Balthazar fitted the demi-mask to his face and regarded the gaudily painted jester staring back at him in the shaving mirror. The crooked nose was concealed, along with most of his coal-black hair. Save for the dark eyes, he could have been anyone.
Balthazar curled his lips in a suitably grotesque leer.
His smile died. It would do.
He wore an evening dress suit with tails and a black tie, which he now made a minute adjustment to. Might as well go out in style.
Like Gabriel, Balthazar had always stalked his prey from the shadows, pretending loyalty to various factions of the Duzakh while undermining them all at every turn. It was a razor’s edge, but he’d walked it unerringly for centuries.
Time to choose sides, old friend.
It almost came as a relief. The confrontation had been inevitable.
“Are you ready, my lord?”
Balthazar could see half of Lucas’s face in the mirror behind him. Close-cropped hair turning prematurely grey at the temples and a little waxed moustache that drew attention away from the scar bisecting his jaw. Lucas was only twenty-seven, but he’d been with Balthazar since he was four years old. Balthazar had raised him as his own, paying for elite boarding schools and other, more specialized training.
“As I’ll ever be,” Balthazar replied.
Lucas fixed a feathered eagle mask with a sharply curved beak to his own face. His mouth was a tense line. Seeing Bekker dead was Lucas’s dearest wish. Balthazar knew he was unhappy about the decision to allow Alec Lawrence to take his place.
“I’ll bring the carriage round.”
Balthazar glanced at his cache of talismans, then resolutely turned his back on it. There would be no smuggling of weapons, magical or otherwise, into the Picatrix Club. Bekker was too careful for that. Balthazar just hoped Alec Lawrence had received the message — and didn’t try anything unforgivably stupid before Bekker was dead.
He donned his silk-lined top hat and trotted out the front door. They took a winding route through London, passing through the gentile bustle of Picadilly and on to less savory districts. When the carriage reached a tangle of narrow alleys, the wheels slowed. Balthazar heard a soft thump. Then it rolled forward again, setting a course for Queensgate near the Royal Horticultural Society.
A line of footmen waited outside the Picatrix Club. Alec Lawrence, now wearing the feathered eagle half-mask and similarly attired in a coat and tails, climbed down from the driver’s bench and opened the door for Balthazar, then followed him through a wrought-iron gate as one of the footmen took charge of the carriage. Alec walked without his cane and Balthazar detected no telltale limp. They exchanged a quick glance as the front door was opened by yet another footman.
There was no plaque or anything else to signify the nature of the townhouse. It could have been any of a dozen discreet gentlemen’s clubs, with a whiff of cigar smoke in the air and walls of dark-paneled wood.
But the six men who waited inside the vestibule, all masked as fantastic, nightmarish animals, proceeded to conduct an exceedingly thorough search of their persons before they were permitted to go any further.
“Easy now,” Balthazar murmured as one of them groped through his trouser pockets. “We’ve only just met.”
The man showed no reaction whatsoever. He had a job to do, and by God, he was going to do it.
Balthazar saw Alec tense as rough hands ran over the cuff around his wrist, then yanked his sleeve up. Bekker’s minion examined it with a slight frown and let the shirt fall back into place.
Balthazar suppressed a smile. The silly bugger had never seen a bonded cuff before. Not surprising since so few were left, but he had no idea a daēva was in their midst. Bekker’s getting sloppy with his training. In Balthazar’s time, every necromancer worth his chains knew exactly what that cuff meant — and to run in the opposite direction.
Once through this checkpoint, they were ushered into a much larger room with an ornate vaulted ceiling and row of windows overlooking a balcony and garden beyond.
Perhaps a hundred men stood whispering in little knots. There was no food or drink on offer. The Duzakh didn’t trust each other enough for that.
Balthazar nodded his head toward an open space near the raised dais in the center of the room. They stood for a moment, listening to the low murmur of conversation. Through the eagle’s mask, Alec’s eyes roamed the crowd, seeking out his quarry, but Balthazar saw no sign of D’Ange, or Bekker either.
Perhaps a quarter of the men had brought their human captives, imagining the display gave them status and prestige. These would be the youngest necromancers. In fact, Balthazar knew the slaves would only prove an encumbrance if disputes broke out — as they often did. The captives wore iron collars around their necks and their eyes were blank as dolls. Balthazar sensed Alec’s revulsion and fully shared it.
But now wasn’t the time for heroic gestures. Balthazar’s sharp gaze swept the crowd. Despite the array of freakish masks, he knew a few of the oldest ones well enough to identify their names.
“Kir Nazari,” he said softly to Alec. “The one who keeps raising his hand to his face and then stopping himself. He has a scar on his nose he strokes when he’s nervous.” Balthazar nodded his head at another necromancer, morbidly obese, in a mask with curling ram’s horns. “And that’s the one who gave him the scar.”
Balthazar’s gaze moved onward … and flicked back. A man had appeared at the edge of the room. He was of medium height and build, notable only for the fact that he’d disdained a tie and tails, wearing a plain wool coat with silver buttons. He wore the mask of a panther. Balthazar’s neck prickled as the man turned his head and Balthazar saw the dark blond hair, tied back at the nape with a black ribbon.
Gabriel appeared to be alone.
Alec noticed an instant later. Balthazar felt him tense.
And then the whispering grew as Jorin Bekker entered through a side door, surrounded by a cadre of flunkies. He walked slowly to the dais at the center of the room.
