A Temptation of Angels (33 page)

“Ah. There you are.” A man rose from a chair near the fire.

No. Not a man.

A monster, Helen reminded herself, however he may look on the outside.

“So nice to make your acquaintance.” He stepped toward them, extending a hand in greeting.

Griffin and Darius ignored the proffered hand.

“As you wish.” Still smiling, Alastor shrugged off their obvious disdain. He directed his gaze to the brothers. “You must be Griffin Channing. And I assume the fierce-looking gentleman at your side is your brother, Darius.” He leaned around them both, his eyes grabbing hold of Helen like a starving man finding bread. Helen didn’t understand the hunger in his gaze, but she didn’t like it. “And this must be the beautiful Keeper, Helen, of the Cartwrights. Despite everything, I should tell you that I had quite a lot of admiration for your parents. They stayed alive far longer than the rest and kept you alive as well.”

Helen flinched at the words. She didn’t want to think of this thing hunting her parents. Plotting their deaths. Ordering the fire that killed them.

He turned his back on them, making his way to a drink tray
atop a cupboard against the wall. His lack of concern for their presence—and their obvious plans to destroy him—worried Helen. He was too confident for someone outmatched three to one.

“May I offer you something?” he asked, his back still turned as he poured something into a glass. “Spirits? Wine, perhaps? Or do you partake of that insipid British concoction called
tea
?”

Just above the collar of his shirt, Helen caught a glimpse of the mark on Alastor’s neck. It was a dragon rising out of a great fire like the mythical Phoenix.

She moved forward so that she was even with Darius and Griffin, watching as their eyes skittered to the lamps, still licking flames behind their glass covers. She saw in their expression what she already knew; they would have to wait until the lamps were put out to make their move. Besides, Raum still had the sword and they couldn’t finish Alastor without it.

“No? Nothing?” Alastor turned to face them once again. “Nothing to refresh yourselves while you wait in vain for your traitorous ally?”

Helen’s heart sank, her breath catching in her throat. Alastor knew about Raum.

“What have you done with him?” she asked, trying not to panic.

Alastor’s voice was calm. “Raum Baranova is of little concern to me. My guards will have him well in hand long before he reaches the control panel.” He made his way to the chair by the fire. “Come. Sit. We have much to discuss.”

“We don’t have anything to discuss.” Griffin growled.

Alastor laughed. It was cold and without feeling. “That’s where you’re wrong, my young Keeper.”

“It was all for nothing.” The words were out of Helen’s mouth before she could stop them. “We don’t know where it is.”

Alastor turned his gaze on her. His eyes were black as a raven. “Ah, but that’s where we’re different, Miss Cartwright. I
do
.”

“Then why haven’t you taken it?” Griffin asked. “If you know where it is, you could have taken it any time.”

Helen knew Griffin was stalling, still hoping that Alastor had been bluffing about Raum and the lamps would be extinguished.

Alastor nodded. “Quite right. But you see, I’ve only just figured it out, and given the… urgency of my time line, it seemed wisest to let you return to me, as I knew you would
after that fiasco last night.” He took a sip of his drink. “I heard about that old codger, Galizur, by the way. Pity.”

Darius stepped forward, his face tight with fury.

Griffin placed a hand on his brother’s arm. “Not yet,” he whispered.

Alastor laughed, rising and making his way to the fire. “I do so admire your passion, Darius! Your ridiculous hope and even more ridiculous faith in the face of certain defeat.” He lifted a poker from the hearth, prodding the crackling logs in the firebox as he continued. “It’s the one true mark of humanity. Even as I loathe their weakness, their suffering, I covet their conviction. Their willingness to sacrifice for the so-called greater good. Their utter faith in right and wrong.” He turned to face them. “It seems the Alliance has fostered these qualities in their Keepers as well. How very sad for you.”

Griffin shook his head. “We don’t need your pity for being what we are.”

Alastor nodded. Helen marveled that he could look so very human. That he could cross the library and place his drink on the table as if he were any man in any home in London.

