by Cheryl Bolen
"Where?" Death flared in Griffin's eyes, a killing rage that made Beau take a step back. "Where is this cursed meeting to be?"
"That abbey place where I fell the day we saw Molly—the place with the—the slaughtered beasts."
"Gethsemane."
"Jack says there should be eight of them at least. We'll have to ride. Get your men." Beau felt a surge of dread, of resolve rising within her. "When Valmont knows he's been discovered he'll be desperate."
"Nay, Isabeau. He'll be dead." Griff took one of the pistols from his waist, handing it to her in a gesture that spoke worlds of his trust in her strength, in her courage. "I can raise a score of men within the hour. We can ride—"
A creak upon the stairs made them both wheel, Beau jumping as if she almost feared the mystical, evil Alistair had somehow crept up on them. But the shadowed face was that of Nell, eyes lost in pockets of flesh now wide, fearful, her ragged hair giving her the appearance of some ancient druid priestess.
Beau had felt contempt for the old woman's mystic ways for so long, loathing her for the ruin she had made of so many young girls' lives. And yet, as she stared into Nell's face now, a stark foreboding filled Beau, for it was as if the old woman had peered into the realm of the damned.
"Nell, what is it? What the blazes do you want?"
"The netherworld... it is rising tonight. A nightmare... I had a nightmare... saw..." Nell's fleshy shoulders quaked. "She was screaming."
"She? Nell, who the blazes—"
"Molly Maguire. I saw her with—with the devil. But the face... it was his. "
"Molly is abovestairs, safe in her room, thank God! I told her to stay there. Griffin and I, we have to ride."
"Nay, don't you see?" Nell's voice cracked, her aged hands plucking at her throat as though she were strangling. "Molly was desperate to get enough coin to free Jack, and that nobleman who wanted her... he'd offered me a fortune yesterday to take her for his pleasure. But I didn't think... didn't know... until—until the dream."
"Molly!" Beau shouted the name, bolting toward the stairs in desperation. "Molly, get down here."
"She's gone! Gone, and I sent her. Sent them all." Nell sobbed, sinking down onto the riser. "Don't you see? She's gone off to find the marquess of Valmont."
Chapter 21
Griffin leaned low over his horse's neck, the thundering of hooves along the dark road seeming to drive cudgels of guilt and remorse into him.
What had he done? He had wanted to draw blood. Swiftly. Had wanted to rake away this fresh clawing of grief. But instead he had slashed it like a whipcord into Isabeau's face.
And now not only she, but other innocents as well, might pay the price of his folly.
He glanced at the figure beside him, her red hair streaming in the wind, her lithe body at one with the mammoth stallion she urged along the faint, pale ribbon of dirt. She rode like a fury on the night-veiled path, her uncanny skill showing Griffin as nothing else could the daring that had earned the Devil's Flame a place in legend.
But would even her courage be enough to fight the evil of Malcolm Alistair? Would her daring be able to spark life into Molly if Valmont had already begun his grotesque revels?
Griff’s fingers clenched on the reins as his mind filled with images of that diabolical nobleman.
How could he have been so blind? He'd listened to no one, heeded only his own reckless passions. And this time he feared that nothing could ever be made right.
"This way." Beau's cry carried on the wind as she veered down an even narrower fork in the road, the trees reaching out with gnarled branches. He drew abreast of her, heard her call, "Can't be much further... turn into the wood—"
Her words ended in a sharp cry as Macbeth suddenly reared, plunging and neighing in fright as the moonlight revealed a grotesque sight in the pathway, a rich velvet cloak crimson with blood.
Griffin’s mount collided with hers, both horses half crazed with terror, and for an instant Griff thought Beau would crash to the ground. But spurred by the evidence of Valmont's dark secrets, Beau righted herself, driving her mount into the tangle of woodland toward, Griffin was certain, a horror greater than any she had ever known.
"Beau, stop!" he shouted. "You little fool!"
With an oath he gripped his own mount's reins, urging the horse to greater speed. Brutus surged faster, but Beau's stallion had gained a dozen lengths over him, the beast seeming to sense its mistress's desperation.
