Shadowbound (The Dark Arts Book 1) (9 page)

"Are you all right?" Miss Martin demanded, and as his vision returned to normal, he found her clutching his sleeve and staring up at him.

He couldn't let her see his weakness. "I'm fine," he replied gruffly, staggering as something else hit the house and rebounded from the wards. An explosion of actinic light blazed like a corona outside, and he slammed his eyes shut, clapping a hand over them. Sorcery fired through his blood, setting his mind afire, as he cried out.

Mother of night.
"What in all the hells is out there? Hell spawn?"

The light touch of Miss Martin's skin against his hand eased the overwhelming sensation as their bond swelled. Lucien caught her fingers as she moved to retreat, and her gaze swept to his as he blinked, her lips parting gently. It felt like they were trapped in a bubble that silenced everything around them. It felt like he could breathe again.

"I'm concerned that I won't be able to protect you very well at this juncture in time," he admitted, though it galled him. "It's too soon since my release. I'm weak from lack of food and the effects of my incarceration. I haven't used sorcery in over a year, or at least, before this morning. It's... overwhelming."

The dark slash of her brows softened. Her fingers curled around his. "Then let me act as your Anchor. You should have said something earlier."

Lucien gave a careless shrug. Surrendering this much control to her went against every grain of his fiber, but the relics were more important. Even he, who wouldn't shed any tears to see the Prime fall, knew that they could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

Cool sorcery slid over his skin like a whisper, beneath his clothes, forming a ward around him. The instant it locked into place, the overwhelming sensation of magic vanished. He could breathe again. See again. Lucien let out a breath of relief. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." They stared at each other for a long, drawn-out second.

The front door crashed open, and Lucien swept in front of her, flinging the blade he kept in his sleeve, before he could blink.

A stranger flung both arms up in front of his face in a cross, and the blade struck an invisible ward around him with a flare of green that shot through the entire shield, then vanished. The knife clattered noisily to the floor.

"Some kind of welcome," the stranger drawled, lowering his arms. He wore a great coat that smothered him and a beaver hat perched over his brow. Parts of his coat still smoldered, and a conflagration of power crackled over his shoulder as something launched itself up the front steps, and then vanished in a crackle of searing white light.

At Lucien's side, Miss Martin caught Luc's sleeve. "Don't. He's one of ours. Mr. Bishop, how do you do?"

"Any idea why the house is under attack by imps?" Bishop had the sort of smile that no doubt stole hearts by the handful, and a face that looked younger than he probably was, but Lucien didn't mistake the rasp of his voice, as if something had scarred his voice box, or the cold blackness of the man's eyes. Shadows lurked there, whispers of darkness and sins unknown. Combined with the heavy rings on his fingers with their chips of obsidian that stated him a seventh level adept, there was no doubt this Bishop was a dangerous man. The seventh was the highest level one could achieve, below that of the Order's Councilors, or the Prime's ninth level.

"Some idea," Lady Eberhardt's voice echoed through the entry as she returned. Only one of her lions stalked at her heels. "Shut the door and step lively. The wards are about to fall, I believe, and we're going to be inundated with hell spawn. Someone's dragged them straight out of the Shadow Dimensions."

The stranger stepped over the lintel, his heavy boot landing on the floor. It felt momentous, as if the shiver of that landing echoed through the marble in an underground fault line that slithered its way toward Lucien's boots and ended there.

What the hell?
Lucien looked down. Nothing had happened, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd been here before, seen this moment played out in slow, time-catching movement, again and again—or perhaps, as if he'd been heading toward this moment his entire life.

Even the stranger paused, no doubt aware of it too. "What are you?" A hand slid to his belt, as if Bishop touched a knife there for reassurance.

Their eyes met and the air grew sharp with wariness, danger, and the underlying black current of sorcery as both men gathered themselves.

"What are
you
?" Lucien demanded in return, taking a step forward.

"That's enough, you two. We'll deal with this little mess later. Right now, we have over a dozen imps on hand," Lady Eberhardt commanded, striding forth with the fire poker in her hand. "Your timing is impeccable, as usual, Bishop." She peered out through the side panels of glass by the front door. "They've taken down my first ring of wards." A hand slid over the stone lion's head at her side. "Mounting an assault at the front door, it seems. They must have sensed the crack in the second ring after that last assault."