“Be that as it may, it does seem a pity to waste such strength, such talent, on something so close to a mortal.” He rubbed his hands together. “But enough of this. We’re in opposition, as
we always have been. One night’s debate will not change that now, will it?” He continued without waiting for a reply. “Now, if you just give me the girl, you can be on your way.”

Helen thought she had heard him wrong until Griffin spoke.

“Give you the girl?” he asked, clearly perplexed. He followed Alastor’s eyes, squarely on her. “Helen?”

“That’s right. If you leave Helen Cartwright, the two of you may depart unharmed.” He said it simply, as if it made perfect sense instead of being utterly preposterous.

“Helen’s not staying with you.” Griffin took a step closer to her, his face tightening with fury. “You must be mad!”

Alastor took in Griffin’s gesture of protection. Understanding dawned on the demon’s face. “Ah. It’s like that, is it? Well, that does complicate matters, but not by much.”

“I… I don’t understand,” Helen said. “I don’t have it. I don’t have the key.”

“Leave that to me,” Alastor said, his voice cold. “Am I to assume, then, that you refuse to comply with my demand?”

“I’ll tell you what you can do with your demand…” Darius started.

“Darius,” Griffin warned.

Alastor sighed. “Very well, then.”

Helen looked around as the room fell silent. Alastor’s face
took on an eerie stillness, and although his eyes were still open, he seemed not to see them at all. Helen wondered if they should use his odd trance to do something, but then she remembered.

The lamps were still lit. And they did not have the sword.

H
elen wondered if Alastor had been telling the truth. If his men had apprehended Raum before he could reach the cellar and the control panel that would extinguish the flow of gas to the lights.

She shook her head as if to rid the thought. She could not afford to lose hope. Not now when they were so close to vengeance. To victory.

And then, the lamps flickered. Helen felt a rush of relief. It was Raum. He hadn’t been captured after all. He was cutting the flow of gas to the lamps. He would find them soon. They would have the sword and an additional person to aid them.

But the lamps were not extinguished.

As they flickered, Helen saw moving shadows in the pools of light. A strange rumbling sounded from the ground, and the floorboards beneath their feet began to shake. Worst of
all was the sound emanating from Alastor’s lips. It started as a keening. A cry of agony and rage. As if the mortal body could not contain the anguish rent from it by the demon within.

The cry built, growing louder as Alastor’s eyes turned black, red rings appearing around them until they glowed like a fiery suns. He opened his mouth, and the keening grew louder, building into a roar as blue light streamed from the mouth of the man called Alsorta.

He seemed to grow. To become larger and wider. His shoulders ripped through his shirt as Helen watched, fascinated and horrified. The skin that before had been slightly papery, in the first stages of mortal aging, now became translucent. Veins appeared out of nowhere, snaking and crisscrossing the demon’s body, as if it required extra blood to fuel the monstrous change. Just when Helen thought the transformation complete, she heard something move behind him. Taking a step backward, she saw the great wings—pointed and reptilian like those of a giant bat—flutter at his back.

The demon called Alastor was nearly unrecognizable as the man who had stood before them only moments before. This was no mortal. No man. This was a creature of darkness. One whose physical form existed for one purpose and one purpose alone: to destroy whatever—or whoever—stood in its path.

Which is right where Helen and the brothers stood.

The lights flickered again, and this time, Helen knew better than to hope that it was Raum. The flickering shadows in the illumination told her all she needed to know, and she was unsurprised when the first three wraiths appeared in the light streaming from a sconce on the wall.

Darius and Griffin immediately came together, turning their backs to one another as cover. They were reaching for their sickles as Helen stepped toward them, doing the same. She didn’t know if she would be any help. If she would make it out alive. But she could not let the brothers fight while she stood by and did nothing. She would give her life rather than be a coward again.

Alastor roared as the three wraiths approached Helen and the brothers. She couldn’t see the brothers clearly from her vantage point, but she could feel their bodies move and hear the clang of their sickles, the guttural howls as the wraiths were hit. She waited, sickle in hand, her breath coming fast and heavy, for the third one to attack her.

