Enchanter's Embrace

by A R DeClerck

  She looked up at him through her lashes. Even after he had left her in Bastion’s care, he had thought of her often and wondered about her. Worried about her. When she had walked into his room, intent on healing his wounds in those days before Longmoore, he had known only that she was the very thing he’d been missing for all those years.

  “I know you didn’t. And I love you for the way you care about people.”

  “Not people. You.”

  She smiled. “I love the way you care about me.” Her smile died along with the tingle of her power and she dropped her arm. “But I’m not that stupid, stupid girl anymore. If you die for me you will become one more soul on my conscience.”

  “You want to forget Edgar.”

  “No. I want to remember Edgar every day of my life. It’s the most fitting punishment I can imagine for what I did.”

  Archie knew they were close to the truth of her resistance to their connection. He knew that there was something much darker at the heart of her worry. Some secret fear that was far more terrible than even she could realize. “You were an innocent young girl, bamboozled by an older, evil man. You did nothing wrong.”

  Her eyes fluttered closed, and a sad smile turned up the corners of the mouth he loved more than life itself. “If only that were true.”

  He opened his mouth to continue his argument when the aether’s protective pressure dissolved. The air in the room was once again filled with the stench of death and feces, but the raging wind was gone.

  Lucia hurried to Corrigan, pressing her hand to his neck. “He’s alive. He’s hit his head.” She closed her eyes and in a few moments the captain’s eyelids fluttered open.

  “Thanks for that,” he muttered, taking Archie’s proffered hand to stand. He rubbed the back of his head ruefully. “That was unpleasant.”

  “To say the least,” Archie agreed. He was itching to pull Lucia to his room, to lock the door and demand they get to the bottom of her fears. Now was not the time. “What can we do for Old Man Wicket?”

  “We should not touch him.” Lucia sighed and crossed her arms. “Until we understand the nature of the spell it could be dangerous to attempt to undo it.”

  “Very well.” Archie went to the window and looked down to see two carriages pull into the front drive. “It appears both Grayson and the solicitor have appeared in time for an early supper. Let’s lock this wing up tight and ward it. I don’t want anyone wandering in here to encounter that wind.”

  They left the rooms, closing and locking them tight. Archie removed his wand from his coat and raised it, spelling the ancient rune words over the wood of the door and the doorframe carefully.

  “I’ve never seen wards like those.” Corrigan’s eyes followed the layers of protective magic that Archie pushed into the wood.

  “Some mages have a predilection for offense. Some for healing. I happen to understand the art of protection and defense.”

  “He’s the best ward-smith in London,” Lucia said. She did not look at Archie, but there was a hint of pride in her voice. “Icarus may be the Grand Adept, but Archimedes could out-ward him any day of the week.”

  Corrigan laughed. “Good to know.” He turned worried eyes to the doorway now covered in glowing golden rune-work. “Is it safe to leave the old man in there like that?”

  “We must be on our guard,” Archie answered, tucking his wand away. “There’s more going on here than we’ve realized. Until we know what we’re dealing with we need to be vigilant.”

  “I think I should find Bastion.” Corrigan glanced at the sun, setting low across the fields. “It’s not safe for any of us to be out alone. No one from the estate can be trusted.”

  “Bring him back and find out what you can about the Wickets from the Roma. Tonight, when the house has gone to bed, we’ll gather to discuss what we’ve learned.”

  Corrigan nodded and took off, his long legs eating up the carpeted hallway.

  Archie glanced from the corner of his eye at Lucia.

  “You should change your clothes before supper,” she said, eyeing the bloodstains on his coat and shirt. She touched his jaw, her thumb rubbing it gently. “We still have a lot of work to do, and it’s only going to become more dangerous from here.”

  He covered her hand with his. “I trust you to protect my back.”

  “I always will. I’ll see you at dinner.” She walked away, but he knew the extra flounce of her skirt was for his benefit only. He was enjoying her sudden bit of teasing, but he knew that she was right. The body of Old Man Wicket had only served to prove that Elizabeth’s fears were well founded. A dark mage haunted Kensington, and he had his sights set on Summer Ridge. Some days he really missed Icarus.

