Jordan joined her, squinting toward the ceiling. “I don’t see anything up there.”
She didn’t either, but she felt a thrill of certainty.
“Remember the story of Dr. Faustus,” Erin said. “A legend tied to this place. According to the story, he was whisked up through the ceiling, taken by the devil. What if that story had its roots right here?”
Elizabeth stared up. “I can make out a faint outline of a square. Though I never witnessed it myself, I heard that Kelly had secret doors and stairs throughout his homes.”
So why not one in the ceiling?
Jordan looked less convinced. “Even if there’s some attic up there, who knows if it’s important?”
“It is,” Elizabeth said. She dropped to a knee and drew in the dust. “This entire room screams its importance. The circular room, the triangle, and now the square above.”
She inscribed the layout of all three in the dust, forming a symbol.
“This is the mark for the philosopher’s stone!” Elizabeth breathed.
Erin’s heart beat faster, staring up, trying to make out that square. “The philosopher’s stone was supposed to turn lead into gold, and also to create the elixir of life. It’s the most important element in alchemy. Something must be up there.”
Jordan hurried to the abandoned desk. “Help me with this!”
Before Erin could move, Elizabeth was there, beside Jordan, shoving the desk to the center of the room with little other help.
Once in place, Erin clambered up, reaching toward the roof, but she was still too short. Even Jordan tried, but he was two feet shy from brushing his fingertips against the ceiling. But at least, she could make out that outline of a square herself now.
Erin turned to Jordan. “I’m going to need you to—”
The clash of steel on steel cut her off, echoing up from the lower levels. After setting the fires below, ensuring no retreat that way, the enemy must have started its assault on the stairs, forging upward—only to discover Rhun and Christian guarded those steps.
But how long could their defense last?
The answer came immediately: a pained scream rose from below.
Elizabeth spun toward the noise, recognizing its source. “Rhun . . .”
“Go,” Erin ordered, but Elizabeth was already across the room and through the door, shoving past Sophia, rushing to Rhun’s aid.
Sophia pointed to them as she grabbed the room’s door handle. “Find what’s up there!” she ordered, then stepped to the hallway and slammed the doors closed behind her, leaving Erin and Jordan alone.
“Boost me,” Erin said breathlessly, staying on task to stave off paralyzing panic.
Jordan lifted her, and she climbed onto his shoulders. Wobbling a little, she pushed against the center of the square above, but it didn’t give.
Screams and snarls echoed through the guarded door.
“Hurry,” Sophia called from the far side.
“I got you,” Jordan reassured her. “And you got this.”
I’d better.
She took a steadying breath, pushed off the top of Jordan’s head, and braced her shoulder against the ceiling. She shoved hard. Dust and crumbling plaster rained down as one corner of the square budged, raising one inch.
So it is a door!
She repositioned herself closer to the edge that gave way and pushed again. The door lifted higher, enough for her to wedge her foot-long flashlight lengthwise into the crack, propping the way open.
“Got it . . .”
She grabbed the edge of the opening and pulled herself through the narrow crack, worming on her belly past her flashlight, careful not to dislodge it. Once through, she swung around and used her legs to raise the door even higher.
“Don’t know how much longer I can hold it!” she called down.
“I can jump for it.”
He proved a man of his word. His fingers snatched the edge of the opening and he pulled himself through, clambering up next to her. He then used his own muscular legs to hold it, while she found a stout iron bar nearby to prop it open.
Panting from the effort, Erin retrieved her flashlight and played the beam across the secret attic space. Dust coated everything. From the higher rafters, all manner of ropes and pulleys hung.
She moved away from the open hatch, brushing aside a drape of rope, stirring up a snowstorm of dust motes. “All this must be some of Kelly’s secret mechanisms, used to move doors and stairs.”
“Too bad none of it is functional,” Jordan said. “Maybe we could’ve used it to make our escape.”
Reminded of the threat, Erin accidentally bumped a toothed metal gear from its hook. It clattered to the floor. The noise was explosive in the confined space.
She continued deeper. The attic space appeared to be half the diameter of the room below. It didn’t take long for her flashlight’s beam to reveal a tall object, upright in a corner, filmed by grime and age.
There was no mistaking its shape.
“The bell,” Erin said.
She stared at the large artifact, at the protruding length of glass pipe, remembering Elizabeth’s story of hundreds of strigoi dying inside, their smoke collected and funneled down that pipe. She was momentarily fearful of approaching it, knowing its awful history. But she set such superstitions aside and moved over to it.
“Rudolf must’ve had it hidden here after John Dee died,” she said.
“So was that the emperor’s message for Elizabeth, to show her how to find this blasted thing. Why? So she might continue the work that Dee had started?”
“I hope so,” Erin said.
Jordan glanced sharply at her. “Why would you wish that?”
With the cuff of her sleeve, Erin rubbed away the centuries of filth and dust from the glass. Once she had cleaned a large enough window, she peered through the thick greenish glass.
“That’s why . . .”
Jordan leaned next to her. “There’s a whole pile of papers inside there.”
“If Rudolf brought John Dee’s bell here,” she said, nodding to the stack, “he would’ve certainly also included the old alchemist’s notes.”