It didn’t. It went straight for Darius, though Helen was completely unprotected and clearly wielding a weapon. She felt a flash of anger. Did they think her so little threat that they would not even acknowledge her presence?

Darius was working his sickle on two of the wraiths as Griffin fought the other. Helen ducked under the fighting, stepping away from the fray and moving up behind the third wraith. He raised his weapon against Darius as Helen raised her own. She hesitated, realizing that she would hurt, maim, or kill the wraith with her sickle. It gave her the smallest of pauses. She had never hurt a living thing in her life.

But this is no living thing, she reminded herself, bringing the sickle down on the wraith’s back, using the jagged edge of the weapon.

It roared, turning to locate the source of the attack. When it saw Helen, uncertainty flickered in its red-rimmed eyes, and it moved away to attack Darius from another side.

She was still standing there, looking at the sickle in her hand and trying to figure out why the wraiths would not attack her, when both brothers deployed Galizur’s new glaives. They opened smoothly, and when the brothers plunged them into the bodies of the wraiths, Helen told herself again that they were not human.

Griffin was slashing the third wraith with his sickle as Darius picked up the glaives from the floor. Helen knew the sickle wouldn’t destroy the demon completely, but it was all Griffin could do with the glaives in use. A moment later the wraith
faded to darkness with a shriek as Alastor roared, conjuring six more wraiths from the lights in the room. Helen stepped in front of the brothers.

“Helen, no.” Griffin pulled her back, clearly unaware that she likely could not pay the wraiths to attack her, though she was standing not five feet in front of them. She already knew they would go around her, avoiding her at all costs, though she still didn’t know why.

The wraiths were only inches from her position when the lights flickered yet again. Helen braced for the appearance of more wraiths and was shocked when the room was plunged into darkness. All movement in the room stopped for a split second, the fire the only source of light as everyone tried to regain their bearings.

Raum was coming. He had not been caught after all. Helen dared a glance at the curtained windows as the wraiths began advancing once again. She didn’t know if it was her imagination, but she was almost positive there was a pale blue light glowing around the window frame. She looked at the mantle clock. Five o’clock in the morning. It was almost sunrise. All they had to do was hold off the six wraiths in the room until Raum arrived with the sword.

Griffin and Darius went to work. Their sickles moved so
fast that Helen could hardly see them from one moment to the next. She heard the clink of their metal blades as the brothers switched from side to side, and when it seemed they were in danger of being overwhelmed, she stepped in and slashed at the wraiths’ backs and shoulders. It did not destroy them or send them back from where they came, but it caused them to howl and shriek, and the distraction sometimes gave Darius and Griffin time enough to dispatch one wraith completely before turning their attention to another. As she suspected, not one of the wraiths raised a weapon to her. She could only assume Alastor had ordered that they take her alive.

Darius and Griffin were fighting the remaining three wraiths. Helen could make out their hulking bodies in the dim light of the room. She was stepping forward to aid Darius, who was slashing at one wraith on the floor as another approached his back, when Raum appeared, his sickle, bloody and open, in hand.

Helen could imagine what had been on the other end of it.

Closing the sickle, he hung it quickly on his belt. He didn’t have a glaive, but he picked up one of Galizur’s, fallen to the floor during the brothers’ scuffle with the wraiths, and plunged it into the back of the ambushing demon. It howled in pain as it shattered into a million tiny pieces.

The last two monsters were dispensed with quickly. They were almost automatons. They had weapons and large, muscled bodies, but that was as far as their advantages went.

When all the wraiths were gone, Darius, Griffin, and Raum turned to face Alastor. His countenance was engorged, fiery with rage. He tipped his head back, letting loose a howl so mighty the glass in the windows rattled in their frames.

Then he began moving toward them, his footsteps falling like slabs of granite on the carpeted floors. Plaster rained from the walls, the lamp shades falling to the floor in a rain of shattering glass. Helen didn’t know if any of the servants remained. If they knew what their master was. But as Alastor came closer, she heartily hoped they had escaped the grounds while they had had the chance.

“What now?” Darius asked no one in particular as the demon bore down on them.