Ascension (17 page)

“Something to do with Scotland a place you were not permitted to go.”

“Yes. It will be interesting. Lilly is not usually so secretive.”

His eyes bore into her. “You were almost abducted for a second time.”

“Those treboxes had no chance tonight,” she countered defensively.

“Bella, do you not think it odd that you were targeted twice? One debutant in thousands and you are the target of two demon abductions.”

“I was not a victim tonight.”

“You are missing the point.” He sat back against the bench cushion.

She gave it some thought. She had not heard of any other disappearances before or after hers three years ago. Not within the
ton
. All the missing women in London had been from lower classes, whores, tavern girls and tradeswomen. “Why would they be after me?”

He leaned forward again. “That is the question, is it not?”

The carriage jerked to a stop. She shrugged. “It is a question that will have to wait for tomorrow.”

“Indeed.” He opened the door and jumped down.

Belinda pulled the tie on her skirt and left the bulky fabric in the carriage. She adjusted her trousers, pulled her hair back and allowed Thor to hand her down.

The dark location stank of damp and rotting flesh. The stone wall of a church blocked the path to the left. Belinda took her handkerchief out and covered her nose and mouth. She walked swiftly over to Reece and Lillian.

Lillian’s eyes cast upward at the top of the church.

Belinda followed her gaze and gasped at the sight.

The steeple had been mutilated. There had probably once been a cross at its peak. Now all signs of religion were gone and the bodies of four humans were nailed to the steep roof.

Gabriel broke the silence. “Have you seen this before?”

Reece found his voice first. “Nothing like this. They must be getting ready for something big.”

“It may not be too late. Those bodies look to have festered for a while. They may have been the result of the half-moon’s abominations. Perhaps there is time to save tonight’s victims.” Gabriel kept his voice low, but edged with aggression.

She tried to remember the mild-mannered boy who had gone off to war with an easy smile. She saw none of that in the man before her. He had become a man whom she could count on when the world went to hell. It was oddly sad; she missed the sweet boy who left her four years earlier, yet this version of Gabriel excited her where the other had not.

Reece spoke to Jamie and Thor. “Give us an hour.”

The four of them eased along the side the building. Though it had once been a church, Belinda couldn’t think of it as such. This place was desecrated to the point of profanity. A lump formed in her throat and she swallowed hard on her disgust.

Lillian tied her skirts up neatly, pulled the
sai
blades from her boots and twirled them in her hands. Then she walked forward with them tight to her hips, to keep from cutting any of her companions with the razor sharp blades.

Gabriel walked close behind her. His breath warmed the back of Belinda’s neck.

Belinda removed her dirk from the sheath but left her sword in place.

Lillian turned the knob on the first door they encountered. Locked.

Gabriel moved to the front, gave the door a quick thrust with his shoulder and broke through the jam.

The odor did not improve with the opening door, but Belinda tucked her handkerchief between her breasts and tried to breathe through her mouth. The light was slightly better inside the stone structure. Lamps lined the hallways.

Lillian led the way. Chanting came from every direction. Lillian’s head moved from side to side while she tried to get a sense of direction for the cell.

Lillian continued forward.

Belinda didn’t know how her friend could tell where the noise originated but trusted her. Lillian had a good sense for such things.

Burning coal filled the air and with the dampness making it harder to breathe. As the hallway ended, a mist rolled along the floor. Belinda’s heart raced. There was no door, only the hardware twisted along the jam. The battle was very near. Excitement swirled in her gut. Slowly, the four of them entered a room with high ceilings. A black curtain blocked the view of what had once been the sanctuary, but the chanting remained constant just beyond the cloaked off the area.

They must have entered through the door where the priest would have made their way into the church unseen by parishioners.

To their left, three malleus demons shoveled coal into an enormous fire pit. The horrible odor that permeated the building and street came from the cauldron perched on top of the fire. Belinda had never seen a pot so large. It would have filled the grand entrance of her family’s townhouse. The mist was thicker in the sanctuary and it too spilled from the cauldron.