“Like its operation’s manual. Makes sense.” Jordan ran his palms over the bell’s surface, searching for a way inside. “Look! There’s a door over here. I think I can get it open.”
He yanked at the catches and bands and the door came off in his hand.
She reached inside the bell and grabbed sheaves of paper, dragging them out.
“Most of this looks like it’s written in Enochian,” she said, stuffing the papers into her backpack, next to the case that held the Blood Gospel. “Hopefully, Elizabeth can translate it.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
Together, they moved back to the hatch—only to hear a blast of shattered wood.
As they stared below, a broken door skittered across the floor. Sophia flew into view, deftly sliding on her feet, turning to face the entrance, her blades raised.
“Stay there!” she shouted to them without looking up.
The reason stalked into view.
Through a roll of black smoke, a hulking beast lumbered into view, its head low, teeth bared, a mane of dark hackles shivering along its neck and spine.
A grimwolf.
Jordan swore and kicked the iron bar that supported the hatch door.
It crashed down.
Trapping them in the attic.
6:37 P.M.
Pinned down on a wide landing of the stairs, Rhun held his position, his right arm hanging uselessly at his side. He had failed to even see the blade that had wounded him. His blocks and counterstrikes felt slow and clumsy. In his weakened state, he felt like a child playing at war against these curse-strengthened soldiers.
And in turn, they seemed to be toying with him.
They could have killed him by now, but they held off.
Why? Was it purely out of malice or some other reason?
Three strigoi c
losed a triangle around him. They were all bigger, muscle-bound, covered with scars and tattoos. Each carried a heavy curved falchion. None was particularly skilled with his weapon, but they were faster and stronger than Rhun. First one, then another would dart forward and slice Rhun’s arms, his chest, his face. They could have killed him at any time, but they chose instead to play with him, like a cat with a frightened mouse.
But I am no mouse.
He took their cuts, watched their actions, and searched for any weaknesses.
Smoke billowed up from the stairs below. Christian fought somewhere down there, but Rhun had lost sight of him after attempting to pursue a grimwolf that had bounded past him a moment ago. He had heard it crash through the door a floor above, heard Sophia’s shout. Still, he could not break free of these three to go to the others’ aid.
At least not by myself.
A sharper cry and the ringing of steel told him Christian still lived. But what about Elizabeth? She had come to his rescue a few breathless moments ago, flying down the stairs like a black falcon, taking down two opponents, including the strigoi who had incapacitated Rhun’s right arm. She and her two combatants had vanished into the smoke.
Did she still live?
Distracted by this thought, he moved too slowly as the largest of his opponents lunged yet again. His sword cut a swath across Rhun’s ribs. Another came at him from his injured side. Rhun had no way to—
Suddenly, that second attacker vanished, yanked back into the pall of smoke. A gurgling scream echoed out. The other two strigoi closed ranks, as a small, dark figure stalked into view, climbing from the lower stairs to the second-floor landing.
Elizabeth.
She carried a broadsword that dripped black blood. The blade looked absurdly huge in her dainty hands, but she held it easily, as if the weight did not concern her.
The largest of the strigoi charged toward her, his falchion cleaving through the air faster than Rhun’s eye could follow. But she melted away at the last second, pirouetting on one toe, swinging her sword around, and cutting her attacker cleanly through his throat. The creature’s headless body went tumbling down the steps behind her.
Rhun used the distraction of her dance to lash out at the remaining strigoi, planting his karambit through the back of its neck, severing the spine with a deft twist of his wrist. As the body went limp, he kicked it over the landing’s rail.
Elizabeth joined him, both arms soaked in blood, her face spattered. “Too many,” she gasped. “Scarcely made it back.”
He thanked her with a touch on her free hand. She squeezed his fingers.
“Working together,” she said, “we could still make the front door.”
Rhun sagged against the wall. Blood trickled from a hundred cuts. If he had been human, he would have been dead a dozen times over. As it was, he felt terribly weak. He pointed an arm up.
“Erin and Jordan,” he said. “We cannot abandon them.”
The howl of the grimwolf reminded him of the danger.
Elizabeth put an arm around his shoulders, holding him up. “You can barely stand.”
He could not argue about that. Rescuing the others would have to hold a moment longer. He pulled his wine flask from his thigh and drained it in one long swallow. Elizabeth stood sentinel next to him, patient and silent in the smoke. He remembered a long ago day when they had walked across fields enveloped in a late-spring fog much like this. She was yet human, and he was yet the Sanguinist who had never fallen.
He closed his eyes and waited for his penance.
It tore him back in time to his worst sin. Memories washed over him, but he had no time for penance now, and he fought it, knowing that it would claim him all the stronger with his next drink of wine.
Still, snatches of the past flashed through his body.
. . . the scent of chamomile in Elizabeth’s long-ruined castle . . .
. . . firelight reflected in those silver eyes . . .
. . . the feeling of her warm flushed skin against his as he claimed her . . .
. . . her body dying in his arms . . .
. . . his foolish, dreadful choice . . .
He returned to himself, with the taste of her blood still on his tongue: rich, salty, and alive. He gripped the cross around his neck, praying through the pain, until the taste of her was gone.