She plunged through a break in the trees, and he could see the clearing ahead of them. It was bathed in hellish hues, orange, sulphur yellow and blood red oozing across the stone from the torches shoved in a score of sconces. The flames' glow seemed to spew from the rooftop of the ruined structure, the colors painting the sky as they spilled through the topmost section of a spire that had fallen in centuries ago.
Signs of revelry were still scattered around the abbey's gardens: tankards, silver trays of food, a scarlet cape puddled upon the earth like a pool of fresh blood. It was as if Satan himself had split open the earth and sucked all life down into his dark domain, for it was quiet, too quiet, every evil specter wandering the earth this night seeming to be poised, waiting.
Griff felt a prickling at his nape. There had been no time to gather the men they had needed to overpower Alistair's throng. Yet this sudden feeling of being hideously vulnerable to harm was absurd, ridiculous, for it was evident that whatever evil had wreathed the ruined abbey this night had fled, leaving only its grisly aftermath.
Griff saw Beau rein in bare inches from the abbey's crumbling doorway, saw her fling herself from her mount. He called to her, commanding her to wait. But an army of demons could not have kept her from racing toward the edifice and into its arched entryway. He drove his heels deep into his horse's side, attempting to catch her, but it was too late.
She had already descended into Malcolm Alistair's hell.
The light blinded Beau, driving spikes of brightness deep into eyes already hazed with panic as she bolted through the doorway. Her fingers clenched, numb, about the butt of her pistol, her stomach pitching wildly with terror for Molly. But nothing in Beau's vivid imagination could have matched the horror before her as her sight slowly cleared.
Satanic symbols defaced the once-holy confines of Gethsemane Abbey. Crude portrayals of lurid scenes were painted over walls that had once been a glowing beacon of faith to the countryside. Every perversion that lurked in the minds of twisted men seemed represented upon the crumbling stone: a feast of decadence, a testament to bone-chilling evil.
Beau's gaze swept about what had once been the abbey's chapel, searching for some sign of life. But there was nothing save candles still burning and the sickly sweet stench of blood.
"No." Beau couldn't stop herself from whimpering the denial, but it was choked into a horrified cry as her gaze locked suddenly upon the altar. The delicate white-robed figure lying deathly still upon it was obscured from Beau's view by the veils of white that draped the aged stone—pristine white cloth now stained dark with blood.
"M-Molly!" Beau sobbed out her friend's name, hurling the pistol aside as she dashed to where the girl lay, her curls spilled out across the fabric like molten gold, her face a lifeless gray. Gray save for the streaks of blood smearing her babe-soft cheeks.
"No! Please, God, no," Beau pleaded aloud as she grabbed Molly's limp hands, her fragile wrists bound cruelly with silk cord. Warm. Her fingers were still warm, but there was no life pulsing in the hands that had softened so many of Beau's tempers, had soothed away the few woes Beau had allowed to creep about the defenses of her well-guarded heart.
She was dead.
The certainty of it broke Beau's heart, but the fates seemed to mock her. No wound marred Molly's slight, white-veiled frame; nothing seemed to bind her to the world of the dead except the cords that pinned the girl to the altar—that and her still features.
Tears streaked down Beau's face as she struggled to tear the bindings away from Molly's bruis
ed flesh. Grief more devastating than any she'd ever known knifed through Beau, combined with a half-crazed fury that branded itself deep within her.
She heard a slight sound behind her and whirled, her other pistol drawn. She prayed she would find the frigid countenance of Malcolm Alistair staring back at her. But it was Griffin's face, Griffin's eyes mirroring her own stark grief.
"Isabeau." His drawn sword dropped from his fingers as he ran toward her, catching her up in his arms as if he wanted to shield her. But she didn't want to be sheltered, didn't want to be comforted, for there was no solace in a world without Molly Maguire.
She tried to battle him, wanting nothing but to clutch Molly close. But he held her tight, her tears dampening his chest as she sagged against him.
"It is too—too late," Beau choked out. "Sweet God, I was supposed... supposed to protect her... supposed to... take care of her. I jeered at her for—for being a coward, but she—she rode here, came here... to offer herself up for Jack."
