The Necromancer's Bride

by Kat Ross

  The sword was an inch out of the scabbard when glass shattered and the room erupted into chaos.

  Chapter 18

  Anne watched Miguel Salvado break the rifle down and stow it in a long canvas bag. It had taken approximately two seconds for the first bullets to travel across the park. He’d reloaded twice more. The second and third shots also hit home. Jean-Michel already waited at the open hatchway. They slid down the ladder to a dim landing and raced down the stairs. The building was devoted to offices. On a weekday, there might have been a few hardworking souls still at their desks, but it was late on a Saturday and the floors were dark and deserted.

  Jean-Michel cracked open the door to the alley, then nodded. They stepped out and walked swiftly for the Rue Ducale. The plan was to wait at the hotel. But when they reached the street, Anne stopped. She touched Miguel’s arm. “I’ll meet you there,” she said.

  He frowned. “Where are you going?”

  She glanced at the park. It was impossible to explain. But the moment she heard the crack of the rifles, the unease in her gut had worsened. Worsened to something that made her want to vomit.

  She’d heard the men reloading to either side, the snap of the trapdoors chambering the next round in the breech, the cocking of hammers and smell of gunpowder, Jean-Michel’s soft curse as his first shot went wide. But she was no longer on the rooftop.

  For a minute, she was back in that village just before the Feast Day of Saint Mary Magdalene. She remembered walking down the main street, scrawny chickens pecking in the dust, even scrawnier children, hollow-eyed and big-bellied. How the women had stared. And she remembered the voice in her head that told her to keep walking straight on through and not stop until she was miles away. The voice she’d ignored because she was tired and saw a sign for an inn.

  It was exactly like a hundred other villages she’d passed. Nothing in particular stood out, no overt sign of danger, but she’d sensed something was wrong there, or would go wrong. Terribly wrong. And she hadn’t paid attention to her instincts.

  But she would now.

  Jean-Michel shook his head, his handsome face alarmed. “No, no—” he began.

  Anne walked away. By the time she looked back, they were gone. They had no choice. If they were caught on the street with those rifles, they were both dead. And it wouldn’t take long for the soldiers to figure out which direction the bullets had come from.

  Her steps quickened as she crossed the park. Chaos reigned in front of the museum, soldiers rushing to and fro trying to control the crowd pouring down the front steps. Landaus raced away in every direction. Her gaze was drawn to a lone man at the edge of the park. He was the only person not moving. Clumps of agitated bystanders had gathered, craning for a better view, gesticulating and talking, but he stood apart, simply watching. Then he turned his head and she saw the scar on his jaw and she knew him.

  Lucas Devereaux. Balthazar’s man.

  Anne swore under her breath and started towards him, but a landau careened into her path, nearly running her down. By the time she regained her feet, Devereaux had vanished.

  It’s all gone wrong.

  She knew it in her bones. Anne lifted her skirts and started to run.

  Leopold was instantly engulfed in a ring of gendarmes. They swept the king and queen toward a side door as two more shots rang out, sending a hail of glass into the gallery. Balthazar spun away just before Bekker noticed him and then he was caught in a stampede for the exits, though no one seemed to know which way to run. He fought his way to Marisa, who’d been knocked to the floor in a pile of voluminous skirts. Balthazar helped her up and escorted her to three of the Rijkswacht. They were trying their best to funnel panicked guests into a corridor leading to one of the wings.

  “Get out,” Balthazar snapped at her, more harshly than he intended.

  Marisa blinked, her eyes wide with shock.

  “They’ll take care of you,” he added in a gentler tone.

  “But where are you going?”

  Balthazar didn’t reply. He was already striding after Bekker, who had vanished through a door at the far end of the gallery. One of the gendarmes called after him, but Balthazar quickened his pace. He entered another long gallery with dark, gloomy paintings, the din fading behind. The only gas jets were at the crossings and he kept to the shadows.

  That would be his life if he failed. A creeping, cringing existence, always looking over one shoulder. He had no intention of killing the crusading Count d’Ursel, or of persuading Marisa to sell a single fishing dingy to Bekker. The jig, as they say, was up.

  But he had a blade and in the name of the Holy Father, he intended to use it tonight.

