The Dark Matters Quartet

by Claire Robyns

  A soft knock jerked Lily from her horror-fuelled daze.

  Armand waited just outside the door. “A word, m’lord.”

  Kelan’s gaze came to Lily, piercing her with that blue, cold intensity. Mocking her personal concerns as frivolous, judging her on thoughts and fears he couldn’t possibly know. She sucked in a dry breath of air and lowered her head.

  His palm had flattened over the book. His fingers were long, his hand large, the skin crossed with thin, white scars.

  “If offering some respite, even for only a few short decades at a time, makes me a fool,” Kelan said, his voice a rich, quiet timbre, “then so be it.”

  Lily’s heart gave a small kick and her eyes shot up. He’d turned to address Greyston and she caught a glimpse of him in profile, hair layered across his cheekbone and into the curve below his jaw, just before he spun away from the desk. Her gaze followed him to the door, her heart still not beating quite evenly and the strangest sensation of warmth pooling low in her abdomen.

  “Good God.” Greyston slammed his palms on the desk and leaned in, blocking her view and bringing his scowl right up to her face. “Don’t tell me you fell for it.”

  “Everyone knows about the Black Fire,” she said breathlessly, “and I’ve even heard the rumours of Cellaweste.” She pushed further back into her chair. “All those terrible incidents, and who knows how many others?”

  “He’s using emotion, damned female sentimentality, to recruit you.” Greyston slammed the desk so hard, the book shuddered. “Don’t you see that?”

  Their eyes locked, his filled with anger and concern.

  “And if he is?” She certainly agreed manipulation wasn’t above any McAllister, much less Kelan, who’d accused her of a hundred sins with just one look. And yet… “Does that make all the tragedy any less terrible? Less true?”

  “It’s not your fight.”

  “Neither was it Kelan’s, until he decided to make it so,” she said, not sure why she was arguing. It wasn’t as if she intended to don battle armour and go forth to war.

  “He’s not a bloody saint.”

  “No, he isn’t.” He was closer to an avenging angel, bent on a righteous path no matter the cost to himself or anyone else. It would be treacherous to her health, to her sanity, to start admiring the man now.

  “Don’t forget he’s been hiding out in Florence until very recently.” Greyston straightened and folded his arms as Kelan joined them again. “So, tell us, how many demons have you personally fought and banished?”

  “Once you’ve banished your first demon, perhaps we can share notes.” Kelan dismissed him with a raised brow and tapped the page he’d left the book opened to with his index finger. “Your demon first came through in 1776. Johnnie McAllister banished it after Cellaweste and then again in 1804 when it took the guise of a clergyman in the parish of Wirksworth.”

  From the amount of small writing on that page and the half of the next page Kelan turned to, there were clearly detailed descriptions of these encounters.

  “I’d appreciate it if we could sit together later and add your experiences with Flavith for future reference.” Kelan stepped back from the table, his gaze including both of them. “We have the means to seal the Cairngorms breach and be done with this foolish war. However, once the tear between dimensions disappears, demons cannot cross through either way, not of their own will and not by banishment.”

  “And since they can’t be killed…” Greyston said, actually sounding interested for the first time since the conversation started.

  “We’re stuck with any demons left on our side,” Kelan finished, looking him in the eye. “That’s not a risk we’re prepared to take and hence my uncle’s desperate measures. He hoped that one or more of the children he’d chosen would demonstrate the ability of demon sight.”

  Lily shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She’d recently had the type of visions some might easily refer to as the second sight. She’d seen Lady Ostrich in them, not once, but twice. “Demon sight?”

  Kelan looked at her, nodding. “While demons have a natural tendency to wreak havoc on a large scale, there have been instances where one has gone undetected by us for years. As valuable as the manifestation of other abilities would obviously be, identifying the existence of any demons remaining in our world is how we’ll win this war. We’ll have confirmation of when it’s finally safe to seal the breach.”

  “How does this demon sight work?” she asked.

  “Being aware of a demonic presence. Casting a web of mental probes to find demon energy. Visions.” Kelan shrugged. “My uncle didn’t fully know what to expect and I know even less.”

