. I now find only clarity in my mind.”

  “So you know that Deborah is alive and well.”

  “Yes, for I have it from a trustworthy source.” She smiled coyly, and Mary found herself intrigued.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lazodeus came last night.”

  With disappointment, Mary realised that Anne’s madness had simply transformed itself into another obsession. “Sister, Lazodeus is gone.”

  Anne shook her head. Her limp hair hung in greasy strands around her face. “Indeed he is not. He has been given a short reprieve.”

  The hope in her heart could not be allowed to soar. “Anne, you are not thinking clearly. Lazodeus has been imprisoned for —”

  “For pity’s sake, Mary, are you listening to me?” Anne said crossly. “He came to me last night, he cured my madness, and he has asked that we both meet him this evening in the garden so he may tell us how we can help him.”

  Mary’s breath caught in her throat. “He is really returned?”

  “Briefly. He has been given another chance to prevent his imprisonment. We are instrumental.”

  “What is it? What does he want us to do?”

  “What does it matter? We shall do it. We are capable of all manner of terrible things, are we not?”

  Mary shook her head slowly. “Anne, I know that I am willing, but are you? Your conviction that you murdered Deborah sent you mad.”

  “I no longer feel any misgiving, for I have suffered his absence and it is worse than any pain.” Anne leaned close, her dark eyes gleaming. “Sister, I will not suffer it again.”

  Deborah arrived home from the bakery to find Father pacing his study.

  “Father?” she said, untying her bonnet.

  He whirled around at the sound of her voice. “Deborah?”

  “Yes. Whatever’s the matter? You are agitated.”

  “Indeed, I am. Come in, I wish to speak with you.”

  She stood just inside the entrance of the study, her hands folded before her. Father continued to pace around the furniture as though he could see it. Finally, he came to stand in front of her.

  “I had a letter this morning.”

  “Would you like me to read it for you?”

  He shook his head. “The messenger read it for me. For he was a messenger of the King.”

  Deborah was surprised into momentary silence. Eventually she asked, “What did the King want of you, Father?”

  “He has offered me a position. The same position I held under Cromwell, as Latin secretary.”

  A deep ache of regret moved inside her. This was Lazodeus’s doing, with no doubt at all. She al
most admired him for how subtle the return of Father’s fortune was to be. But to work for the King was no honour for Father, who was a sworn opponent of the monarchy.

  “I am glad for you, Father. It appears your concerns about money are resolved.”

  Once again he shook his head. “No, Deborah.”

  “No?”

  “No. For I did not accept the position.”

  Deborah felt a smile break out upon her face. She hesitated before saying it, then decided she would. “I am glad.”

  “You are?”

  “Yes, for to take that position were against your principles, and no price can be named for principles.”

  He reached out a blind hand to her. She grasped it firmly. “I know not how much you had to do with such an offer, Deborah,” he said quietly.

  “Why, nothing at all, of course. What could I do to influence the King?”

  He opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. He dropped her hand and nodded curtly. “I expect we shall manage without royal appointments. I expect we shall make what little we have last.”

  She loved him so much in that moment that it baffled her that she ever grew impatient with him. Clever, principled, compassionate Father.

  “Mary and Anne will have to go,” she said in a small voice which betrayed her attempted confidence.

  “It surprises me to hear you say that.”

  “Much has passed between us.”

  “Betty is already making enquiries into apprenticeships for them. Or they can go to your grandmother.”

  Another pang of regret. So paradoxical that their attempts to stay together would at last separate them. “I care not where they go, Father,” she said. “I just wish order and harmony restored.”

  Betty was walking past the kitchen when she spotted Mary sitting at the table, feeding her dog. Her first impulse was to keep walking and not say a word, but now she remembered that she was no longer in danger from Mary and she paused in the doorway.

  “That mongrel animal should not eat our food.”

  Mary looked up and scowled. “Be quiet, you foul creature.”

  “It is he who is the foul creature.” She strode forward and pushed him off the table. He yelped and ran. “Go to, get out of my sight.”

  Mary shot up from the table and grabbed Betty’s wrist. “Leave him alone,” she hissed. “Next time it will be scorpions in your pot.”

  Betty shook her off. “You frighten me no longer, Mary. I know your source of power is gone.”

  Mary took a step back, a startled look upon her face.

  “So,” Betty continued, “I have sent letters to lacemakers in Kent and in Dartford and expect to hear a result at any time. We can no longer afford to keep you or your dog.” Betty derived such satisfaction from Mary’s smouldering indignation that she persisted. “You are a drain on our resources and I long for your departure.”

  “You should be quiet,” Mary said, in a voice so evenly poisonous that it gave Betty pause. She had expected — wanted — rages and tears and empty threats.

  But no, she would not be terrorised any longer. “And why should I so?” Betty asked boldly. “Your apprenticeship will soon knock all the arrogance out of you, Mary Milton. You shall trade your fine red dresses for a blue apron and grey shirt, and you shall regret your disrespect and cruelty to me. And as for your dog, I doubt that your new master will allow you to keep him and so —”

  The slap across Betty’s face was unexpected and left her stinging. Mary shook with rage, and Betty began to laugh.

  “Be quiet,” Mary said. “You shall regret this.”

  Betty doubled over and laughed harder, all the aching anxiety of the past few months rocking out of her body. When she looked up, Mary was gone.

  When Anne came down to the kitchen shortly before midnight, Mary was pacing the room.

  “I wondered where you were,” Anne said.