"I'm sorry, love." GrifFs anguished whisper was buried in the fall of her hair. "God in heaven, I'm so... so sorry."
Beau pulled away from the warm shelter of his arms, pulled herself from the acid burnings of grief into the cleansing, numbing flow of fury. "I'm going to kill him," she ground out. "Now, Griff. I'm going to kill Valmont."
"Isabeau."
"Damn it, I want his blood! For what—what he did to her! Look at her!" Beau spun around to where Molly yet lay, her face angel-sweet in the candlelight. "She never harmed anyone—ever."
"I'd sell my soul to bring her back to you"—Griffin's voice was thick with sorrow—"but I can't. I can do nothing but pierce Malcolm Alistair's heart with my sword for you. We'll untie her and carry her back to Darkling Moor. And then we'll ride, Isabeau. Together."
He cradled her cheeks between his hands, his handsome face taut, his eyes filled with promise. Beau felt his strength flow into her, mingled with the fiercest of loves.
She reached up a quivering hand to lie atop his and nodded.
He released her, turning back to the altar, and Beau could see the lines of his face carve deeper with compassion as he worked to slip free the knots that had bound Molly to her fate. But as he tugged at the length of cord fastened about her thin chest he suddenly froze, his eyes widening, his breath catching as he stared down at the girl.
"My God, Beau," he gasped, flattening his palm against Molly's chest. "My God, Beau, her heart—it is beating."
"B-beating? What—"
"She's alive!"
His words spiraled jubilation through Beau, and she felt as if she were tumbling, falling from a precipice. She shoved past him, pressing her own cheek against Molly's to feel the faint thrumming of her pulse.
With a glad cry Beau jerked upright. She helped Griffin untie the rest of Molly's bindings as her tears coursed cheeks that had been washed with grief moments before.
"Let me get her off of this—this thing." Loathing dripped from Griffin’s tones as he slipped one arm beneath Molly, intending to ease her down from the altar that had almost been her deathbed.
But at that instant the fragile lids opened, revealing eyes half mad with terror.
A scream tore from Molly's raw throat, the weakened girl struggling pitifully in Griffin's arms, her small fists flailing.
"Don't... don't kill me..."
Her cries chilled Beau's blood, and she hastened to catch Molly's face in her hands, forcing the terrorized girl to look at her.
"It is Lord Stone, Moll, and me, Beau:" She tried to soothe her friend. "No one is going to kill you. It is over."
"The knife! He was—was going to—Isabeau?" Suddenly Molly fell into an incredulous silence as her gaze locked upon Beau's face. Joy that Molly still lived shifted again into white-hot rage at what she had suffered. The fury inside Beau multiplied a hundredfold at the devastation evident in those once-tranquil eyes.
With a heartrending sob Molly clutched at Beau, and Beau hugged her tight, wanting to drive back the lurking evil that had nearly consumed her. Beau stroked the spun-gold hair, but her eyes blazed with protectiveness.
Griffin’s voice, deep, calming, broke in. "Molly, did they hurt you anywhere?"
"N-nay. They but told me what—what they were going to do to me—the marquess did. Sh-showed me the knife. Oh, sweet Jesus, Beau..." A sob seemed ready to tear her apart.
Isabeau crushed the girl against her. "It's all right, Molly, it's all right."
"I know you're frightened," Griffin said gently to the girl, "But we need to know... do you have any idea where they've all gone? The bastards that hurt you? Do you know what happened to make them go?"
"I d-don't know. The last thing I remember, they were all gathered around me, leering and laughing. One of them slit his own hand and—and smeared blood on my—my face, and I screamed and screamed...."
"I would have fainted clear away myself," Beau said, gently stroking the girl's hair, "what with fiends like that waving knives in my face."
"Oh, Beau I didn't—didn't know they would hurt me. I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't, love. But it's over now."
"It's not over until we're out of here." Griffin's voice was grim as he glanced around the crumbling chamber. "If we don't know why they left in such a blasted hurry, we've no way of knowing when or if they're coming back. Molly, can you walk?"
"I d-don't know. I—I'll try." She took a staggering step, but even with both Beau and Griffin attempting to support her, her knees all but buckled. A whimper escaped her lips.