  Greyston caught her eye and shook his head, his brow drawn into a furious scowl.

  He’s reached the same conclusion. She stood and walked to where Ana lay upon the workbench, needing to distract Kelan from the thoughts racing through her mind. Both times, Lady Ostrich had been the blurred figure. And what about all the other spells that had come before? There’d always been one person in the scene not wholly tethered to the image, the figure Dr. Ragon had suggested may be the persona of her mother. Oh, dear Lord, I see demons. A shiver rippled along her spine. Her knees buckled and she had to put a hand on the workbench for support.

  “When did Lady Ostrich come through the breach?” She tried to sound modestly interested and no more. “This last time, I mean?”

  “I won’t know that until I’ve trapped it,” Kelan replied. “There are two things we can compel a demon to tell us without invoking a price: their true name and the date they entered our dimension.”

  January 1845. That’s when she’d succumbed to her first spell. A few months before—no, she kept forgetting—straight after her fifteenth birthday. Near enough to when Greyston had first discovered his ability to time-run. But how? Why? And how could Duncan McAllister possibly have known it would happen to them? She took a deep breath to quell the rising panic and made a show of tugging Ana’s skirts neatly over her ankles to keep up the pretence.

  “By the way,” Kelan said, “your ship has returned. They passed overhead a few minutes ago. There’s a plateau further up on the cliff top large enough for docking.”

  Lily spun around. Jean.

  “I’ve sent Armand to guide them down the hill,” Kelan added, his full attention on Greyston. “There was no reason for you to leave the protection of Cragloden.”

  “That’s not your decision to make,” Greyston snapped and stormed from the room.

  Unperturbed, Kelan calmly closed the book and carried it into the alcove.

  Lily stared daggers into his back. “You deliberately antagonise him.”

  “You’re wrong,” he called out. “And I wouldn’t have to try and manage him at all if he didn’t overreact to every little thing like a temperamental child.”

  “You’re not qualified to judge how big or little an impact each of those things might have on him,” Lily fumed on her way out the door.

  Kelan hadn’t been running from his family, friends and home for six years. Kelan hadn’t survived the incineration of Cragloden and then lived in the shadow of all those futile deaths. Kelan hadn’t only just discovered hell was rising, one demon at a time!

  Evelyn was already on the portico when Lily got there, just in time to see Greyston disappear from sight around the perimeter wall.

  “What’s the Red Hawk doing back do soon?” Evelyn demanded. “Greyston distinctly ordered them to wait in Edinburgh for Jean. What does this mean?”

  Lily looked at her helplessly. She had no comforting reassurances to offer, not when they both knew exactly what it meant. “We should prepare for the worst, Evie.”

  The forbidding man with ice blond hair and black thunder in his eyes marching up the drive a short while later was not the worst, she expected that was still to come, but he was high up on the list.

  Evelyn groaned. “How in the blazes did he get here so quickly?”

  “Did you send your message?” sh
e asked, watching Armand come through the pedestrian entrance next with William in tow.

  “Far too late, apparently.” She edged away. “I can’t do this now. Tell him…tell him anything.”

  “Oh, no, you don’t.” Lily grabbed her arm and held her in place. “Look at the state of your marriage from the last time I tried to help.”

  As Devon climbed the steps, Lily saw his eyes weren’t blackened with temper but from the dark circles sagging beneath. He stopped a few feet from them, his gaze boring into his wife, ignoring Lily completely.

  He shoved a hand into his trouser pocket, then brought it out again and opened his palm beneath Evelyn’s nose. “I thought you were dead.”

  Evelyn scooped her wedding ring from the palm of his hand. “Devon, I’m sorry, I never intended—”

  He sliced a hand through her apology. The silence thickened, Devon’s scowl darkening by the second and neither Lily nor Evelyn daring another word.

  “Lord Harchings, I presume?” Kelan said from the front door, breaking the tension. “Welcome to Cragloden.”

  Devon rounded on him. “What sort of household are you running here?”