The demons were too intent on their work to notice the hunters approach.

Reece signaled by slicing his hand across his throat and pointing to the fire keepers.

Belinda moved forward, still holding her dagger. She waited for the others to move into place before letting the knife fly through the air. It struck the leftmost demon in the throat. No sound came from its open mouth as it fell clutching its throat. She ran forward pulling her sword from its sheath and finished the demon with a thrust to the heart.

When she turned around, Gabriel’s chest was covered with the black blood of the malleus he’d cut from ear to ear.

Lillian wiped her Japanese blades clean on the fallen body of the third fire keeper.

Reece peered through a gap in the curtains. When he turned back to them, he held up both hands, opening and closing them twice. Then he pointed to the right and held up four fingers.

Lillian moved to the right. She would protect the hostages during the battle.

Belinda crossed to where Reece stood ready to charge the room full of demons.

A hand on her shoulder stopped her. Gabriel drew her back. He looked at Reece, leaned forward and whispered something to the leader.

Reece looked back at the cauldron and then at Gabriel. Reece nodded.

Gabriel leaned down close to her ear. “Stay on the pulpit. Help Lillian with the women.”

It took a second for her to understand what he had in mind. Without a word, she moved to Lillian’s side and peered through the curtain. Four people lay across the large altar tied with rope. One demon with the face of a bull stood over them. This demon was as large as the malleus and nearly as wide.

Belinda had never seen or heard of this type of demon before.

It was speaking in the demon language.

The harsh tones were always unpleasant to her ears. The mist lessened because the fire was no longer being fed. The bull-faced demon was a priest of some kind. He lifted a large knife in the air. Twenty or thirty demons lay prostrate on the sanctuary floor, chanting in the same untenable language.

Reece and Gabriel took a large plank of wood that had fallen from the beams above and what looked as if it was a paddle for stirring the cauldron. They pushed them under the pot, creating a fulcrum and began to rock the cauldron. It made little noise at first, but as the rocking increased, so did the sound.

The priest turned away from his demonic flock.

“Now,” she screamed.

The men’s faces strained under the weight of the pot. Sweat poured down their faces. The cauldron rocked forward, tipped over and spilled its boiling, putrid content across the floor and down into the sanctuary. The chanting turned to screaming as the demons burned in the boiling liquid.

Belinda rushed toward the priest. His arm descended toward the first woman. She lifted her sword and sliced the knife-wielding arm from his body.

It thudded to the raised dais and the knife clattered next to the limb.

The bull-faced demon roared and swatted her away with his remaining hand.

Pain seared across her shoulder where the blow connected and she soared through the air, hit something soft and tumbled to the wooden pulpit. Her left arm and the curtain broke her fall. It tore from the rod and the heavy drape covered her face. Dust and the terrible smells of the demon world choked her. Coughing out the disgusting filth, she managed to push out from the folds of fabric.

The priest charged forward, ignoring all but Belinda, perhaps because she had taken his arm.

She rolled to her feet. Her sword lost in the fall, she grabbed the blade the priest had lost with his arm. It weighed far more than she expected based on its size. She wouldn’t be able to throw the heavy knife accurately, so she crouched into a battle stance and held the weapon in front of her.

The demon stopped and examined her. The stump of his arm bled freely. Was he smiling?

“Woman.” The demon butchered the English word, but it was still clear to Belinda that he did not consider a woman a threat.

“Yes. I am the woman who cut your arm off.”

He opened his mouth and a sound that might have been a laugh gushed out. He lunged forward.

Belinda slid to the side avoiding his one arm. She focused solely on his black eyes.

Lillian’s high-pitched battle cry cut through the cacophony of screaming demons, clashing steel, and the bubbling scum from the cauldron.

The priest’s eyes darted to find the source of the scream.

Belinda jumped forward and pushed the ceremonial dagger up under his jaw.

The points of two
sai
blades came through his chest, stopping only a half an inch from Belinda’s face.

