Sinner's Heart

They walked out into the corridor together, putting behind them the idyll of seclusion. Neither he nor Livia faltered in their steps and they went down the stairs, her on his arm. She moved with confidence, as if clad in Caesar’s armor.

He and Livia entered the practice room. The Hellraisers waited for them.

Four pairs of eyes turned to him and Livia as they stepped into the chamber. Even though he had seen Whit a short while ago, it still gave Bram pause to behold his old friend here again in his home. They had spent many a midnight here, carousing or in companionable drink. Yet they were not the same boyhood friends as they had been. They weren’t even the men they had been half a year ago. They—and the world—had irreversibly changed.

Zora hovered close, her gaze chary as she eyed the walls and ceiling as if they might collapse.

Leo stepped from the darker edges of the chamber. Less than a month had passed since last Bram had seen the youngest member of the Hellraisers, but, like Whit, he was profoundly altered. Leo’s gaze had always been incisive, yet now there was a new clarity in his gray eyes, a precision more cutting than the sharpest blade. He was no gentleman of noble or distinguished birth, his vast fortune having been earned through the Exchange, and never did his rougher origins show as they did now. The elegant town fashions he favored had been abandoned for plain, serviceable clothes more suited to a working man. He, too, seemed leaner, tougher—a brawler rather than a man of business.

Bram barely recognized the woman beside Leo. It took him a moment to realize she was A

It seemed that the experience of being married to a Hellraiser had also transformed A

Both A

“The Devil still owns my soul,” Bram said, “but I’m your ally.”

“He has my espousal,” added Whit.

“I’m merely to take your word?” Leo demanded of Whit.

Scowling, Whit said, “We fought side by side not a month past. You trusted my judgment then.”

Leo narrowed his eyes. “Treacherous times make for inconstant allies.”

“I have remained constant,” Livia said before Whit could snap a retort. “You ca

All four visitors gaped at Livia. Cautiously, Zora approached Livia, her coin-decked necklaces jingling with each step. She reached out with one ring-adorned hand. When her finger brushed across Livia’s arm, the Gypsy woman cursed softly in Romani.

“But this ca

Eternally the regal empress, Livia tilted up her chin. “You ca

“Fireworks may impress the crowds at Vauxhall.” Leo, as usual, appeared skeptical. “They’ll not be so effective against the Devil.”

“Or John,” Whit noted.

Livia flung out her hand. A sound like thunder shook the chamber as a shaft of light shot from her palm. It slammed into the practice dummy at the far end of the room. Ash drifted to the floor—all that remained of the figure.

Whit, Zora, Leo, and A

“Welcome back to London, Hellraisers,” Bram said. “You’re just in time for the end of the world.”

Chapter 15

Rows of dispassionate faces stared down, ageless, untouchable. The faces would never age, know want or fear. They did not care that a great evil was massing, or that soon, very soon, that same wickedness would lay waste to everything.

Bram looked at the portrait of himself in the Red Drawing Room, hung between the rows of past men to wear the title Lord Rothwell. Gazing at his painted image, he felt neither disgust nor anger, but a dim kind of pity. The poor bastard in the painting had no idea what awaited him, the horrors he would see, and yet for all the agony he would endure, ultimately he emerged, if not better, then stronger. Everything brought him to this place, this moment: leading a counsel of war, his friendships in the process of being repaired, and an extraordinary woman by his side.

His dreams of the future had been facile. Honor. Glory. Unformed concepts that hadn’t been tested. Not once did he envision himself as he was now.

As it must be. The process of maturation took us far from all preconceptions. One could either bemoan the fact, curling in on oneself in a misery of stasis, or move forward.

Forward, then.

“John leading an army of demons?” This from Leo, arms crossed as he stood behind his seated wife. “A militia of books, perhaps, or an infantry of Parliamentary bills—but demons? I can’t see it.”

“He’s a scholar not a soldier.” Whit stood by the mantel, his arms also crossed.

Bram glanced down to see that he, too, had folded his arms across his chest. He smiled wryly to himself. Men were much the same when it came to preparing for combat, from the Colonies to a London mansion.

“His old identities have gone up in flames.” Livia sat in a throne-like Tudor chair. Her words were abstracted as she continued to maintain the web of magic over the city. “The Dark One has worked his alchemy on him. Nothing of his old self remains.”

“Nothing?” Zora stood next to Whit, hands on her hips.

“Not an inch of his skin is without the Devil’s mark,” Bram said.

A

“There’s no hope for him,” Whit said.

“None.” Bram gazed at his friends. “No redemption, no clemency. I need to know that when the time comes, I can rely on all of you to do what must be done.”

“Kill him.” Leo’s expression hardened. “Edmund died in the street like an animal. I’ll gladly wipe John from the face of the earth.”

Rather than rebuke her husband for his bloodthirstiness, A

“A fight it must be.” Bram glanced at Zora and A

Whit and Leo chuckled, while Zora and A

A

Darkness filled the drawing room.

Livia snapped her fingers, and the fire and candles all relit. Both Zora and A