  “We’ve seen better days,” Kelan agreed amiably, waving Devon inside on the promise to discuss everything through to a satisfactory conclusion.

  William, hovering at the bottom of the step, waited a moment more after Devon had stepped inside the house before trudging up to them. “They told His Lordship you had died during the night,” he muttered, mangling his cap in his hands. “I didn’t even know they’d sent word, and someone from the hospital met him at the Dirigible Docking Yard. By the time I could speak to him, it was too late.”

  That was it, then. Lily’s heart suddenly weighed a stone. Jean had not survived the night. Jean was dead. Killed by Lady Ostrich. Greyston hadn’t been able to save her. The damnable McAllisters had been nowhere in sight, despite their proclamations of saving the entire bloody world. Jean was dead. Her mother was dead. Countless others…

  A firestorm of anger rose inside her. It was a torrent, burning through her veins, flushing out the helpless, useless, timid woman who relied on men to save the day and yearned to dive beneath the bed covers until it was safe to emerge. The weight slowly lifted from her chest and she could breathe freely again.

  She may not be as knowledgeable or ruthless as Kelan, she may not be as courageous or as strong as Greyston, but she saw demons. She wasn’t a pawn. She was a weapon. If Kelan was to be believed, she alone had the power to bring about the end of this war once and for all. And, she decided there and then, she wouldn’t do it from the shadows.

  SIXTEEN

  Evelyn spent the morning avoiding her husband. She wasn’t afraid to confront Devon, precisely, but she was terrified of herself. The guilt and remorse at what she’d unwittingly put him through didn’t completely eclipse her initial anger at the man.

  Last night she’d discovered demons weren’t just a metaphysical evil preached from the pulpit and her mind was still reeling from the horror of that reality.

  Greyston had returned from the Red Hawk and brought Paisley with him. Evelyn and Lily had stayed with the poor girl until she’d fallen into an exhausted sleep in Greyston’s bedroom a few moments ago. Jean was dead. Paisley was distraught.

  The pressure of all these emotions were expanding in her chest, pushing so close to the surface that any encounter with her husband could only end up in disaster.

  Lily closed the bedroom door behind them and turned to her. “Have you spoken to Devon yet?”

  “He’s avoiding me as much as I’m avoiding him.” Evelyn sank into the padded sofa of the common landing between their appointed rooms. At the concerned expression on Lily’s face, she stretched her legs out gracelessly and huffed, “Don’t worry so, Lily, no doubt he’ll search me out as soon as his temper has simmered.”

  “You need to return to London with him.” Lily perched on the other end of the sofa. “I didn’t quite appreciate the danger I dragged you into, Evie.”

  “You didn’t drag me anywhere.”

  Lily gave a small smile. “I assumed Greyston could protect you—me, everyone, really, but now…” Her gaze flickered to Paisley’s bedroom door. “Now I realise how naïve I’ve been.”

  “You weren’t to know Lady Ostrich was a demon.” A shudder trembled Evelyn’s shoulders. “I still can’t comprehend the notion of a demon being more than a spiritual reference in the bible.”

  “Neither can I,” Lily murmured. “But that doesn’t make it any less real.”

  “The proof is overwhelming,” Evelyn agreed. Her gaze rested on Lily for a long second. There was something remarkably different about her friend. The green flecks in her hazel eyes glinted hard as diamonds. The line of her mouth was drawn firm in stubborn determination. To do what? “Will you be returning with me?”

  “It’s safer for me to remain here.” Lily jumped to her feet and took to pacing. “Dr. Ragon was wrong about these spells I suffer from. They’re visions of demons.”

  “As in a premonition?” Evelyn asked, automatically reverting to the age-old bond of gypsy visions and fortune-telling.

  “It’s more like a window that suddenly appears between me and them, in the present moment, allowing me to glimpse across distance but not, unfortunately, ahead of time.” Lily stopped her pacing to look at Evelyn. “Duncan McAllister somehow pre-empted this possibility and Lady Ostrich must sense it too, or at least sense that I’m a threat to her.”

  “I don’t know, Lily, it all sounds somewhat—”

  “Far-fetched?”