She backed away, the
sai
receded and the priest crumpled to the raised floor of the dais.

“Nicely done,” Lillian said from the other side of the dead demon.

Belinda’s heart still raced with the battle fever. She turned, searching for Gabriel. She found him, standing on the body of a dead trebox. She watched as he jumped to the body of another demon, stabbed the writhing creature through the heart and continued to jump from one to the other as if they were pebbles in a stream. If he found one alive, he put it out of its misery before moving on.

Reece was across the room doing the same thing. Neither man stepped on the steaming floor. Whatever had been in that cauldron continued to bubble and the stench had gotten worse with the addition of the demon bodies.

The gruesome process continued, but neither of them was in danger. Belinda found her sword, wiped it off on the fallen curtain and sheathed it. The hilt of the dagger protruded from the priest’s gullet. Strange writing covered the hilt and triple blade. Placing one foot on his throat, she gripped the hilt and tugged the knife away. Then she wiped it on the demon’s robes and tucked it in her belt for later examination.

The women on the altar had not moved. They remained placid during the near-sacrifice and continued in their daze throughout the battle.

Lillian began cutting the ropes.

Belinda shook one girl. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Her clothes indicated that she was probably a house servant. Her eyes were glossed over. It reminded Belinda of her mother’s face when the opium took effect. The other three were in a similar condition: a young African girl, a woman of the street, and an older woman who might have been in trade. None of them were coherent. They would have to be carried from building.

The floor shook.

“Time to go.” Reece jumped from the body of a malleus to the stage.

Gabriel was just behind him.

The walls shook and bits of the ceiling crumbled. The bubbling liquid on the floor funneled down and the floor, with the dead demons, fell to whatever lay below.

Belinda took hold of the African girl. Pulled her arm around her shoulder, gripped her waist and began to run for the hallway where they had entered. Her friends’ grunts and heavy footsteps followed behind her.

“You’re going to have to help me.” No response, the girl was dead weight. She struggled, pulling the catatonic victim along foot by foot.

Wood and stone fell from the walls and ceiling. Dust filled the lamp-lit hall. They were not going to make it. She was holding up the rest. She pushed the girl against the wall and held her there. She saw Reece rush past with one victim and Lillian with the young servant girl. Gabriel stopped beside her, holding the oldest woman. The woman was walking, though barely.

“Come on.” He passed his rescue off to her, picked up the still-unconscious girl and headed toward the exit.

Belinda coughed out some dust.

The woman cried but continued to stumble toward the door. Another stone fell just in front of them.

Belinda stopped, moved forward and dodged more rubble. The dust had gotten too thick to see anything. A beam crashed, blocking her path.

“Hand her to me.” Thor’s voice cut through the cacophony of the building collapsing.

Belinda thrust the woman forward, and hands thrust from dust cloud pulling the woman to safety. Belinda climbed over the beam, ran down the hall and out into the street.

She hadn’t caught her breath when Gabriel’s arms crushed it out of her again. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,”

He pushed her away far enough to get a good look at her. “Only the truth, Bella.”

She gave him a weak smile. “Perhaps a bit bruised up but not hurt, Gabriel. I’m fine.”

* * * *

Gabriel let his breath out. He’d thought he’d lost her. When Thor rushed in after he came out, and he realized Belinda was not behind him, his heart had moved into his throat. The girl slung across his shoulder finally began to stir. He’d practically thrown her to Jamie. By the time he ran back, Thor was in the street holding the woman with Belinda only steps behind. A thick layer of dirt and grime covered her from head to toes but her eyes were bright with excitement.

He never wanted to let go of her. He both loved that she wouldn’t drop the other woman to save herself and hated it. The old structure continued to shake and collapse in on itself.

The spire creaked, wobbled and cracked at its base before it tumbled from the roof and crashed to the street.

“I think we’d better clear the area,” Gabriel said.

Taking Belinda’s hand, they rushed around the corner and across the street.