  The solicitor was a rotund man with greying whiskers and a penchant for the word “bugger”, and many variations thereof. He was saddened by the death of old Wicket, but, according to him, it was “not surprising, considering the age of the old bugger.”

  Archimedes ground his teeth in annoyance as Grayson disembarked from the carriage followed by his brother. Elizabeth greeted the elder Trimble son warmly and he bowed low over Lucia’s hand before shaking with the men.

  “It was good of you to come for dinner,” Elizabeth said to the man, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. Grayson put his arm around her. “I will need the support of my most trusted friends to keep going now.”

  “The Trimbles and the Wickets have always been friends,” Atraxas said, patting her hand. “We will continue to provide whatever you may need in this trying time.”

  Justice appeared on the porch to announce that dinner was served, and Archimedes did not miss the way that Lucia watched the Trimbles and Elizabeth.

  “Is something buzzing your bonnet?” he whispered to her as the others preceded them into the dining room.

  “Something,” she agreed, taking his hand in hers. “But I have no real precedence for the feeling.”

  “Eyes open and wands at the ready,” he suggested, tapping his pocket where his own wand sat.

  “Yes,” she said under her breath as he pulled out her chair, “that sounds agreeable.”

  Corrigan and Bastion appeared just as Mrs. Burch brought out the soup. Bastion hurried to the kitchen to wash his hands, but Archimedes noted the weary blush on his cheeks.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Burch.” Elizabeth smiled as Bastion slid into his chair with an apologetic nod. “Are the Roma children recovering, Dr. Tinsley?”

  “As well as can be expected.” Bastion took a long drink of water from his glass. “It’s like no illness I’ve ever seen. It attacks all the organs.”

  “Dreadful!” The solicitor’s name was Paterson, and he dabbed at his whiskers with his napkin.

  Archimedes lifted his spoon to sip at his soup. Mrs. Burch had a way with tomatoes, he had to admit. The flavors were sublime. He noticed that Lucia had not touched her food, but she was carefully observing everyone at the table with shrewd eyes.

  “I’ve done what I can to stabilize them and make them comfortable, but I fear we’ll need more than magic and Romani herbs to cure them.”

  The elder Trimble leaned back and crossed his arms. “I find it hard to imagine that a dark wizard would attack the Roma. I thought they warded against such magics.”

  “They do.” Bastion’s eye met Archie’s. “Their wards are nearly as good as yours.”

  “Powerful magic indeed,” Archie murmured. He sat back as Mrs. Burch moved around the table, replacing the soup bowls with bowls of watercress salad. Not caring for the smell of the thick dressing, he pushed his bowl aside.

  “Without my workers to finish the casking I’ll lose this entire year’s crops.” Elizabeth paused with her fork over the salad. “Those poor people are suffering because of me.”

  “This is not your fault,” Grayson assured her. He lifted a forkful of salad to his mouth.

  “Wait!”

  Everyone started as Lucia jumped up from her chair. She hurried to Grayson, slapping the fork to the gr
ound.

  “You can’t eat that!”

  “Lucia, what’s gotten into you?” Corrigan demanded, standing.

  Before she could answer, the solicitor went ramrod straight in his chair, his face reddening to an impossible shade of crimson.

  “Mr. Paterson?” Elizabeth leaned toward him, but Grayson pulled her back.

  “There’s poison in the salad dressing.” Lucia knelt next to the portly Paterson as he began to shake and foam at the mouth. She pressed her fingers to the pulse at his throat.

  “Poison!” Atraxas stood, knocking back his chair. “What kind of rubbish is this?”

  “I thought I stopped it before anyone had taken a bite.”

  Bastion moved next to Lucia and together they lowered the convulsing lawyer to the floor.

  “Can you save him?” Archimedes asked. He bent over the bowl of watercress, sniffing the pungent dressing. It smelled of oil and vinegar, with an underlying nutty scent he could not place.

  “Don’t even smell it,” Lucia ordered from the ground. “It’s cyanide.”

