Soulless (Maiden of Time Book 2) (23 page)

Forty-Four

Favors

Charles batted at the mist, the hall clearing. The golden-haired child crouched before him.

He backed away across the shaking floor, raising his hands, unsure if he should fist them or flatten them in surrender.

Behind her two dark figures staggered forward.

She burst into smoke and appeared right in front of Charles, seizing his wrist. Odd warmth swarmed into his skin, intoxication far deeper than that found at the bottom of any bottle. His eyelids drooped, her nutmeg aroma the only thing he craved.

“Charles Dumont.” Her soprano stole his breath, so like the hymn of tinkling bells. Who cared that the world was quaking around him! “You saved my life. Now I save yours.”

Plaster from the ceiling crashed next to him. “What the—”

“Hold your breath.”

She had cast her spell on him. Rage pumped through his body. How dare she touch him! How dare she exert her influence and cloud his brain! “I am not—”

White mist wrapped itself about him. He choked and gagged, closing his mouth. He hung suspended, like in a dream, surrounded by nothing but silence and the distant rumble of angry winds.

Weight returned, his feet touching down. The fog cleared, sucking inward as Bellezza formed in the center.

He ripped his wrist free, disgusted, terrified. “What are you?”

Her head tilted and she mimicked his bass, “Thank you for saving my life, Bellezza. I am eternally indebted to you.” Her lip lifted in a snarl. “And here I thought Alexia learned her manners from you.”

Alley walls locked them in, tight enough he could touch both sides without extending one arm fully. He peered over her head as the call of wagon wheels rattled across cobble. Fresh bread and grime mixed in the unmistakable stench of a small town.

“Where have you brought me?” he demanded.

“My, my. Temper.” She smirked. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”

His nostrils flared. “The Soulless, how did you know? Why did you come?”

She shrugged and took a little hop skip toward the alley exit. “I was tracking them.”

He grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around, bolting her down in his grip. Her teeth locked together, lips peeled back, eyes a quagmire of murder. He had seen her like, angry lads on the battlefield who had something to prove, and he would not be intimidated by the act.

“Why?”

She shrugged him off, his fingers sinking right through the mist of her shoulder. Her chin tipped downward, a teasing little smile lifting her lips. “Despite being a man of leisure, you freed me.” Her nose crinkled. “I would go so far as to suggest you did so against your inclinations.”

He took a step back, shaken to his core.

She giggled, her eyes sparkling. “I could see your desire, sir. I am no stranger to wantonness.”

“You are a child,” he barely voiced.

“I am no more a child than you are a gambler,” she hissed, advancing. “You and I are much alike. You prefer shooting to thinking, lock yourself in with your memories at odd hours, and indulge in a fondness for anything that may drown your sorrows.” She slipped past him, dragging a finger along his bicep. “I share those loves, but prefer to exact revenge on those who cause my sorrows.”

He reluctantly pulled away from her touch. “Why have you brought me here?”

She giggled and clapped. “I would like to propose another exchange, as our first one has concluded so nicely.” She curtsied. “You give me something I want. I give you something you want.”

Charles prickled. “You have nothing I want.”

She rolled her eyes. “To know the real Benedict Dumont?”

His father’s name rang in his ears. His estranged father. Their relations had become strained after Charles returned from military training, when his father denied him the one thing he desired most: Dana.

And then Father died in a fluke carriage accident.

Charles shook himself.

A grin widened Bellezza’s mischievous face. “I shall tell you precisely why your precious Dana could not come to you at Cambridge, and I do believe you will be adequately motivated to assist me.”

“Why should you need me when you can simply—” He whirled his fingers outward to illustrate her poofing.

Bellezza tugged at his lapel. “Because it is so lonely doling out revenge.”

He pushed her back, reaching for a weapon that was not docked at his hip. He couldn’t afford her touch if he hoped to make it safely through this, and he suspected part of her wanted him to crumble, that all this was a test.

She shook her head. “Whether you like it or not, you are the son of a Collector. I should be inclined to end your life, except you seem to have saved mine. I propose a truce. An alliance.”

“Is that all?”

Her grin faltered. “Do you know what the Collectors collect?”

“You speak in riddles, girl.”

Her fists balled, her lip twitching upward to reveal teeth. She stepped back, the rage bleeding from her eyes. “Passionate. They collect the Passionate—like your precious Dana who was collected by your father.”

The words jangled through his brain, a discordant collapse of bells in the tower that had been his mental fortress. Charles’s knees quivered.

All those years ago when he left home for Cambridge, Dana promised to meet him on the road and then never appeared. He hadn’t understood. Had she been unwell? Unable to follow? He wrote home and inquired on her state of health, only to be informed by Father that she had died from scarlet fever. He mourned his beloved for three full years, unwilling to return home for his anger with Father. At last Rosalind tamed his perpetual sorrow. He married her, received word of his parent’s death, and returned home to find Dana alive. 

He had always seen it, the shame in Dana’s eyes upon his return, the way she refused to speak of his time away, the way she clung to Sarah—a child who bore far too many physical similarities for having merely been
nannied
by Dana.

He had struggled to reconcile his jealousy and rage, but Father had been dead and Dana had been a victim trapped by Charles himself. He was warned, and he still carried her off to his home. Charles had sought to apologize to Dana, to comfort her, to make amends and somehow compensate for her loss and pain, but those efforts resulted in his own fall and the birth of a child who had given his life new purpose and—in the same blow—robbed him of both his lover, and his wife’s trust.

He could do nothing to punish his father, no matter how hot his blood burned, but if there were others...  

Bellezza grinned. “I should like your help in dismantling their network, Charles Dumont. Being the son of a collector, you can infiltrate their inner circle, learn all of their names, and bring that intelligence to me.”   

