Bring Out Your Dead (9 page)

The rotter had the nerve
to smile. It lit his eyes, sending little tremors of excitement
through me.
We are Joined. We will be
together until the end of our days. Your body belongs to me, and
mine to you. There is nothing wrong with me seducing you
now.

“
I’m sure that’s what you
think, but I still have a billion or so issues to work through over
this whole Beloved thing,” I said blandly, and refused to let him
pull me out of the chair again.

“
Est ce le
bedroom? Oooh! Huge bed!” Sally drifted into the
bedroom.

“
Anything you have to say
you can say to me here,” I told Sebastian as he continued to glare
and send me thoughts that just about steamed my blood. “There’s
nothing you can’t say in front of my friends.”

“
That’s right,” Tim said,
emerging from the bathroom with a damp shirt but a clean face. “I
feel we owe a lot to Ysabelle. Clearly you two are having some sort
of relationship crisis, and we all want you to know that we’re here
to help you work it out.”

The other revenants nodded. Sebastian said
rude things in French under his breath.

“
That’s very sweet of you.
I greatly appreciate the support, although I’m a bit concerned
about your safety.” I glanced at Sebastian. “How long do you think
we have before the demon tracks me down again?”

Before I could brace
myself, he grabbed my wrists and pulled me into his arms.
You are the single most irritatingly stubborn
woman I have ever met.

I kissed the tip of his nose. “Oddly enough,
I was just about to say the same about you. How long do we have, do
you think?”

He sighed, his hands stroking gently down my
back. My body—against my better intentions—melted against him. “I
would say an hour or less, depending on the resources the demon is
able to utilize. If it searches for you on its own, longer. If it
rallies an army, perhaps twenty minutes at best. I must find it
before it does either.”

“
Find it? Why find it?
It’s going to be here soon enough,” I pointed out.

“
I must destroy it before
it can find you again,” he answered, striding to a desk upon which
sat a black attaché case. He rifled through it and extracted a
small burgundy notebook. I couldn’t help watching him move,
admiring the lines of his impressive body, the strength and
controlled power that he seemed to bear so easily. His every
movement was filled with an almost feline grace that warned of a
ruthless, potent being behind the sophisticated
exterior.

“
How do you destroy a
demon?” Tim asked, holding out a chair for Sally. She beamed at
him.

I raised an eyebrow at Sebastian, waiting
for his answer. He didn’t look at me. “A Guardian can destroy
demons.”

Tim glanced at me. “That’s the only
way?”

“
Not the only way, no.
Talismans created for that purpose can also be used, but
unfortunately, the one I was trying to locate has no doubt been
destroyed in the fire that claimed the Betrayer’s
house.”

“
A talisman?”

The color in Sebastian’s eyes faded. “Yes. A
ring of power, actually. It was thin, rimmed with gold, made of
horn.”

“
Oh, you’re talking about
that ring you mentioned when you staggered into the house. I don’t
know where it is.”

“
It was in the possession
of the Betrayer. In the right hands, it was capable of the
destruction of the demon lord and his minions.” His hands tightened
on the notebook. “But now it is destroyed.”

“
It’s broken, but not
destroyed,” a voice piped up over the muted sound of electronic
cars racing down virtual country roads.

We all turned to look at Damian.

“
You’ve seen the ring?” I
asked him.

He shrugged, his eyes still on the TV.
Beside him, William’s head grunted as it manipulated the controller
with his mouth. “Yes. It broke when Nell saved Papa. He gave me the
pieces, saying it was a souvenir.”

The last hour and a half spent talking to
fire officials made it clear that there was not going to be
anything salvageable from the house. “Damian, I’m sorry—I thought
you heard when the fire captain said that the fire destroyed
everything in the house. Not even a magical ring could survive
it.”

“
The ring isn’t in the
house,” he said, his shoulders twitching as he manipulated his
virtual car through a hairpin turn.

Sebastian all but pounced on the boy,
grabbing him by both arms. “Where is the ring now, boy?”

“
You’re hurting me,”
Damian said, frowning.

Sebastian loosened his grip. We all watched
breathlessly as Damian reached into his pocket and pulled out an
assortment of grubby items. He picked carefully through bits of
string, a couple of shiny rocks, a key, hard sweets, and assorted
fluff to pluck out three items. He handed them to me. Everyone but
Damian and William’s head crowded around me to see the three thin
bits of curved metal that lay across my palm. They looked more like
a broken hoop earring than a ring. I touched one of the pieces.
“This is a ring of power?”

Sebastian slumped down
onto the love seat, his eyes closed for a moment. “It
was.
”

“
Hmm.” The pieces of the
ring lay cool on my hand. I touched them, pushing them into a rough
circle, looking closely at the edges of the breaks. “This isn’t
gold. It’s carmot.”

“
Carmot? What’s that?”
Jack the revenant asked, peering at the ring so closely his nose
almost touched my hand.

“
Have you ever heard of a
man named Edward Kelley?” I asked Sebastian.

He frowned for a moment. “No.”

“
Really? Erm…how old are
you?”

“
Two hundred and
seventeen,” he said, looking a bit startled.

“
Ah. That would explain
it. Edward Kelley was a bit before your time—he was an alchemist
during the reign of Elizabeth the First.”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed on my hand. “That
ring was reputed to have been created in the mid-sixteenth
century.”

I nodded. “Edward Kelley claimed to have
found the tomb of a bishop in Wales that contained not only the
basis for his tinctures, which would transmute base metals into
gold, but also of a manuscript that explained the secrets of the
manufacture of the tinctures. He was a fraud, of course, since the
tinctures were not as he claimed, but he did contribute one true
finding to science—carmot, the basis for which philosophers’ stones
were made, and, when treated properly, a yellow metal a thousand
times more rare than mere gold. This ring was made of horn and
carmot, not gold.”