"Is there anything we can do?" Miss Martin asked.

Lady Eberhardt's smile was dangerous. "Stay out of my way and keep them off my back."

Glass shattered somewhere near the side of the house. "I've got it," Bishop declared, striding toward the noise. As he went, a pair of blue-white daggers formed in his hands, flickers of lightning dancing off them.

Dangerous.
Lucien watched him go. He wasn't sure who, or what, the man was, but he knew a predator when he saw one, and he could still see the after-image of the man stepping inside the house, flashing again and again in the back of his mind, as if it had been burned into his retinas.

More glass erupted, this time from the back of the house.

"Go!" Lady Eberhardt told them, and a ball of pure energy began building in front of her, a mage globe of red light.

Definitely time to leave Lady Eberhardt to her own devices. She clearly knew what she was doing.

"Guard my back!" Miss Martin panted as she grabbed Lucien's wrist and hauled him past the stairs and toward the back of the house.

Lucien primed one of the pistols he'd confiscated, feeling incredibly useless. What was he supposed to do? His magic was useless to him in this situation, his legs felt like lead, and an imp would swallow his bullet and spit it straight back at him. "Can you handle this?"

"Watch me." Miss Martin flashed a grin over her shoulder before she pushed a door open and strode into the kitchens, her lavender skirts swishing around her legs.

An imp leapt on top of the kitchen table, hissing at them. Its skin gleamed a dull bronze color, and though it wore the coat and trousers of a boy, there was no mistaking those all-black eyes, or the razor-sharp teeth in its face as it leered at the pair of them. A thin tail lashed out behind it, back and forth, like a cat anticipating its prey.

A Lesser Demon, it could still wield an enormous amount of power from the Shadow Dimensions it came from. Lucien aimed his pistol directly at the creature's forehead and fired.

The imp hissed as the bullet slammed into its skull, a black hole glaring back at them like a third eye. Then the hole began to mend itself, vanishing into smooth, unblemished skin.

"What part of 'guard my back' did you not understand?" Miss Martin took a stance in the middle of the room, flinging her arms out to the sides and muttering power words under her breath.

The room turned cold, and the imp hissed as a mage globe the size of Lucien's fist sizzled to life in front of her. It gleamed like blue lightning. Dangerous, but not bloodthirsty, the way Eberhardt's mage globe had been.

Lightning lashed off the globe, spearing toward the imp. It sprung, claws clinging to the hanging pot rack above it, then twisted as another spear of lightning arced toward it, and leaped toward the sink. As it went, it threw a variety of utensils at Miss Martin. Lucien grabbed a frying pan, using it to bat away the knives and pots that the creature flung. He was less than useless, but at least he could do this. Miss Martin needed to concentrate.

"Where did you learn... that?" he gasped, as more lightning sizzled, leaving smoking welts on the scarred timber benches. Most battle globes were simply balls of energy to be flung at one's opponent. Her grasp of telekinesis was impressive.

"Drake." Her eyes gleamed with power. "My affinity is with telekinesis, as opposed to telepathy."

Where his own strengths lay. He had learned how to manipulate telekinesis, but telepathy was his first natural calling and his strength.

The imp cast cunning eyes their way, then grabbed an enormous cast-iron pan. Instead of throwing it at them, it launched the pan like a discus toward the mage globe. Electricity sparked and crackled, staggering them both backward, as the mage globe collapsed in upon itself at the touch of metal.

"Miss Martin!"

"I'm fine." She blinked at the magical backlash, then shoved him out of the way, "Watch out!"

Claws
thunked
on the wheeled kitchen trolley and it hurtled toward them from the force of the creature's momentum. The imp launched itself into the air, leaping over Miss Martin as the trolley took her legs out from under her.

"Ianthe—"

Miss Martin went down. The imp sprang off the wall, aiming for her back.

