His Lordship Possessed (12 page)

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Disench anted & Co., Part 1

I felt a movement of air over me, terrible and cold,

which rushed at Dredmore. When I saw a wide, red

streak of light shoot past my face, and felt Dredmore’s

body jerk, I almost screamed. Although I held my tongue

I must have moved, for someone grabbed my hair and

lifted my head, giving it a shake.

“She’s come to,” Montrose said, and my head dropped

onto the pillow again. “Can I have her, Dad?”

“No.” Th at was the Talian. “He took great trouble to

protect her. She must know something of value to us.”

“I’ll get it out of her,” Montrose off ered. “Come on,

Dad. I did everything you asked. I haven’t had a fi ghter

in ages.”

“Shut up, Monty.” Walsh came to stand over me, his

cologne fi lling my nostrils, and then he slapped me, hard.

Th rough the ringing in my ears I heard him say, “Enough

stage play, Miss Kittredge.”

I surged up and drove my elbow into his diaphragm.

As Walsh doubled over, I shoved him aside and ran. A

short man with oily dark hair and a very sharp-looking

dagger pointed at my belly brought me to a stop.

“Dredmore,” I said, never taking my eyes off the blade,

“Now would be a very good time to demonstrate your

deathmage magic.”

“I would be delighted, Charmian,” Dredmore’s voice

rasped, “if you would fi rst remove this boulder from my

brow.”

“Can’t get to you just now.” I regarded the oily-headed

one. “I don’t suppose you’d oblige him.”

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“No, miss,” he told me in a Talian-accented voice, and

glanced down. “Master?”

“Kill the stupid bitch, Celestino,” Walsh groaned

from the fl oor.

“We will let her choose.” Th e Talian gestured, and

Montrose appeared with a length of rope. “I can do as his

lordship wishes, miss, and cut your throat. Or you can sit

down and hold out your wrists. How will it be?”

I backed up against the bed. “Screaming and running

away not an option? How disappointing.” As the villains

converged on me, I jumped up on the bed, tumbling

backward across Dredmore’s form and in the process

knocking away the small white stone they had placed in

the center of his forehead. Montrose uttered some vile

words, while the Talian dove at the bed. Dredmore came

out of his paralyzed state, grabbed me, and dragged me

from the bed, thrusting me behind him as he assessed the

two men.

“I thought magic didn’t work near me,” I whispered as

I glanced over his shoulder.

“Th ey’re not using it on you,” he muttered back. “And

I have no power against Aramanthan-charmed icestone.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned this earlier?” We were

cornered, and the Talian and Montrose were coming

round the bed after us. I thought of what the diseased

little sod wanted to do to me and shuddered. “I’d like to

be killed fi rst, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“No one has to die,” Celestino said to Dredmore.

“Zarath will see to it that you live for a very long time,

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my lord.”

Dredmore’s hand nearly crushed mine before he spoke

to the Talian. “I will give you what you want, as soon as

you release Miss Kittredge.”

Montrose giggled. “Th at’ll be a snowday in Hades.”

“She’s nothing but a stupid, nameless skirt,” Dredmore

continued, making me want to kick him in a few sensitive

places. “You don’t need her.”

“True, but you seem to care for her, my lord.”

Celestino fl ipped his dagger over his hand in a fl ashy,

useless show of dexterity. “Cooperate with us, and I will

spare her life.” He smirked. “Perhaps Zarath will choose

to make her your body servant.”

Dredmore turned his back on them and grabbed me

by the arms, kissing me hard on the mouth before hauling

me through an adjoining door, slamming it shut in the

Talian’s face.

I glanced round us but saw no other door or window

to provide an avenue of escape. “Lucien, we cannot stay

in here forever.” Indeed, the men on the other side of the

door were hammering on it.

“I know. I am about to be possessed by one of the

Aramanthan, Charmian,” he said as he braced his

shoulders against the door panel. “A Reaper warlord,

who means to eat my spirit in order to own my body and

use my power for his own purposes. I am too weakened

by the drugs to fi ght him off , and he can control mortals

the way I control the spiritborn. With my power added

to his, no one will be able to resist him, not even you.”

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I saw the door shudder in its frame as someone on the

other side bashed against it. “Lucien—”

“Shut up. When they are fi nished, it will be on you to

put an end to it.” His grip turned bruising. “Th is thing

will occupy my fl esh, but my spirit will go where it can

never touch me. I understand now. I will be where Harry

has been, all this time. Now swear to me that you will

kill it. Kill my body.” As I remained silent, he shouted it

again. “Swear to me.”

“Lucien.” I saw the terror in his eyes, and it shocked

me into agreement. “I will. I swear it.” And then, because

I simply couldn’t help myself, I said, “I love you.”

Th e door gave way, thrusting Dredmore against me.

I held him as long as I could, my throat too tight now to

speak.

“So touching.” Montrose looped the rope round

Dredmore’s neck, dragging him back out of the way,

and forced him to his knees. I started after them, but the

Talian got hold of me again and marched me toward the

door.

Th e knife at my throat kept me from struggling. “I’d

like to stay, if you don’t mind.”

“We cannot have you in the room,” he told me.

“Nothing can interfere when the warlord takes

possession.”

“What warlord?”

“Zarath, like we said.” He grinned exactly as a child

let loose in an unsupervised sweets shop would. “Do not

worry. Soon you will come to know him very well.”

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He guided me into the next room, the furnishings of

which were oddly arranged in a half-circle facing the wall.