“
Why do I suspect there is
more to this than a rare substance?” Sebastian asked, his gaze
steady on me.

I smiled, my fingers closing over the broken
bits of ring. “Because you’re a smart man. One of the reasons
carmot was used for items of great importance like this ring is
because of its restorative property.”

“
Restorative in what
manner?”

My smile deepened as I
whispered three words:
magis plana
conligatio
.

Before I could open my hand, Sebastian was
on his feet, his expression startled. I stood as well, turning over
my hand as I opened my fingers. The pieces burned a bright reddish
gold for a moment before subsiding into a more mundane horn ring
edged in a gold-colored metal.

“
You remade it,” Sebastian
said, touching the ring with the tip of his finger, as if he were
worried it would break again. “But…how?”

“
Anyone who knows about
carmot knows how to restore it to its manufactured form,” I said,
and pressed the ring into his hand. My fingers touched the pulse of
his wrist. “I am giving this to you now because I know you will use
it wisely.”

His gaze flickered to Damian, now thoroughly
engrossed in the video game. “I made a vow to you, Beloved. I am a
man of my word.”

I touched his cheek, the
anguish inside him so great it leeched into me.
I know you are. I could not have bound myself to you if you
were anything but an honorable man. I’m just sorry that I couldn’t
give you back your soul.

Do not worry, Beloved. I can exist without a
soul—so long as I have you.

I didn’t know what to say to that. Sebastian
seemed to have no difficulty sharing his thoughts and feelings with
me, blithely accepting his emotions rather than questioning how
such a strong relationship could develop almost instantly. I
couldn’t deny that some pretty strong emotions were building within
me on what seemed to be a minute-by-minute basis, but I was not yet
ready to either confront or accept them. There were other issues to
deal with first.

“
That’s amazing,” Tim
said, peeking over Sebastian’s shoulder to see the ring. “You just
pressed it together?”

“
Elle est la
daughter of an alchemist,” Sally said, sashaying
forward to look at the ring.

I frowned at her.

“
You are? I didn’t know
they still had such things,” Tim said.

“
They don’t. If the loo is
free, I’ll go clean up.”

“
Who exactly was Edward
Kelley?” Sebastian asked, following me into the
bathroom.

The revenants had left me a clean towel. I
scrubbed my face and neck, wishing I had a change of clothes. “He
was a liar and a thief, a man whose ears were cut off early in his
career as a laywer because of fraud. He later turned his talent for
prevarication to alchemy.”

“
But it wasn’t all false,
was it?” Sebastian fingered the ring. “This carmot seems legitimate
enough.”

“
It is. Carmot is the one
thing in Kelley’s life that was real, only he didn’t understand
that until the end of his life.”

“
What happened to
him?”

I rinsed out the now-soiled towel. “The
common belief is that he died during an attempt to break out of a
Bohemian prison.”

“
The common belief? What’s
the truth?”

“
Mind if I use your brush?
Thanks.” I toweled my hair quickly to get any soot out of it, then
applied Sebastian’s brush to the unruly mess, studying myself in
the mirror. What could Sebastian see in my face? My eyes? Did he
see the truth, or had some inner sense prompted him to press the
subject? “He lost a leg during the prison break attempt, but he
survived. He lived in seclusion for several years more, a broken
man who could never recapture the fleeting fame he acquired in his
earlier years.”

“
I assume he had a
family?” Sebastian’s eyes were watchful. Damn him, he
knew.

“
That would be a
reasonable assumption.” I set down the brush and turned to face
him. “He had two children by a Gypsy woman: a son and a daughter.
One was captured and burned at the stake for his sins. The other
escaped and was not heard of or seen again.”

“
Fascinating,” he said,
but I could tell what was coming next, and I dreaded it. Offense
was my only option.

“
If your next question is
going to be, ‘Was his daughter named Ysabelle?’ I will walk out of
the room.”

Three seconds passed. “Was his daughter
named—”

I left the room. “Damian, I’m going to have
to go out with Sebastian for a bit. You’re perfectly safe here, but
Sally will stay with you—”

“
Oy!” Sally said at the
same time Sebastian, emerging from the bathroom, announced that I
would not be accompanying him.

“
Why not?”

He slipped on his coat and
tucked the ring into the pocket.
You do
not seriously believe I would allow you to come within range of
this demon’s powers?

I thought the whole point of us Joining was
to keep me safe from the demon.

It was. And you are safer now that your
souls are bound to me, but if the demon destroys me, you will be
unprotected again.

I rolled my eyes. “Then you should stay
here, and I’ll use the ring to destroy it.”

“
That would be the height
of foolishness.”

I started to bristle at the implication, but
common sense kicked in and reminded me that while I was many
things, powerful enough to destroy a demon was not on the list.

“
You will stay here with
the others where you are safe. I will destroy this demon, and
return to you as soon as I am able.” He moved to the desk and
flipped open an address book. “Then we’ll alert the Guardian that
Asmodeus will shortly be making an appearance.”

“
Asmodeus?” I asked,
startled. “Isn’t that the one who held you prisoner—”

“
Yes,” Sebastian said with
a smile. At the sight of it, a burning memory coursed through me.
“The demon belonged to Asmodeus. I have no doubt that by now, the
demon has told its master of the existence of a
tattu
in London. By destroying the
demon, I will draw Asmodeus himself out.”

I said nothing, rubbing my arms against the
sudden chill that gripped me. Sebastian was almost through the door
when he paused and looked back at me.

Beloved? You are distressed. You burn with
fever.

It’s not a fever, and yes, I’m distressed. I
understand why you wish to destroy Asmodeus, but I don’t like the
way thoughts of revenge consume you.