  “I could not sleep. I can barely believe he will be here.”

  Anne yawned. “He will be here. He promised me, and I know he would do nothing to cause me injury.” She was rewarded by a jealous glance from Mary.

  “Why did he come to you and not me?”

  “Perhaps my need was greater,” Anne said, all the while thinking, because he loves me, and not you.

  “Come, let us wait in the garden.”

  They sat on the long stone bench under the wall and waited. When the church bells in the distance rang out midnight and still he hadn’t come, Anne could sense Mary’s restlessness.

  “Anne, are you sure you didn’t imagine this in your state of delusion.”

  “I am certain.”

  “But it is after midnight and —”

  “Mary, Anne.”

  They looked up to see Lazodeus sitting on top of the garden wall, between the broken jugs and urns which decorated it. Anne heard Mary catch her breath.

  “It is true, then,” Mary said.

  “Come over the wall and out into the street behind. I must talk to you in the utmost privacy.”

  Mary deftly scrambled over the wall, but Anne lagged behind. She was not yet particularly coordinated when challenged to climb. She stood on the stone bench and tried to heave herself up on her arms, but fell back. Lazodeus caught her with a strong hand.

  “Here, Anne, let me help you.” For a few sweet moments she was pressed against him as he helped her over the wall. Then he released her. She knew it was important to hide their love from Mary, but she could feel herself glow from his touch.

  Mary eyed her suspiciously. It had always been clear that Mary considered the angel her own. There was a special satisfaction in knowing she had enjoyed Lazodeus in a way that Mary had failed to. Her sister had always been so sure of her desirability; had never considered Anne anything but a bony-faced oddity. Anne smiled to herself as Lazodeus beckoned them to follow him out onto the road.

  “Where are we going?” Anne asked.

  “We need to find somewhere where Deborah won’t hear us. Or your father, or Betty.”

  “Are you returned completely safely, Lazodeus?” Mary asked in a whining voice. “Will you attend upon us again? May we call you?”

  “I shall explain all presently. First let us find a place where we can speak in confidence.” He pointed to a tavern on the corner of the hill. “There.”

  “But it is closed,” Anne said.

  Lazodeus smiled at her, his eyes tender in the dark. “Angel magic, Annie. Have you forgotten so soon?”

  Mary glanced from one of them to the other, clearly growing suspicious. “Forgotten what?”

  Lazodeus came to a halt in front of the closed tavern. “Your sister has forgotten that I have special powers.” He moved his hand delicately in front of the tavern door. “Go on, open it.”

  Mary moved forward and pushed the door. It swung inward. “It is unlocked,” she said with pleasure.

  “Go in, Mary. You too, Anne. We do not want to be seen.”

  They went in ahead of him; he closed the door and indicated that they should sit at a round table near the fireplace. Anne looked around. There was a curiously desolate feeling about the place. The rushes were soaked with the smell of stale beer and the dying embers of the fire provided a little gloomy light in the dark. She sat and Mary sat across from her, Lazodeus between them.

  “Now, explain everything,” Mary said, leaning towards him so her skin touched his.

  Lazodeus didn’t seem to notice. He slumped forward with his head in his hands. “I shall only tell you if you make me a promise.”

  “Anything,” Anne said, beating Mary by half a second.

  “Anything,” her sister echoed.

  The angel looked up and in the firelight Anne saw for the first time how careworn he was. His usually clear blue-green eyes were clouded, his smooth brow furrowed with concern. “I need you to promise me that you will say no if you have the slightest misgiving about what I am to ask you.”

  “I will have no misgivings,” Mary said.r />
  “Nor I.”

  “Promise me,” he said, fixing Anne in his gaze.

  She nodded solemnly. “Yes, I promise.”

  “I promise, too,” Mary said. “Come, tell us what is so grave. You make me uneasy.”

  He took a deep breath. “I am free only temporarily.”

  “Why so?” Anne asked, her heart caught on a wire.

  “I have been given a reprieve as long as I can perform a certain duty. I am, indeed, considered the best candidate for it. Because I am in your confidence.”

  “Go on,” Mary said.

  “Your father’s poem will be published. We can no longer change that. But we want to ensure he writes no more.”

  “What do you want us to do? Destroy his study? All his books and papers? Lordy, we’d burn the whole house down if you asked us.”

  He shook his head sadly. “Unfortunately, it is not that easy.”

  Anne looked from Lazodeus to Mary in the dim firelight. Her chest was tight with horrified realisation. “I think I understand,” she said. “You want us to kill him.”

  Lazodeus nodded. “I am afraid that is it.”

  Anne’s breath seemed stolen from her lungs, and yet part of her stood outside herself and said, That is not so very bad; you do not love your father, it is not the greatest sacrifice you could make.

  “I am willing,” Mary said forcefully. “If it is what keeps me from losing you.”

  “And it must be Mary and I who perform this deed?” Anne asked.

  “Death, Anne, just say yes!” Mary said indignantly. “Lazodeus shall think you bear no love for him.” It was a challenge.

  “No, Mary, Anne is right to ask. Your original summoning of me, the reason I am here and in your confidence, bore a condition that I injure nobody. I cannot injure your father. It would violate that condition.”

  “You see?” Mary said to her. “’Tis your fault the deed falls to us. You had better agree to it.”

  “I do not want her to agree to it if she has misgivings.” Lazodeus touched Anne’s hand lightly, and all the love he felt for her was concentrated into his fingers. “I shall accept my punishment and take comfort in knowing that I caused you no distress.”