"You're weak as a newborn lamb, lass, and no wonder," Griff said. "Let me carry you." With infinite gentleness Griffin scooped the girl into his arms. She sagged against him, limp as a child's rag moppet, her face pale as a drift of fresh snow.
She looked so small, so helpless, so fragile in contrast to Griffin's broad, muscled chest that Isabeau still half expected her to melt away beneath his hands as if by some evil sorcery. Beau shuddered, glancing behind her, the skin at the back of her neck tingling.
"Hurry, Griff. It's as if the place has eyes."
There was a sound from the dark alcove above the altar, and Beau wheeled, her skin crawling, blood chilling as a voice, whisper-soft, cold as death, echoed within the abbey.
"The devil has eyes everywhere... even in your very soul."
Beau heard Molly's frantic cry, saw Griffin struggle to release her and lunge for his sword. But the jewel-hilted weapon lay useless a cart's length away on the stone floor, the ominous clicking of a pistol's hammer echoing from that veil of darkness above.
"Try for the sword, Stone, and your lady will bear a most unsightly hole where her face used to be," the frigid tones warned.
Beau heard Griffin’s low curse, saw him hesitate for a heartbeat. Then he raised his hands, palms outward in a show of surrender as he stepped to place his own strong body between Beau and Molly and the demon lurking above.
"Valmont," Griff spat, eyes angling upward, "you murdering bastard."
"Stone, Stone, this is becoming a most distressing habit with you, always interrupting my amusements." Shadows pooled about the tall, thin body of Malcolm Alistair, Marquess of Valmont, obscuring him in what seemed to be almost the darkness of the grave. "But then, that boorish behavior seems to run in the Ravensmoor blood."
Candlelight glinted upon a silver pistol as Valmont stepped from the darkness dragging a weak, wobbly figure with him. The weapon was pressed tight against the soft brown curls of a gangly, broken youth held captive by Alistair's arm.
"Charles!" Griffin cried as the boy tripped over what appeared to be the robes of some strange religious order, the edges stitched in ancient symbols. The youth's thin hands were bound in front of him with silken cord, but the sleeve of the white robing him was stained an alarming bloody red. "Valmont, if you hurt him, I'll send you to the devil even faster than I'd intended," Griffin warned through gritted teeth.
Valmont moved toward the crumbling stairs, a demonic laugh escap
ing from his throat. It was as if the spirits that still lurked within the ruined abbey had pared away all pretense of sanity from the man's cadaverous face, leaving it stripped to the barest strokes of evil Griffin had ever witnessed. He had seen men—wicked men—lost in ravings before, had seen men possessed by an almost bestial savagery.
But the calculated cruelty that flickered in Malcolm Alistair's eyes terrified him more deeply than anything he had ever faced.
"U-Uncle Griff... t-tried... to stop... him..." Charles quavered, stumbling over a piece of fallen stone. "I t-tried"
"I know, boy, I know." Griff took an involuntary step forward, fear bounding inside him, pain raking him as if his own blood was draining away beneath the death-white cassock.
Alistair gave the boy a cruel jerk, jamming the pistol barrel so tight against his temple that Charles cried out. "Don't you know by now, you stupid fool? Nothing can stop me. No one can. Not you, not your uncle, not your father."
"My father?" Charles all but whimpered in denial. "What in God's name—"
"Valmont," Griffin said. "What the devil—"
Alistair shook his head with what seemed almost regret. "It was only to be a game of cat and mouse, the notes I sent. A way to bind dear Charles more closely to me when he was starting to slip from my grasp. Why, no one had ever escaped my noose before, and I could not bear the thought of losing such a pretty player in my little game. But when Charles went to his father... well, I fear sober sides William was too persistent in his attempts to discover who was bedeviling his precious son."
"Oh, my God... my God, no..." A hideous sound tore from Charles's throat.
"Sometimes we are all struck with unpleasant tasks, my own. I fear I had to kill him, run him down on the road and—"
"You bastard! You bloody bastard!" Despite the pistol and the wound in his arm, the boy struggled, wild with grief, as if daring Valmont to pull the trigger, courting it.
