The Dark Matters Quartet

by Claire Robyns

  “A piece of your heart,” Saloese said quickly.

  “My life is not up for negotiation.”

  “No one wants you dead.”

  Kelan raised a sceptical brow.

  “That would have been an unfortunate accident.” Saloese held its healed hands up, admiring the fingers that could once more be flexed. “One I could hardly be held accountable for. But no, all I want is an itsy bitsy piece of your heart.” It gave Kelan a look through hooded lids. “You’ll barely know it’s gone.”

  “Let’s be clear,” Kelan said. “You want a piece of my heart, but this will not kill me and will not incapacitate me physically in any form or manner?”

  Saloese nodded. “Do we have a deal?”

  A hand landed on Kelan’s arm, yanking him back so hard he almost stumbled. “Have you lost your mind?”

  He allowed Armand to drag him halfway down the stairs. He owed the man a breath of reassurance. “This is important, Armand. I know what I’m doing.”

  “Do you?”

  “My heart, your heart, the whole bloody human race will be ashes in the wind if I don’t figure this out.”

  “Figure out what?”

  Kelan had no concrete theories. He didn’t even have vague notions to string together. All he had was this damn rush of unease skittering the periphery of his subconscious.

  He gave Armand the only answer he had. “So long as my heart keeps beating efficiently, I have no use for the rest of it. The demon’s welcome to a piece.”

  “You’re not thinking straight,” Armand accused, “when you take a demon at its literal word.”

  Kelan shoved his hands through his hair, closed his eyes, and agreed. He wasn’t thinking straight.

  He swung around to look at the demon. “You will not harm any of my family. This deal will not harm anyone I care about.”

  “If you insist,” Saloese said after a short pause. “I will not physically harm your family or loved ones.”

  “Then what the hell do you want with a piece of my heart?”

  “A small memento.” Saloese slapped a hand over the region of its human heart. “A little something of McAllister to take with me.”

  “I hope it chokes you,” Kelan muttered.

  “A heart could be interpreted as more than blood and muscle,” Armand said with a note of desperation. “You’ll allow a demon deal to turn you to stone? What of being able to give—to receive—love?”

  “Love?” Kelan’s jaw locked tight. “If that’s what the demon hopes to deny me from this bargain, it’s already been duped.” He condemned the trace of bitterness in his voice nearly as much as he condemned the topic. “You know, better than most, how this ends, Armand.”

  The deal was done in blood and runes.

  The demon banished.

  And if he’d truly lost a piece of his heart tonight, the answers ripped from the demon’s throat sat heavily enough on Kelan to make up that weight.

  The ride back into town was tedious, the road swamped in darkness and the demon’s horse on a long lead attached to Kelan’s saddle; an innocent animal couldn’t be left to starve. It was also achieved mostly in silence. Armand was upset, furious or worried, and Kelan was in no mood to find out which.

  Once the horses had been stabled and they’d set out from the mews on foot, Armand’s temper burst. “It didn’t answer a single question. You won’t fully know what you sold until the price is claimed and that for a load of worthless nothings.”

  “The exact opposite,” Kelan said softly. “The demon answered far more than I asked.”

  “It has no business with Winterberry and knows not what its purpose here is.” Armand made a sound of disgust. “I’d love to assume a deeper meaning. Trust me, m’lord, I’ve spent the last hour searching for a deeper meaning to put to use.”

  Definitely furious, Kelan observed to himself.

  “Never engage a demon. No bartering. No deals. And never, ever, start believing you can outsmart it.” Armand stepped in front of him and turned, the hazy yellow of a gas streetlight illuminating his scowl. “Or were you simply not paying attention that year when it was drummed into your thick skull?”

  “Quit the self-righteous act,” Kelan said, his patience nearing its end. “You forget, I was not the one who threw down this gauntlet. I’m just the poor bastard left to pick it up.”

  “Self-pity does not become you.”