  Then he heard footsteps ahead. Balthazar rounded the corner at a jog.

  “Bekker!” he shouted.

  Jorin Bekker turned back with a frown. He was flanked by his men, all four carrying swords. Bekker waited for Balthazar to catch up.

  “What the devil is going on?” Balthazar asked, feigning breathlessness.

  “An attempt on the king,” Bekker growled, striding ahead as Balthazar fell into step behind them. “Anarchists no doubt. They infest this city like vermin.”

  He was probably right, Balthazar reflected. Gabriel D’Ange would never take a potshot with a rifle. Leopold was the obvious target. It all smacked of some amateurish plot.

  Again, his hand fell to his sword hilt. They were approaching another intersection. He knew Bekker’s men would look to the right and left. An opportunity would present itself.

  Much later, Balthazar would recall the sequence of events that followed with wry amusement, although they weren’t very funny at the time. If he hadn’t been thinking of Gabriel at that precise instant…. Ah well, but he was.

  They reached the juncture. As expected, Bekker’s men checked the crossing gallery. The left side was empty, but on the right, two of the Rijkswacht in their braided uniforms approached. They looked harried and were talking quietly to each other. Then the one in front saw Bekker.

  “You cannot be inside here!” he barked in Flemish. “We will escort you out.”

  The gendarmes drew closer, boots ringing on the stone floor.

  Bekker sighed and halted. “It’s not necessary—”

  The second gendarme, who walked behind the first, looked up. He had a thick blonde beard and hooked nose…. But the pitiless gaze. Balthazar would recognize it anywhere. And Bekker, with his preternatural luck, chose that precise moment to glance back at Balthazar, who was unable to control his reaction. It was nothing dramatic, just a slight widening of the eyes. But it was enough.

  Bekker jerked around. He grabbed the nearest necromancer and shoved him into Gabriel’s path. The man screamed as Gabriel’s blade sliced down his arm, then dropped in violent convulsions. Before he’d stopped twitching, Bekker had a set of chains in his hands. Black lightning shot down the gallery. It met the sanctus arma in a shower of sparks.

  Balthazar stepped back, blinking away the afterimage. He wasn’t going anywhere near that fey power. He could no longer wield it himself. Only those who used the chains continuously for many, many years could call it down. Nasty stuff, black lightning. It carried a price, as did all things of power. Each time it was used, someone of the necromancer’s blood would die. It might be a child, or a parent, or a cousin seventeen times removed. This was why it was forbidden to the Order. Naturally, Jorin Bekker couldn’t care less.

  The floor cracked and a revenant began crawling out, strings of colorless hair hanging across its ghoulish features. Bekker kicked the thing away and it fell to Gabriel’s sword.

  Along the vast, dim gallery, portraits of Dutch and Flemish nobles stared down at them with disapproval.

  Julian Durand — for he was the other gendarme, Balthazar saw — engaged with the three remaining necromancers. Balthazar was about to give him a hand when he heard a sound from the left gallery. He turned just in time to see Jacob Bell hurtling toward him, chains spinning.

  The last l
oyal lieutenants.

  Balthazar drew his saber. He didn’t wish to fight, but Bell didn’t appear open to explanations at the moment. Balthazar spun at the last second and the chains flew past his shoulder. Bell circled away. He was a large man, as tall as Balthazar and with a long reach. Getting inside his guard wouldn’t be easy.

  Behind him, Balthazar heard the hiss and crackle of power, a scream he hoped was from one of Bekker’s men. Julian seemed to be making short work of them, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off Bell.

  Balthazar made a little come hither gesture, which earned a disdainful look. He knew a few things about Bell from Lucas, who kept dossiers on anyone who was anyone. Bell had brains and cunning. He was a fox.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Julian Durand pursuing a necromancer down the gallery.

  Balthazar brought his sword around in a low sweep, aiming for Jacob’s legs. Bell deftly pivoted away and used the momentum to bring the chains whipping across Balthazar’s back. That hurt like hell. But it was worth it when Balthazar grabbed the end of the chain, hooked a foot around his ankle, and yanked Jacob straight into his blade.

  Lucas invented that move after the Picatrix when the two of them were sparring one day. He would be pleased that it worked so well in practice.