I saw an unframed oval of glass, through which I saw

into the room where Dredmore was being held by the

Walshes. I vaguely recalled seeing a mirror of the same

shape on the other side.

“You trust them so much you have to watch them in

secret?” I asked as the Talian shoved me down in one of

the chairs.

“Be quiet.” He moved to stand behind me and placed

the knife under my chin.

I heard Lord Walsh’s voice, and glanced down to see

where it came from: a small grate at the base of the wall.

“—my intent from the beginning,” Walsh was saying.

“Your assaults on Lady Walsh have been entertaining,

but I cannot fathom why you settled on her as a method

of getting to me.”

“I never touched your wife, you daft prick.” Dredmore

gritted his teeth as Montrose tightened the rope round

his neck. “Th e Tillers will know what you’ve done. Th e

moment he begins casting, they’ll come for you. My only

regret is that I will not be here to watch your carcass

being dragged from the river.”

“My dear Dredmore.” Walsh’s face stretched into a

broad smile. “Th e wardlings that hang about almost every

neck and door in the city have hearts of dreamstone. I

know because our Talian friends forged them. Th e Tillers

won’t even know we’re here.”

I didn’t know what dreamstone was, nor did I think

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Dredmore could be duped by anyone, but from the look

on his face Walsh had done the very thing.

“I take it you lot are Reapers?” I asked the Talian.

“For a stupid skirt, you know much.” Celestino didn’t

sound as if he approved.

“Women in this country have always been vastly

underrated.” My throat tightened as Walsh took a

gleaming red stone from a white velvet pouch. “Lord

Dredmore is insanely wealthy, you know. If I could

convince you to intervene on his behalf, I can guarantee

he would see to it that you would never have to dirty your

hands again with this sort of nonsense.”

“Oh, miss.” He chuckled. “For this, Zarath will make

me king of my country.”

I saw Walsh drop the stone in Dredmore’s hand

before he took the pistol from his son.

I reached out to touch the surface of the two-way

glass. “Lucien.”

As if he’d heard, Dredmore turned his head to look

directly at me, put the stone in his mouth, and swallowed.

At the exact same moment, Lord Walsh placed the pistol

at his own temple and pulled the trigger.

Someone screamed—me, I think—and I gripped the

knife at my throat with my fi ngers and wrenched it out

of the Talian’s hand. Th e blade cut deep into my fi ngers

as I ran out and into the room where Lord Walsh’s body

lay on the fl oor, and his son gagged as he swiped at his

father’s brains, which were all over the front of his fancy

jacket as well as the wall behind him.

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I switched the bloody blade to my left hand, ready

to use it as I stepped between the men and Dredmore.

I stepped back until I could reach him. “Lucien, we’re

leaving.” I reached out and grabbed his sleeve, but he

didn’t move.
“Lucien.”

Th is time the red streaks of light came out of Lord

Walsh’s body, fi rst from his slack lips, and then in a

burst out of the hole in his head. Th ey fl ew past me,

surrounding Dredmore, who had doubled over, choking

and heaving. Th e red lights swirled, closing in on him

until his entire body glowed. At last he stopped fi ghting

it and slowly stood, and the lights were sucked into the

darkness of his eyes, dwindling until they were two tiny

red glints.

“Dredmore.” I told myself it had been a trick, one of

his ridiculous illusions. “Say something.”

He said nothing, but held up one hand and turned it

over, as if he’d never seen it before. Th en he smiled, his

face changing into something beautiful and terrible, his

eyes taking on a horrid red glow. I didn’t even resist as

the Talian took the knife from my hand and forced me

down on my knees.

“Ecco, sovrano mio,”
Celestino babbled as he dropped down beside me.
“Sia benedetto il compagno oscuro.”

Dredmore looked round the room, and then spoke a

single word.
“Rieccomi.”

His voice rang out, clear as church bells, and the

wrongness of it set my skin to crawling. But the man had

just been forced to swallow a rock; couldn’t have been

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easy on his throat.

I was sure I could keep telling myself lies like that for

as long as was necessary.

“Dove sono capitato?”
Defi nitely not Dredmore’s voice, yet it came from Dredmore’s mouth.

“Il continente Victoriana, sovrano. La Cittá di Rumsen.”

“If he doesn’t speak English,” Montrose grumbled,

“how are the rest of us supposed to understand him?”

“Chiudi il culo,”
the Talian said, smacking the younger man in the back of the head.

Dredmore spared Monty a glance. “Who do you think

gave you your tongue, boy?” He took a step, looked down

at his legs, and then pressed a hand to his chest and arm.

“Strong. Young. You chose well,
umano
.”

“My wife knew this body would please you, Master.

Especially after you were forced to wait so long in . . .”

Th e Talian gestured vaguely at Nolan Walsh’s corpse.

“Our ships will be arriving at dawn with your army.

We will meet them at the docks, and once you have

marshaled them, we can move against the city.”

“Dad never said anything about blowing his brains

out,” Montrose muttered. “And I still don’t see how one

man can control armies and cities just by thinking it.”

“I am not a man.” Th e thing in Dredmore’s body eyed

me. “I am Zarath, warlord of the Aramanthan Scourge.”

He ran the tip of his tongue from one side of his mouth

to the other.

Th at decided it for me. Th e thing had admitted what

it was, and Dredmore would never lick his lips in such a

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repulsive fashion.

Celestino cleared his throat. “My lord, forgive the

boy for speaking out of turn. Young lord Walsh is much

beloved by my wife, who in return for the sacrifi ce of his

father’s fl esh humbly asks that you heal him.”