  Kelan shoved him aside and continued walking, ignoring the words that merited neither a response nor a second thought.

  “That was unforgivable,” Armand called after.

  Damn right it was. He lengthened his strides as he veered off onto the carriageway that ran between the row of townhouses and the main road.

  “Kelan! I’m sorry.”

  His muscles locked and he stopped dead. Armand hadn’t used his Christian name since he’d returned to Scotland and reclaimed the earldom. Kelan was of the opinion that had less to do with his elevated status and everything to do with stubborn protest at his father ordering Armand to follow his son. Armand hadn’t wanted to leave Florence and Kelan hadn’t wanted his father’s man under foot. His father was the only one happy with the arrangement, although, five years later, Armand and Kelan had come to terms with each other.

  “You’ve given your all to this war since you were a tot and that is what scares me,” Armand said as he caught up. “You never pause to consider the risk to yourself other than staying alive just so that you may fight another day.” He stepped around, putting them face-to-face. “There is more to life than breathing.”

  Kelan dismissed the sentimentality and addressed the issue at the root of it. He’d been born to risk all, but it was also his duty to make each risk count.

  “Saloese didn’t say he had no purpose here, which is as we might expect given that demons are apt to simply take advantage of whatever situation they happen upon, but that it didn’t know what that purpose was,” he told Armand. “That subtle difference indicates the demon came here on another’s purpose. Which brings us to Winterberry, or more accurately, whomever else was in that house today with whom the demon did in fact have business.”

  Armand shook his head. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying my father’s right,” Kelan said. “McAllister arrogance got us into this mess and we’re too hard-headed to ever change.”

  “He was speaking of your uncle, Duncan, holding demons prisoner and experimenting with their blood.” Armand’s voice flattened when he added, “It wasn’t arrogance that brought you back to Scotland.”

  “Yes, well…” Kelan shrugged. “I’ve been complacent and that amounts to the same thing. The Kings of Hell have always been the only demons strong enough to breach the tear and kings have an appalling history when it comes to alliances and truces. They act alone and take all their plans and schemes back with them when banished. But we’ve thought for a while now that the tear is weakening, lesser demons have been slipping through. That means a hierarchy of power, followers to serve a master.”

  “I hope to God you’re wrong.”

  Kelan knew he wasn’t. “Saloese said something else. Why would any demon not want me dead? Who would Saloese be held accountable to?”

  He started walking again, a reckless, impotent energy thrumming along his veins. “The lesser demons are not only slipping through, they are being summoned. Which means the tear isn’t necessarily weakening; what if demon kings are getting stronger, strong enough to bring their followers through? Which in turn begs the next question: How are they getting stronger?”

  They’d reached the path leading to his townhouse. Kelan marched ahead, was at the front door when Armand cursed from behind. “That’s not a rhetorical question, is it?”

  Demons could not be killed. Every time a demon was banished, it needed only a couple of decades to regain the strength to breach the tear again.

  “We thought we were containing the vermin, even if only for a decade or two at a time.” He spun arou
nd to look at Armand, thinking back to the summer his parents had taken him to the Lake District. “The first time I swam Lake Como, I almost didn’t make it. I collapsed on the opposite bank so weak, it hurt to breathe.”

  “I remember that,” Armand said. “We had to send a boat across to collect you.”

  “But every day I swam across and got better…stronger. By the end of the summer, I was swimming both ways with ease.”

  “You’re saying it might be the same for demons, each time they return through the tear?”

  Kelan nodded. “That would explain why they’d prefer me alive. For centuries, McAllisters have been banishing them, helping them train to cross over with more ease, maybe to the point where they can piggyback lesser demons. We thought we were saving the world, but we are the harbingers of doom.”

  “Don’t be so harsh on yourself and the McAllisters before you.” Armand put a hand on his arm. Beneath the porch light, his pallor was ashen. “You couldn’t not banish the demons. They would have overrun the country by now, destroyed everything in their path. That is their way. You know that.”