  Balthazar eased him down and withdrew the saber. Bell stared at the ceiling, his mouth opening and closing in dry croaks.

  “First time through the heart? I know. I’ve been there more than once. But you’ll be right as rain in a few minutes.” Balthazar smiled coldly. “Don’t say I never did you any favors, Mr. Bell.”

  He looked up to find Bekker and Gabriel still deadlocked. But Bekker seemed shaken, pale and sweating. He backed away, Gabriel advancing with his sanctus arma. The blade shone in his hands, absorbing Bekker’s fey power like a sponge, and Balthazar wondered if he ought to just run for it, because once Gabriel killed Bekker, he’d notice his brother in the Order lying skewered on the floor and Balthazar didn’t particularly want to be there when that happened.

  But he also wanted to see Bekker die. See it with his own eyes. Good as dead wouldn’t cut it this time.

  Balthazar rose to his feet, bloody sword in hand, just as two revenants tore through the ground behind Gabriel. It happened that way sometimes. They were summoned by a necromancer’s death, but one never knew precisely when or where they’d emerge. Again, Bekker’s luck was uncanny.

  Gabriel heard them and swept the blade around, he had no choice, but in that instant of distraction Bekker called on the dregs of his power. Lightning forked and shimmered around Gabriel’s body, arching his back in a bow. The sword slipped from his fingers. Bekker lunged forward and grabbed it. He stood over Gabriel’s limp form for a moment, utterly livid.

  “Lars,” he said through a clenched jaw.

  The giant necromancer lumbered out of the shadows and stabbed the second revenant until it stopped moving. Lars let out a long breath. “Heavens,” he said with a note of bewilderment. “What a fiasco.”

  All the blood had drained from Bekker’s face. He looked like a corpse, but his eyes burned with hatred more intense than Balthazar had thought him capable of. Smugness, irritation, cold-blooded calculation: these were the expressions Balthazar knew. But Bekker had gone somewhere else entirely.

  He stood ten feet away. He might be depleted…. And he might not. There was no way of telling. Balthazar didn’t fear the sanctus arma. To him, it would be just another blade. But the lightning was not an experience he cared to repeat.

  Christ on the cross. Balthazar felt a dull headache kick in at the base of his skull.

  Bekker laid the edge of the sword against Gabriel’s throat, his knuckles white.

  “I wonder where he found it,” Balthazar said.

  Bekker looked up with reddened eyes. “What?”

  “The sanctus arma. Didn’t he bring crossbows to your club as well? He must have a cache hidden away somewhere.”

  Bekker’s left eye fluttered. A conundrum was forming in his two-track mind. He wanted Gabriel dead — oh, so very much. But a cache of sanctus arma…. None of the Duzakh would dare challenge his authority. For a moment, Bekker wavered. Then he looked down at Gabriel and Balthazar saw hatred trump greed.

  “Of course, D’Ange would never tell you,” Balthazar remarked. “You’re better off killing him now.”

  “You think I couldn’t break him?” Bekker snarled.

  Balthazar laughed. “With all due respect, we both know D’Ange would die first.” He frowned. “A much more unpleasant death, true….”

  Bekker’s teeth audibly ground together. He slipped his free hand into a coat pocket and the blood on the floor rippled as a gateway formed. He gave Gabriel a savage kick.

  “Help me with him,” he snapped. “Both of you. Before he comes to.”

  “What about that one?” Lars pointed at Jacob Bell, who stirred weakly.

  Bekker’s thin lips set. “Leave him to tell the rest. Let them follow.”

  “To the house?”

  “Yes, you fucking….” Bekker seemed at a loss for words to adequately describe Lars. “Now, move! And get rid of those revenants.”

  Lars flushed bright pink but hastily rolled the stinking bodies into the gateway. Then he grabbed Gabriel’s feet while Balthazar hoisted his shoulders. Bekker went through first, followed by Lars, trudging backwards, his meaty hands clamped around Gabriel’s boots. Balthazar instinctively drew a deep breath as he always did before Travelling, even though it was unnecessary. Icy cold crept up his legs as he entered the portal.

  At the last moment, Balthazar caught Jacob’s eye and winked. Then the Dominion drew him down into its chill embrace.