  “As for saving the fellow, I’m not sure anyone could.” Bastion’s voice was filled with disgust as Paterson’s body stopped shaking and went limp. “A lethal dose in just one bite.”

  “This is monstrous!” Elizabeth moved away from the table, making sure her eyes stayed averted from the body of the solicitor on the floor. “Who would have wanted to murder us all at the dinner table?”

  Lucia pressed Paterson’s eyes closed. “Murder us, indeed. Cyanide is a particularly nasty way to go.” She glanced up at Archie. “It’s best we gather all the staff together.”

  He stood.

  “Wait, I don’t understand. Surely this is the work of the dark mage?” Elizabeth was shaking, her eyes still on her lawyer’s body.

  “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Wicket.” Archie strode to the doorway that led to the kitchen. “Most dark mages could kill with naught more than a thought. Poisoning is the work of someone without magical talents.”

  “Surely you’re mistaken.”

  “Justice! Mrs. Burch! Please come to the dining room,” Archie called through the door. Corrigan stood, his hand on his gun, but after a moment the two servants did not appear. Corrigan removed the weapon from the holster and took up his position at Archie’s back as he removed his wand from his pocket. “Everyone stay here, please. Guard one another.”

  Archimedes blinked against the darkness in the butler’s pantry. He waved his wand and illuminated the air around them, but the room was empty. A gravy boat and Mrs. Burch’s cart, loaded with the main course, sat unattended in the corner. Archie caught Corrigan’s eye and the man nodded his understanding to proceed with caution.

  Archie pushed the swinging door to the kitchen open with his foot. Just beyond it he could see the flickering firelight of the hearth and the long butcher’s block covered in vegetables and cutlery. He stepped cautiously into the room, the Air Corps Captain at his back.

  There were cauldrons of water boiling over the hearth in preparation for dishes after their supper. Neither the butler nor the housekeeper could be found.

  “Odd,” Corrigan said quietly. He did not holster the gun but he lowered it a notch.

  “If they were unaware of the poison in the salad they would be at their posts. Culprits would most certainly have fled the area as soon as their deception was discovered.”

  “But it seems that they disappeared in mid-task,” Corrigan agreed.

  Archie pointed to the back door as it banged open with a sudden gust of wind. “What’s that all about?”

  Outside the house the sun was low on the horizon, the sky streaked with mustard and rose. Archie sniffed, the smell of sulfur making his mouth go dry.

  “We’d best return to the house,” Corrigan said with a hand on his shoulder. The captain’s eyes were casting about the shadows that grew around them. He knew as well as Archie that the sick smell of rotting eggs meant more than a stray chicken out of the coop. It meant demons were near.

  Archie nodded and they backed toward the kitchen door. They froze in mid-step as the sound of screams met their ears.

  “Bloody hell,” Corrigan muttered, closing his eyes. “They’re attacking the Romani.”

  “Get Grayson. Tell Bastion and Lucia to guard the others. We’ll go for the Roma.” Archie closed his eyes and prayed the aether would listen to him when he needed it most. It was a fickle friend, to be sure, but he’d seen it do unbelievable things in the last few months. Things no wizard had ever imagined possible. He closed the kitchen door as Corrigan ran toward the dining room.

  “Don’t go out there.”

  He turned and gathered Lucia into his arms. “I have to. Those are innocent people, and they’re under our protection.”

  “Let me go with you, then. We’re always strongest when we’re together.”

  Archie smiled at her words, as they echoed the same sentiment he had tried to impress upon Icarus and Cora in the days before Longmoore. “I need you here,” he told her, pressing a kiss to her lips. “Where you can best safeguard Elizabeth and Atraxas.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Not too safe for that one, though.”

  She chuckled, though it did not erase the worry in her eyes. “Very well. If we’re attacked I’ll sacrifice his life for Elizabeth’s,” she joked.