  “Precisely.” He turned to tug on the doorbell. “We’re damned if we do and we’re damned if we don’t, and we have been from the beginning.”

  But he wasn’t giving up. If possible, he was even more resolved to outwit them at their game. That was the McAllister way.

  THREE

  Lily’s bare feet pounded the forest floor, tender insteps scraped raw from stones and thorny branches. Shadows breathing evil closed in on her as she crashed through bush and skittered around sturdy trees. A dark wind howled through the leafy passages, chasing a thick mist that whipped and swirled into the reaching shape of death. A smoky tendril leashed her waist, tighter and tighter as she ran and ran and ran and she couldn’t stop and she couldn’t get away and the smoke was choking her and laughing at her in a deep, melodic chime and her eyes flew open.

  Her heart thudded for a moment more, her fingernails clawing at the fabric of the sofa she’d fallen asleep on.

  A dream.

  Just a silly nightmare.

  Voices filtered through from the other side of the closed door, trailing off down the hallway, and she realised what had awoken her. A quick glance at the clock on the mantelpiece showed it was just after ten o’clock.

  There was no mirror in the parlour to check her appearance, but she patted her hair lightly and straightened her skirts and decided that would have to do.

  As she left the parlour, she caught Ana on her way upstairs. “Was that Armand and Lord Perth at the door?”

  “Yes, they went directly to the kitchen,” Ana informed her. “I’m on my way to draw your bath.”

  “I may yet be a while,” Lily said, reminded that she’d said something about waiting for the gentlemen to return before she retired for the evening. Ana tended to take such things literally and promptly.

  She found the kitchen at the bottom of a flight of steps, in the basement below street level. Armand stood behind the table while Kelan perched on the edge, his feet propped up on a chair. They were speaking in low undertones and eating straight from the hamper Mrs. Locke had packed for their trip.

  Kelan’s gaze met hers as he bit into a miniature mutton pie.

  “So, was your evening eventful?” she asked, crossing to the sideboard.

  His complete disregard for her wishes and usefulness still rankled, but that could hold. Armand had an ashen look about him, the dishevelled state of Kelan’s attire indicated he’d had a rougher time of it than his undeterred demeanour might suggest, and both men were clearly starving. Besides, there was only so much discontentment a lady could commit to in one day.

  “The demon has been dealt with,” Kelan said once he’d finished chewing.

  She brought back two plates and a handful of cutlery to deposit on the table as a suggestion. “That’s a relief.”

  “Largely due to you, Lily.” He inclined his head at her, arctic navy eyes warming. “The demon was exactly where you said it’d be.”

  She bit down on her lip, refusing to reveal the warmth blooming in her chest when she was mad at him. But, dear Lord, it did feel good to be effective, even if it had been achieved from unpredictable visions and couldn’t necessarily be repeated.

  Armand helped himself to one of the plates. “Thank you, m’lady.”

  “My pleasure.” She gave him a small smile, then looked to Kelan. “Which demon was it?”

  “Saloese. One we haven’t come across before.” Kelan broke off a chunk of crusty bread and put it in his mouth.

  “And it’s only been here a couple of weeks,” Armand offered.

  “That’s good news. Right…?” she added when the men shared a weighted look. She tapped an impatient foot, watching, until they went back to picking from the hamper and it became apparent she was to be excluded from that mutual observation.

  “I’ll leave you to your meal, then,” she said stiffly, turning on a rustle of black bombazine to depart.

  It was good news, she told herself as she hurried up the stairs.

  Of all the cases documented by McAllisters throughout the generations, she found the ones where demons had lived embedded in human society for years before being discovered most disturbing. To date, every demonic act that had alerted the McAllisters had also been rationalised by men of either science or religion.

  She could only imagine the number of less grand atrocities a demon could get away with over a period of months or years. The ideal was surely to banish every demon within days of it breaching the tear.