Lucien didn't think. Just reacted. An enormous battle globe of flickering red flung toward the creature from his hand. The plaster cracked as the imp exploded into nothingness, and Lucien staggered as power leeched out of him and he realized what he'd done. Every piece of glass blew out of the windows, and pots and pans and knives
thunked
into the wall or onto the floor. Coppery ectoplasm was smeared across the plaster.

The world swayed, and he was leaning heavily against the bench. Lucien blinked. His entire head felt stuffed full of molten lava, and his nose was numb. Ears ringing. The world... too bright. Too loud. Miss Martin's gloved ward that had blocked out his sensitivities seemed to have faded.

"Get down! There's another one!" Skirts fluttered, and then a warm body collided hard with his. He went down in a spill of violet silk, just as an imp sailed past where he'd been. It skittered on the tiles, its claws slicing into the floor and peeling up curls of terracotta tile as it slid to a halt.

It launched itself at them. Lucien tried to roll Miss Martin out of the way, and—

An enormous stone lion leapt out of nowhere, its teeth crunching over the imp's head and shattering it. Shaking its head, the lion sprayed droplets of molten, coppery liquid up the walls and on the roof. Ectoplasm sizzled against Miss Martin's flickering wards, sliding down the transparent dome that protected them and forming small puddles on the floor.

"That was close," she gasped beneath him.

Lucien looked down. There was a blind spot in the vision of his right eye and a sharp aching numbness behind it. He wiped at his nose, and his hand came away bloody.

"Are you all right?" Miss Martin asked, reaching up to touch his cheek. Fingertips grazed the stubble there. Her ward slid over his skin again, blocking out the worst of the pain.

"I'm fine," he replied crisply, levering himself up onto his knees as the world stopped spinning. He could see again too, no more double impressions of everything.
Christ
.

"Rathbourne... You used Expression."

It had been a desperate surge of power he'd flung at the imp, rather than the carefully formed ritualistic sorcery they were taught to practice. Expression was tied to emotion, and hence, dangerous. But which emotion had overwhelmed him, stripping away all of his years of study and ritual?

He saw it again. Miss Martin knocked off her feet, the imp bouncing off the walls toward her, its claws extended, his heart in his throat—

Lucien shook his head, forcing it to subside. He'd sworn to protect her. That was all, but the very violence of his thoughts at the time shook him a little. He didn't like the idea of her under attack, but that was something to digest later.

"It won't happen again," he told her. "I need time to recuperate my strength, and meditate."

"Do you think—?"

"Are we done in here?" Lady Eberhardt flung the door open and peered inside, viewing the carnage, and saving him from Miss Martin's questions, thank goodness. "Look at this muck. Poor Maxwell and the maids shall have quite the day of it."

The lion butted its head against her thigh, nearly knocking her over.

"We're done," Lucien replied, offering a hand to Miss Martin to help her up. The look she returned him said she hadn't quite finished with what she was saying and that they'd revisit the conversation later.

Over his dead body, perhaps
. The last thing he wanted to confess to her was his fear that he'd never wield sorcery properly again. Or perhaps explain that something about that image, about her under attack, had driven him to regress back to his youth, when Expression was all he knew.

Reaching out, Lady Eberhardt grasped the hilt of a knife and tugged it from the wall. "Good. Perhaps we ought to convene in my library again? Now that the immediate threat is out of the way, I think we all need a spot of tea and some cake and biscuits. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm famished. Nothing like battling beasties from the Shadow Dimensions to give one a good, hearty appetite, no?"

"If you give us a moment to clean up, we'll meet you there," Miss Martin replied.

Lucien however, pushed through the doors with an eagerness to escape that wasn't lost on any of them.

T
HE LIBRARY LOOKED
like the scene of some great safari rampage. One of the marble lions lay in shattered pieces all across the room, its shards embedded in the roof and walls, as if it had exploded, and there were three molten puddles of coppery ectoplasm that betrayed the fate of some of the imps.

"Poor Aurelius," Lady Eberhardt murmured, sweeping marble gravel off the daybed. The other marble lion laid a sad head upon her lap as she sat, as if sensing her grief.

Lucien exchanged a look with Miss Martin, whose face remained impressively smooth.