  “I was going to say ridiculous, but I’ll settle on bizarre.”

  “I’ve already had two visions of Lady Ostrich.” Lily sat again, turned slightly toward Evelyn with her elbows resting on her thighs. “The first spell came shortly after my mother’s death. Both Greyston and I highly suspect Lady Ostrich, or at least some another demon, was responsible for that gas explosion. I’m not sure what the connection is, but there must be one. From what I understand, a demon can take on different guises and I’d never have guessed Lady Ostrich wasn’t human. Who knows how many other demons I’ve seen? Or perhaps even different guises of the same one?”

  Evelyn tried, but couldn’t see a single fault in that logic. Then her eyes flew wide. “Other demons? There’s more Lady Ostriches strutting about?”

  “That’s what I’m hoping to help establish,” Lily said. “A demon detector is exactly what the McAllisters have set their hopes on too. They just don’t yet know it’s me.”

  Evelyn finally understood what Lily had been trying to tell her. Her spine stiffened and her chin went high. Images of Jean swamped her mind. Skin melted to bone. Hollow cavity where her eyeball should have been. Jean, her body spread prostrate and lifeless on a cold slab in the basement of some hospital.

  “You’re not a demon hunter and I don’t give a flottersnip about any visions or the McAllister’s high hopes.” Her voice pitched in fury. Lily couldn’t even contemplate air paddling without paling suspiciously close to a faint. How the blazes did she mean to take on demons and survive? “They can’t—no one has the right to demand this of you.”

  “Lady Ostrich killed my mother,” Lily said quietly. “You know me, Evie, I won’t take any needless risks. I’ll keep safe, that’s a promise.”

  “S-So that’s it, then?” Evelyn spluttered, not at all placated. “This is going to be your life from here on? Hunting demons until your luck runs out?”

  “Nothing quite so dramatic,” Lily said, her droll tone blatantly aiming to reassure. “There aren’t hoards of demons roaming the earth. Perhaps two or three, at the very most. I fully intend to be home in time for the next season.” Lily settled deeper into the sofa with a gentle smile. “Don’t forget, I still have a husband to find.”

  Only slightly mollified, but with no clever argument to change her friend’s mind on the horizon, Evelyn released a disgruntled sigh. “Whatever for? You’ve already cast off every soci
al restriction without one.”

  Lily’s smile opened into a chuckle. “I always imagined you’d be proud of me when this day came.”

  “I never imagined it ever would.” Evelyn scowled at her. That was it. Lily simply wasn’t acting herself. She couldn’t leave Lily here alone…well, in a castle filled with people but not one of whom Evelyn trusted enough to be unselfishly on Lily’s side.

  As if plucking the thoughts directly from her head, Lily straightened and the amusement in her eyes dampened. “That’s another reason why I need you in London. I haven’t given up on love or marriage, neither of which will be likely if my reputation is shredded. I want you to put it about that, while we were travelling, I took up a fascination with the church and am temporarily cloistered to a nunnery—some or other remote highland convent—to determine if the life suits.”

  The tension in Evelyn’s shoulders relaxed, now that she recognised some of her old friend. “Your aunt will never believe that.”

  “I’ll pen a letter for you to carry to her,” Lily said. “I’ll make my search for inner peace plausible enough to persuade the Pope himself.”

  Evelyn wasn’t entirely convinced, but just then the housekeeper appeared at the head of the stairway, putting an end to further argument.

  Mrs. Locke apologised for the interruption, then turned to Lily. “Lord Perth mentioned you’d be wanting me to pick up some things in town, m’lady.”

  “I haven’t drawn up my list yet.” Lily stood, brushing down her skirts. “It will only take a minute.”

  When Evelyn left them to it, she found William waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase. His immediate concern was for Paisley, but once she’d reassured him that the girl was resting comfortably, he tentatively brought up his intent to leave the Harchings service.

  Evelyn grabbed him by the hand and marched to the first door that closed onto the foyer. It was locked. The second was a linen cupboard. Behind the third was a suitable parlour. She pulled William inside and shut the door. “Did Lord Harchings say something to you?”