He drew in a rattling breath. ‘Blood alchemy,’ he whispered. ‘Benchley built it.’
‘The Ligatus?’ She shook her head. How could their bond be forged by such a hideous, godless creation? ‘No, it pulls us into madness! It will kill us.’
‘Head or heart?’ he whispered.
She remembered his same question at the rout: did she follow her head or her heart?
‘These two are not like any other,’ he rasped. ‘Lusus naturae.’ His clawed fingers caught at the blood-stained fob ribbon that hung from his breeches’ pocket. ‘Find —’ He stopped, panting for a moment, then wrenched the ribbon free and held it up. The attached fob — a gold disc with etching on it — swung between them. He pressed it into her hand. ‘Find … Bath Deceiver. Show this.’ Red spittle flecked his lips. ‘Keep your word. Keep my son safe.’
His laboured breath barely lifted his chest.
What did he mean, not like any other? And who was the Bath Deceiver?
‘Comte!’
But his eyes had fixed beyond her, sight no longer anchored in the room, and although his mouth moved with words, he no longer had enough breath for sound.
Behind her, the bedroom door opened. She spun around. Pike stood in the doorway staring down at Lawrence’s body, his thin lips pursed in distaste.
‘One problem gone.’ He looked at the Comte on the bed. ‘Is he dead too?’
‘No, but I do not think he has long. He can no longer speak.’
She pushed the gold fob and ribbon into her breeches’ pocket and rounded the bed, avoiding the staring eyes of Lawrence’s corpse.
‘Stokes and Quinn are both injured,’ Pike said, looking up at the ceiling. The thud and crash of combat still filtered down, but it was less frantic. Was that a good sign or not? ‘I don’t think you are ready, but you are all I have. Get up there and get the journal. We must destroy it.’
‘I am ready,’ Helen said, heading towards the door. She looked back at the Comte: dear God, let him be telling the truth. ‘But we can’t destroy the journal. The Grand Deceiver is two creatures working together, not one. The Comte told me Carlston and I are their opposite: a Grand Reclaimer. We need the journal to bond. That is what is wrong with him — it is the need to bond that is making him mad!’
Even as she said it, a vile question rose in her mind. If they were meant to be the Grand Reclaimer, were their feelings for one another based on nothing more than a compulsion created by this power?
‘You are a fool to take the word of a Deceiver,’ Pike said. ‘If the journal is making Carlston mad, then surely it will do the same to you. I will not have two of my Reclaimers descend into madness in one night. Destroy the book.’
‘No. Even if there is only a slight hope that it will restore Lord Carlston, we must take it.’
‘He is too far gone. I order you to stop him, by the authority of the King — even if that means killing him.’ He stepped in front of her, blocking her path. ‘It is my order. Acknowledge it!’
‘I no longer take orders from you, Mr Pike,’ she said, unmoved by the narrowed threat in his eyes. She pushed past him, savouring the astonishment on his bony face. She knew what she must do and he was not going to stand in her way. ‘I know the real reason why you want the journal destroyed. I know about your wife.’
‘You read the journal, didn’t you?’ He followed her out into the corridor. ‘Then you understand Isabella had no idea what she was doing.’
‘But you did,’ Helen said, rounding on him. ‘You hid the fact that she is an Unreclaimable offspring and killed Sir Dennis. You made a bargain with Benchley, even though you knew he was mad.’
‘Of course I did — she is my wife.’ His face tightened into loathing. ‘And, by God, he made me pay for it. Even so, the Ligatus is part of a gateway to Hell. I order you to destroy it. Honour your oath, Lady Helen.’
‘My oath is to the Dark Days Club and England, not to you.’ The truth of the statement straightened her spine. ‘I am a Reclaimer and I believe the Grand Deceiver is real, Mr Pike. Lord Carlston and I must fight them whoever, or whatever, they are. I will not destroy the journal, not until I try to make this bond with him.’ She ran up the steps, then said over her shoulder, ‘Besides, saving Lord Carlston and the journal is in your wife’s best interest too.’
Pike glared up at her through the balustrade. ‘What does that mean?’
‘I saved an Unreclaimable through that journal. If it is destroyed, your wife’s only chance at sanity is destroyed as well.’
His whole body stilled. ‘You saved an Unreclaimable?’ The hope in his face hardened into bitterness. ‘And so you will hold this over me now? I must do as you say if I want my wife saved?’
‘That is your way of doing things. I will try to save your wife whatever happens.’
She stopped on the landing, her voice stolen for a moment by the magnitude of the bond she was about to attempt. The danger to herself and to Lord Carlston.
She took a deep breath. ‘If I survive, I will save your wife.’ She looked down at him, standing on the level below. ‘I know you do not recognise it, Mr Pike, but that is what honour looks like.’
Chapter Thirty-One
The shouts and wails in the entrance hall below had taken on a new volume. Helen peered down through the stairwell as she rounded the intermediate landing and caught sight of hats and hands and boots: men on the stairs, making their cautious way up. One of them was a doctor by the glimpse of a black physician’s bag. She ran up the next rise, noting smudges of blood on the wall and banister, a sick sense of dread building with each step.
Mr Hammond’s voice cut across the sobbing and cries below, demanding to know where Lord Carlston had gone. Thank God he and the others had finally arrived. They could not help her retrieve Carlston from his madness — he was too strong, too fast, and far too lost in the journal’s violence — but just their presence sent new energy through her body.
She directed her hearing upward. It was quiet, no longer any sounds of battle. Was that good, or bad?
She took the final steps at speed and rounded the balustrade, ducking back at the sight of two men on the landing: one heavyset and slumped against the white wall; the other crouched beside him, blond and lanky. Her mind caught up with her reflexes: Quinn and Selburn. What was the Duke doing up here?
As she straightened, he spun around, a long-barrelled pistol aimed at her chest.
‘Helen!’ He lowered the gun. ‘You are safe!’
‘You gave me your word you would stay outside!’
She had not seen him pass the bedroom. If he had been caught in the fight between Stokes and Carlston … No, she could not even think it.