He crossed his arms, but his voice wobbled. “And why would I play your game?”

Bellezza walked her fingers up his chest. “Because I will make each of them suffer the way your father should have suffered.”

He slapped her hand away.

Her grin widened. “I will hide you here two days while you decide, during which time I must obtain some much needed information from a Breeder informant.”

He ground his teeth together. “You forget, I am not a gambling man.”

“I forget nothing.” She touched his cheek, toxins swimming instantly through his brain. “One thing you may learn about me, I will never kill someone who has set me free.”

Charles could not believe he had agreed to this. He stood at the back of the room with his arms folded as the visitor took a seat across from Bellezza. She had introduced Charles simply by stating to her company that he did not wish to find out the extent of Charles’s power. He felt more comfortable with the loaded pistol hiding within arms’ reach, but not pleased by this circumstance. Who knew what strange talent the young man possessed?

“Tell me of Deiliey,” Bellezza demanded.

The visitor shook his sandy head. “She is dead by all official accounts.” His Irish accent surprised Charles.

Bellezza sat back, waving an encouraging hand.

“Nigh three hundred years ago, she led our division. She was contendin’ against the Kingdom faction for dominance, and winnin’.” He crossed his legs at the knee. “She had infiltrated the church and was posin’ as one of the Cardinals with much influence. So much influence we got nigh whatever we wanted.” He leaned on the arm rest. “Until Kingdom reared its braided mane.”

“He overtook the church.”

“Right bloody through. He ousted her for bein’ a woman.” He nodded. “There was an execution, there was.”

Charles loosened his fingers that gripped too tightly across one arm. What was it to him if one of the Passionate had been put to death?

“But it was a show,” the visitor continued. “A private thing for only the clergy. It’s said Kingdom loved Deiliey and banished her from civilized lands on penalty o’ death instead of plunging a sword through her. She ain’t nothin’ but a ghost.”

Bellezza leaned forward. “Is this ghost in possession of a blade that can slay the Soulless?”

The man rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s said that she was. Then, it’s also said she was able to look into a man’s brain and addle it all about, so what be true and what ain’t are nigh but impossible to decide betwixt.”

“Any recent sightings?”

His head shook. “Not in well past a century. My guess, she died in exile.”

Bellezza grinned. “Fascinating.”

“Now, you pledged a favor.”

The girl’s grin dropped. “I let you live. How is that?”

He yawned. “I was thinkin’ somethin’ a wee bit more enticin’.” His eyes scaled up and down the girl.

Charles cleared his throat loudly.

The young man jumped.

“I think you are finished here.” Bellezza batted her eyes.

Forty-Five

Gold

With the Soulless growing so bold, Kiren thanked heaven for Miles and Edward’s quick success in locating Bellezza. Intelligence among the Breeders had led them to this location, and while he regretted leaving Alexia so soon, she had insisted on attending to Ethel in her grief and exhaustion. His precious woman had such a good heart.

“For the fiftieth time, the food was atrocious! How can you expect anyone to survive that
merde
?”

Kiren rolled his eyes. For manners, even the poor put Elizabeth North to shame. He’d have to wash his ears with lye to ever consider them clean again. Lifting a finger to his lips, he shushed her and leaned around the corner of the building.

The town square was still too full from market day, but he couldn’t risk waiting a moment longer. Most of the vendors had closed down their wagons, barrels, or display quilts, and gone off to find some dinner in this rustic province, leaving just the stragglers in their festive but still drab-colored attire.

A royal blue gown and golden curls drew most eyes, as intended. Bellezza did always have a flare for the bold.

Miles’s head appeared around the butcher’s shop across the street. He met gazes with Kiren and nodded. The girl didn’t suspect a thing.

Kiren pulled back into the shadows. “Are you ready, Elizabeth?”

She sashayed forward, brushing him with her ample breasts. Again he rolled his eyes, asking why God had plagued him with so promiscuous an ally.

She held up the handkerchief-wrapped bracelet, the dulled gold visible through the cloth, readying it for her attack. Kiren shuddered, hating that this was necessary. Gold was the worst torture for their kind, like a live parasite gnawing at the flesh and infusing the bearer with fiery, if not deadly, poison. You did not employ gold unless you were aiming for a kill, which meant he’d avoided it all but this once. Bellezza had overcome the effects of iron and gold was the only thing left to restrain her.

Lady North reached up and touched her temples. “For your pain, I am sorry,” she whispered.

Blinding misery shot through his head.

Blackness rushed in.

Dirt pressed into Kiren’s cheek, a subtle ache forming into bruises along his ribs and calf. He blinked his eyes open. He shoved up onto an elbow and knee, heaving himself forward. Wooden planks brushed beneath his fingers as he leaned on the building, recovering his feet.

Rustling pulled him around the corner, and he froze. The dozens of people who occupied the square lay on the ground in graceless heaps. Elizabeth knelt over Bellezza’s inert form.

Clink.
The golden bracelet snapped into place.

Elizabeth turned and jolted, clasping a hand over her heart. “You recover so quickly!”

He cut across the square. “How far does your range extend?”

“Only as far as you can see.”

He nodded and caught Bellezza under both arms, hauling her up and crossing to the butcher shop. Miles lay against the wall, his neck kinked to one side. Kiren slapped his cheek lightly, twice. The boy jerked awake.

“What was...?” His eyes turned on Elizabeth.

She straightened, lifting her chin. “Shall we away?”

Miles climbed to his feet, gaze warily sweeping over Bellezza’s unconscious form. He met Kiren’s stare, the question in his eyes.
Are you certain we have to do this?

Kiren nodded. The trepidation in the boy’s stance gave way as he resolved to play his part. Kiren despised that they must now resort to underhanded tactics, but Bellezza sprang this mess upon them, and she would be the source of its undoing.