  Kelan came after her before she reached the top. “We need to talk about your visions.”

  She continued up and stepped into the hallway.

  “You suspect they are triggered by emotion,” Kelan said.

  She whipped around. Her first vision had come upon her shortly after her mother’s death, when she’d been lost in the grips of bitter, raw despair.

  “I’ve spent countless hours trying to channel that grief, to grab hold of the anger—” the way Greyston grabbed hold of whichever memory he wanted to rewind time to “—and to somehow find a slipway to a source I can navigate at will.” She gave a dry, disgruntled laugh. “Maybe I don’t feel as deeply as Greyston does. Or maybe I don’t want it enough.”

  “Greyston has complete control of his ability,” Kelan murmured, moving further along the hallway.

  She followed, deep in thought. That first time, when Greyston had discovered his ability, he’d also been devastated. Distraught. He’d just killed a young boy accidentally and to hear him explain it, he’d practically bent the laws of the universe to fit his desperate need to make it not so, to go back in time and undo his actions.

  When she entered the parlour, Kelan was at the drinks cabinet. Too restless to sit, she ambled around the room, watching him.

  He shifted to lean a hip against the cabinet, a glass of whiskey cradled in his hands. “No one key opens all locks and your gift is vastly different to Greyston’s.”

  How could he know that?

  As if reading her mind, he shook his head. “Greyston didn’t volunteer the information, but he has Raimlas’s blood. From there, it was simply a matter of deduction. He did concur with my conclusion once I called him out on it.”

  “You should have told me you knew.”

  Kelan sipped on his whiskey. “I’m telling you now.”

  “He should have told me.”

  “I’m sure he would have.”

  “Honestly, between you and Greyston!” She marched a path behind the sofa, her hands fisted at her sides. “We’ve wasted so much time and it all could have been avoided with a little openness.”

  “Then let’s not waste any more.”

  She sent a glare his way. “Greyston has to search for the memory he wants and I have to scent demons with my mind. He needs to anchor himself to that memory before he can pull himself back and I think if I could anchor myself to a vibration, or whatever sensory mechanis
m demons connect with, I could force that window open. Not the same lock, but similar enough to turn on the same key.” A parallel Kelan would have drawn if he’d given the problem any proper thought. “Greyston sifts time to return to his memory and I sift space to wherever the demon is.”

  She rounded the end of the sofa and stopped short as Kelan spluttered out a mouthful of whiskey.

  He recovered instantly, wiping away both the moisture and his incredulous expression with the heel of his palm across his mouth. “Are you saying Greyston can travel back through time?”

  Her heart plunged as she realised he must have fed Kelan some other story to sate his curiosity. “What did he tell you?”

  Greyston hated that the McAllisters had played God with innocent lives, he didn’t trust Kelan and, above all, he refused to give them another hold over him, another piece of him for them to use. And she’d just delivered him into their hands.

  Kelan might have suspected Greyston’s value, but now he knew for certain and he’d find a way to recruit it. What had she done? A silly assumption—no, an enormous mistake—no—

  Kelan put the glass to his lips, sipping deep and regarding her in silence.

  And, at last, she understood.

  “He didn’t tell you anything at all.” She took a step forward, then another. “You lied to me.”

  “I improvised, Lily.”

  Another step, until she stood right in front of him.

  A few months ago, she’d have cringed at the mere thought of what she was about to do.

  A few months ago, she could never have been capable of this fury unleashed inside her.

  Her hand shot out.

  Kelan intercepted the stinging slap before she came anywhere near his cheek.

  Well, she had another hand.

  Between thought and action, he’d set his glass down on the cabinet and had both her wrists neatly trapped.

  “You lied to me,” she hissed, struggling to wrench herself free to no avail. His grip had the strength of iron shackles.

  “I took what I needed,” he corrected, backing her up until she hit the drinks cabinet and then he lowered her arms until her palms touched wood.