“I don’t know. But Barnes is a necromancer.” Simon paused, unable to continue for a moment. “I must go up.”
The horror of what Barnes might have done to his mother’s body with dark magic clawed into Kate’s mind until she forced it out again. She could only imagine what Simon was thinking.
Malcolm, who clearly knew about the situation already, set down his coffee cup and laid a hand briefly on Simon’s stooped shoulders. “If there’s anything you require.”
“Thank you, Malcolm.”
The Scotsman nodded and wandered to the breakfast table to search for more food. His sudden public concern for Simon made Kate even more ill at ease.
She settled beside Simon and draped an arm over his shoulders. “Of course I’ll go with you.”
“Good.”
“What about Nephthys?” Kate asked.
“Well, her appearance was a shocker, I’ll grant you. I wasn’t prepared for yet another of the Bastille Bastards. And while she does alter the power balance considerably out of our favor—”
“Was it in our favor before?” Malcolm asked sarcastically as he scouted for sausages.
“No, but it’s worse now that she’s involved. I find it hard to believe that a relative unknown like Rowan Barnes could be ordering about someone of her advanced magical pedigree. Still, she doesn’t seem to have any trace of righteous vengeance for our defeat of her Bastille friends. And since she seems intent on killing us, I can only assume it’s to keep us from mucking about with Barnes. Therefore, Nephthys or no Nephthys, the Sacred Heart murders and the ritual to break Pendragon’s spell are under Barnes’s control and our central question remains: What shall we do about Rowan Barnes?”
“Kill him.” Malcolm stabbed a sausage with a knife. He looked at Simon from under downturned eyebrows. “Now. Today.”
Kate objected, “We can’t just kill him.”
“Why?” Malcolm asked coldly. “Is there any policeman who could arrest him? Any gallows that could hang him? We don’t live in that world.”
“How can we dare face him in the Red Orchid?” Kate retorted. “Barnes is forewarned and terribly powerful. And the home is always full of innocents.”
“I don’t need to face him,” Malcolm replied. “I’ll wait across the street. He will come out or pass before a window. All I need is the proper weapon, which Penny has at her shop. Magicians, for all their godlike powers, are just people. Right, Simon?”
Simon gave a wan grin. “Indeed we are. Provided we don’t know it’s coming, a lead ball will end our days as surely as it would a grouse’s.”
“Simon! We can’t kill Rowan Barnes.” Kate stared at Simon expectantly, but he stayed silent. “Tell him, or I will.”
Simon raised his eyebrows. “Secrets are meant to be such.”
“Tell him,” Kate repeated.
Malcolm looked at Simon.
“Very well.” Simon took a breath and held up his hands helplessly. “In my skirmish with Barnes, he cursed me.”
The Scotsman looked blank, obviously unsure of the implications of Simon’s statement.
Kate exhaled. “He struck Simon with a black spell. Now Simon will find himself in greater and greater pain over time until he is in excruciating agony at all times. The only person who can lift the curse is Barnes himself. If we kill him, we are condemning Simon to a life of unspeakable pain.”
Kate sat gripping the arms of the chair, her face a mask of barely controlled fury and terror. Simon took one of her hands. She leaned toward him, beseeching him to understand her fears.
“Kate, I’m so sorry for the pain this causes you.” Simon kissed her hand and pressed it to his cheek. Then he turned. “Malcolm, kill Barnes.”
Chapter 19
Fading sunlight turned the ribs of a ruined church into a grim shadow against the sky. The remnants of a medieval gatehouse hunched beside the road. The carriage rocked along a rough country lane as it approached the distant abbey on a piece of open ground amidst bare, wintry trees.
“Welcome to Warden Abbey,” Simon announced. “My childhood home.”
“How long ago was your childhood?” Kate asked, as the skeletal abbey grew nearer. A flock of night birds rose in a carpet and blotted out the sky briefly before settling into the scabrous forest.
Simon laughed a bit stiffly. “Don’t judge by the abbey church. It has been a ruin since the Tudors.”
The thought of Simon’s boyhood home being some crumbling wreck was too sad for Kate to contemplate. Then they rolled past the dead old church and came upon a large country home with lights blazing in the many windows. It was a heartening oasis in the darkening landscape. Warden Abbey retained the character of its medieval ecclesiastical past, with spires and even turrets on both ends of the front fa?ade.
Simon had his hand on the carriage door for a long while as the vehicle rolled past low, untrimmed shrubbery and clattered up to the low portico in the center of the house. A footman scurried out to meet the carriage.