He then stepped free of Elizabeth’s arm, standing straighter, feeling renewed strength in his veins. Her silver eyes met his and it was as if she saw straight through him to that night and the passion and pain they had shared. He leaned toward her, his lips touching hers.
A chunk of the ceiling crashed down across the upper stairs, chasing them both back. Fiery embers billowed up, surrounded him, lighting in his cassock and on his hair.
Elizabeth beat them out with both hands. Anger flashed across those silver eyes, then resignation. “We cannot return upstairs . . . at least not from inside the house. We will best serve your friends if we leave this place now, then climb to the roof from the outside.”
Rhun acknowledged the logic of her suggestion. He must get to Erin, Jordan, and Sophia before this cursed building came down, turning this place into their fiery grave.
He pointed below, into a maelstrom of fire and blood, praying he wasn’t already too late. “Go.”
March 18, 7:02 P.M. CET
Prague, Czech Republic
Legion strode across the flat roof of the malevolent structure, while overhead the vault of the sky crackled with lightning. Below, fires burned through the house, flames blew out its lower windows, and smoke choked up into the rainy night. Under his feet, the evil of this place flowed through his bones of his vessel, filling him with power and purpose.
Over the rooftop, he tracked his prey, closing in on them: two heartbeats, marking the only two humans within the fiery structure.
The Warrior and the Woman.
As he had planned, the enemy had fled the flames he had set, chased ever higher.
Toward me.
If the two humans were nearby, the Knight would not be far from their sides. But as this immortal did not have a heartbeat to track, Legion could not be certain of his exact whereabouts. So he intended to hunt down these two and await the Knight.
And he did not hunt alone.
Heavy paws padded alongside him, splashing in the pools of rainwater. The wolf growled with each boom of thunder, as if challenging the heavens.
Legion shared the beast’s senses, staring equally through its eyes, straining with its sharper ears, smelling the lightning in the air. He reveled in its wild heart. Even corrupted by black blood, the wolf reminded him of the beauty and majesty of this earthly garden.
Together, they homed in on those two heartbeats underfoot. He intended to slay the Warrior first, listening even now to the strange beat to that one’s heart, how it pealed like a golden bell—bright, clear, and holy. He also remembered how the Warrior’s blood had burned through one of Legion’s enslaved. He must not be allowed to live.
And the stone the Warrior possesses will be mine.
But the Woman . . . she could yet prove useful.
Leopold had supplied Legion her name: Erin. And with that name came more details of the prophecy concerning her, this Woman of Learning. Leopold’s respect and admiration for the woman’s keen mind was easy to read. Merged as one, Leopold equally knew Legion’s purpose, flickering with the knowledge that Legion needed all three stones. Leopold believed that she of all people possessed the skill to find those last two stones. And though he could not possess the Woman and bend her to his will, he would find other ways to persuade her, to make her submit.
At last, they reached the spot on the roof directly above those two beating hearts. Legion sent his desire to the wolf. Powerful paws began to dig through the clay roof tiles, then sharp caws tore away the green metal nailed beneath.
Once there was only a thin sheaf of wood remaining, Legion touched the wolf’s flank, sending it appreciation and respect.
/> “This prey is mine,” he whispered aloud.
The grimwolf submitted, lowering its muzzle, ever faithful. Legion felt his love for the great wild beast echo back to him. Knowing it would guard him with its very life, Legion stepped to the ravaged section of tiles and stamped his powerful heel through the last of the wood, breaking the way open—and dropped heavily through the hole.
He crashed to the floor below, landing on his feet, not even buckling a knee.
He found himself facing the Warrior, who carried an iron bar in his hands. The Woman huddled past his shoulder, holding a beam of light in her grip. Both were unsurprised, ready, having heard the wolf digging, but still Legion enjoyed the looks of horror on their faces as they gazed upon his dark glory for the first time.
He smiled, showing teeth, revealing Leopold’s fangs.
Legion felt the flutter of recognition in the Warrior’s heart—and the confusion.
But one emotion was strongest of all, shining in both of their faces.
Determination.
Neither would yield this night.
So be it.
All that truly mattered was the Knight, and the one called Korza was not yet here.
The Warrior pushed the Woman—Erin—farther behind his golden heart, as if his body alone could shield her from Legion. Her light skittered to the side when she moved. The beam struck a tall object to Legion’s left, reflecting off its mired surface, shining brightly from one section that was recently polished.
The emerald hue caught Legion’s eye, igniting fury deep inside him.
It was the hated bell.
The smoke of the six hundred and sixty-six roiled inside him, recognizing the infernal device. They writhed up like a black storm, stirring memories into a whirlwind. Legion’s awareness splintered, between past and present, between his own recollection and that of the many.
. . . he crawls across the smooth sides of a green diamond, searching for an opening . . .
. . . he fails six hundred and sixty-six times . . .
Before Legion could fully recover from the shock, the Warrior fell upon him. Impossibly strong hands grabbed his wrists. As that sun-blessed flesh touched his shadowy skin, a golden fire burst forth between them, flaming up his arm to his shoulder.
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