  Gendarmes ringed the entire building.

  Anne stopped across the street to the main entrance, burning with impatience. The initial stampede had thinned. Order was being restored. If she’d arrived two minutes earlier, she might have been able to slip inside. But not now. She scanned the faces of the soldiers, searching for any sign of Gabriel.

  Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was going exactly as he’d planned. He said Jorin Bekker wouldn’t leave without his own bodyguards, and the way they were positioned meant that he’d likely move deeper into the galleries and take one of the rear doors.

  Anne circled around to the back of the building. A dozen soldiers guarded the exits. She was on the verge of throwing caution to the winds and forcing her way inside when Julian emerged in his Rijkswacht uniform. He was supporting Jacob, who wore the white coat and black trousers of the kitchen staff. They entered a pool of light and she saw the blood soaking Jacob’s chest. Julian snapped something in Dutch at the other soldiers and they stood aside to let him pass.

  Anne melted into the shadows, following for a block until they turned a corner. Once they were out of sight of the gendarmes, Jacob straightened from the slumped posture he’d adopted. He looked exhausted and grim-faced.

  Anne strode up to them. “Where’s Gabriel?”

  A flicker of surprise crossed Jacob’s face when he saw her. Julian looked furious, though Anne couldn’t tell if it was directed at her.

  “Bekker took him through a gate,” Jacob said.

  “Alive?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  Blood thundered in her ears. “Where?”

  “Someone said ‘the house’. I think he meant the Ardennes.”

  “I’ll find it.” She strode away.

  “We’ll come with you—” Julian called, as they hurried to catch up.

  “You can’t.”

  “It’s eighty miles, Anne,” Jacob said gently, catching her arm. “We’re not leaving him there, for God’s sake, but we need horses.”

  Anne turned to face him. He was twice her size, but the look in her eyes made him take a step back.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “I’ll run.”

  Chapter 19

  Swaying grey reeds, stirred by an invisible current. The sensation of unseen watchers in the gloom. Unpleasant s
quishiness under the soles of his shoes.

  These things were familiar. It wasn’t the Dominion proper, more of an in-between place. A purgatory bordering the land of the living and the land of the recently deceased. Balthazar forged on, following Lars’s hulking form, Gabriel a dead weight between them. Bekker was a shadow ahead, one among many. And then Balthazar had the impression of rising toward a circle of light above.

  They emerged into a shallow pool made of pink Italian marble. Four young necromancers held positions around the edge, swords in their hands and chains coiled at their waists. They relaxed slightly when they saw Bekker, blinked in surprise at the sight of Gabriel. Balthazar and Lars deposited their burden on the floor, which featured a mosaic of frolicking mermaids. Gabriel’s eyes were starting to flutter.

  “Collar him,” Bekker snapped. “Hurry.”

  One rushed forward and locked the iron ring of his chain around Gabriel’s throat. His hands and feet were secured with a second length. Bekker let out a slow breath. He removed his jacket and wrapped up the sword with the greatest of care, as if it were a sleeping snake. Then he stood for a moment in thought.

  Balthazar’s gaze roamed across Bekker’s inner sanctum. The walls were also pink marble, with fluted columns and clusters of gold starfish. Life-sized bronze porpoises flicked their tails from onyx pedestals. It was like a tacky version of a Roman bathhouse.

  “Get me the Afrikaner,” Bekker muttered. “I need him immediately. What time is it?”

  This question was directed at Balthazar, who consulted his gold pocket watch.

  “Nine twenty-seven.”

  Bekker nodded to himself. “He’ll be at home.” He stabbed a finger at the nearest necromancer. “Go to Boma, you know the address. Make sure he brings his equipment.” Bekker handed over a talisman of Travelling. “Use only this one. The portal will be locked against all others.”

  The man nodded and waded into the pool. Bekker half turned to watch him leave and Balthazar’s hand crept toward his sword, but then he spun back and the moment was lost. “Double the regular guards outside. I want a dozen men watching the gates and perimeter. Tell them to shoot off flares if anything moves out there. And gather five or six of your own number to patrol the lower level of the house.” Bekker turned to the last of the four guards. “Go find Constantin. Tell him I have D’Ange.”