  “Good.” He let her go reluctantly as Grayson and Corrigan appeared. He raised his wand and wove an intensely complicated protection spell about all three of them. “Stay in the light as best you can,” he instructed, and once again he wished Icarus was there to tell him what to do. His best friend had a way with courting luck that he had never seemed to master. “We run hard and fast to the Romani cabins. When we are there we do what we can to save as many as we can. Remember, the aether has three rules. They cannot kill, they cannot change the past and they cannot tell us the future.” He glanced at Corrigan. “Will that thing do any good against a demon?”

  “They’re as electrically charged as any creature,” he replied. “It will stun them at the least.”

  “Good. Stay close to me, then.” Archie looked at Grayson, and the young mage took a deep breath before nodding.

  “I’ll do what I can,” he promised.

  What he could do, Archie knew, was far more than one might expect of such a young man. Grayson’s magic was white-hot and as powerful as any he’d ever seen. They would need it, he figured, as the screams grew louder.

  “One, two, three,” he counted, throwing open the door and running toward the Romani cabins at full tilt. His friends were close behind, and the last thing he heard before his survival instinct took over was the slam of the kitchen door behind them and the bleak white press of Lucia’s face against the glass as she watched them go.

  A Demon or Two (or Three)

  Archimedes ran as fast as his legs would take him. He could sense Corrigan behind him, but it was the heavy press of the air around him that had him worried.

  The Romani cabins came into view as he crested a rise. It was black as pitch around them, the only light from the flickering campfire in the clearing at the center of the group.

  “I’ll be damned.” Corrigan huffed, his cheeks red with exertion. “I’ve never seen that many before.”

  “Can’t you feel the magic? The aether is literally screaming the dark magic is so strong.”

  Corrigan lifted his pistol, as if a blast from its barrel might clear the herd of demons below. “What’s the plan?”

  “We need light.” Grayson had taken a little longer to reach the rise, but he was younger than they were and barely out of breath. Little particles of static electricity crackled all around him, the aether called to the magic inside him. “I can weaken them while you get the Roma out.”

  “Careful,” Archie warned. He reached into his pocket and removed his chalk. “Don’t draw too many, or the dark wizard might focus on you.”

  Grayson took the chalk. He bent, drawing a circle around himself, marking runes so archaic that
even Icarus had not recognized them.

  “Let’s go,” Archie said, taking Corrigan’s arm. He drew his wand from his pocket and spoke the words to the aether around them that would activate it. “You remember what the evil in Longmoore felt like?”

  “I’m sure to never forget.”

  “This will be worse. They’ll attempt to crawl inside you, through your eyes, up your nostrils or down your throat.”

  “Charming. How do we keep them out?” Corrigan’s thumb stroked the gun, but Archie shook his head.

  “Concentrate on good. Saving people. The aether will reject the dark aether and destroy it but it does not work fast. You’ll have to hold them off as long as you can.”

  “Right-o.” The screams of the Roma grew louder, the darkness solidifying more in the dim moonlight. “Off we go, then.”

  Archie looked over his shoulder to see Grayson in the center of the circle, his hands out with his palms up. The static arced off him, creating a whirlwind of electric energy. Already he could sense the demon horde below them being drawn to Grayson’s power.

  “Now’s the time,” he said, raising his wand. “Run!”

  LUCIA TOOK THE SHAWL from Atraxas gratefully. Elizabeth had insisted they cover the solicitor’s body with a spare tablecloth, and they had moved into the library. She sat by the fire, staring into the flames while Atraxas paced. Bastion had begun to search the kitchen for any other poisoned foods.

  “I should be out there with them. I can fight.”

  Lucia smiled a wan smile. Men always did expect to be directly in the heat of battle. “This is not a battle of strength, Mr. Trimble.” She looked out the library window, which overlooked the far-off Romani camp. “These are demons, called up from hell by dark magic.”

  “Damn Atticus Dooley.”

  “What does he have to do with this? He was hanged, a decade ago from what I understand.”

  Atraxas’ hair stood on end from repeated mussing. He made it worse with another swipe. “Dooley tricked everyone in Kensington, made us look like blind fools. We could not even detect the wolf among us. It’s no wonder we’re under attack again.”