Bekker held his hands up and waited for perfect silence.
“Welcome, friends,” he said. “Welcome to the Picatrix Club.”
He had a slight Belgian accent, his voice high and sweet like a child’s. In truth, he looked no more than sixteen, a slender youth who might have been handsome if not for a certain reptilian quality to his features, a covetous hardness around the eyes. Longish hair swept back from a high forehead and small, full lips. Bekker did not wear a mask. He was signaling that he had no fear of revealing his face. He had no fear of them.
“It has been a long century since last we gathered, but I believe the time has come to set aside our differences. Do we not all enjoy wealth, power, immortality? Yet some among us became greedy, forging alliances outside of the Duzakh. And that, my friends, led to our downfall.” He paused. “We must reinstate a ruling council, bring order.” A crooked smile. “We are like large predators, each requiring a designated range in which to feed. But that cannot be accomplished without….”
Alec’s finger tapped impatiently against his trouser leg. Gabriel hadn’t moved, only stood listening like the rest of them.
“So what I propose is this. We have some newer members, but precedence must be given to—”
And suddenly Alec was moving, making his stealthy way through the crowd toward Gabriel. Balthazar bit back an oath and stepped forward, catching his sleeve.
“Just wait, for God’s sake,” he muttered.
Alec pulled free and continued on, inexorable. There were a few mutters of irritation as someone’s shoe was trodden on. Gabriel glanced over his shoulder. His eyes met Balthazar’s through the panther mask and he gave a tiny nod. Of course, Gabriel would recognize him instantly.
But he hadn’t noticed Alec Lawrence yet.
On the dais, Bekker’s speech was gaining momentum.
“… the Duzakh will be reborn, stronger than it was before, and with mechanisms in place to settle….”
Balthazar made another futile snatch at the back of Alec’s coat. And then they both stood directly behind D’Ange. He caught and held Alec’s eyes through the eagle mask for a brief moment.
Don’t. Balthazar mouthed. For the love of—
Alec Lawrence leaned forward to Gabriel’s ear and whispered something in French. Balthazar couldn’t make out the words but he’d learned to read lips during the Purge, a useful skill at gatherings such as this one.
What Alec had said was this:
“You have my sister, you fucking bastard, so why don’t we step into the garden and settle the matter like gentlemen?”
Sister? Balthazar thought.
Gabriel stiffened. He ignored Alec completely and turned to Balthazar.
“I’ll kill you for this someday,” he said softly.
Not a threat. A simple statement of fact.
Balthazar closed his eyes, suddenly wearier than he’d ever been in his life.
I should never have come here. I could have been halfway back to Spain by now.
Gabriel half-turned to Alec. “I’ll be glad to,” he hissed. “Just let me have Bekker first.”
Alec gave a curt nod.
And so they stood shoulder to shoulder while Bekker droned on and Balthazar could hardly believe no one else noticed the murderous tension between the two men. Alec’s hands were balled into fists. Gabriel’s hung loose and open at his sides, but his perfect stillness conveyed the posture of a predator about to pounce.
And then Balthazar realized that Bekker had finally stopped talking. Despite the masks, he stared unerringly in their direction.
“We have a special guest tonight.” Bekker paused. “Gabriel D’Ange.”
An unhappy murmur rippled through the crowd of Antimagi.
“Here we go,” Balthazar murmured.
Gabriel shouldered his way to the center of the room and stood before the dais.
“It’s been an age since we met,” Bekker said. “You look the same as ever.”
There was some sycophantic laughter, but not much. The room held its breath.
“I understand you’ve brought me something,” Bekker said. “A gift.”
“Oh, I did. Would you like to have it now?”
Bekker licked his lips.
Three of the Order of the Rose Cross materialized in the side doors, leaving the main entrance at the back of the room unguarded. They held crossbows. Balthazar recognized Constantin immediately by his missing fingers and burly shoulders, but he didn’t know the others. This didn’t surprise him. The nature of the Order implied a fair amount of turnover. Gabriel D’Ange and Johann Constantin Andreae were the only ones who had survived since its founding.
But Gabriel didn’t usually mount a frontal assault.
Bekker gave a thin smile. Then one of the Order loosed a bolt. It struck the necromancer standing next to Bekker. He frowned slightly, raising a hand to pull it out … and screamed, a horrible cry. He fell from the dais, heels drumming on the ground, his face turning an ugly shade of purple.
There was a surge as the Duzakh started backing toward the open doors.
“Nobody moves,” Gabriel snapped. “Nobody.”
The room stilled.
“Sanctus arma,” Balthazar whispered with a note of awe.
Alec shot him a look.
“Forged during the Crusades.” He spoke rapidly. “Weapons supposedly blessed by Saint Michael himself. Most were lost. Whatever the hell they’re made of, they’ll kill a necromancer. But they’re almost impossible to find anymore.”
Balthazar watched intently. Gabriel was full of surprises.
“You fils de pute slaver.” Gabriel tore his mask off and spat on the polished parquet floor. “Jorin Bekker.” The name was spoken in a clipped, ringing tone and Bathazar wondered how many men had heard their own names spoken in such a way, and how many had heard Gabriel’s voice as their last sound on earth.
“I sentence you to death in the name of the Saints and the Holy Father for the crimes of rape, kidnapping, murder, profiting from the blood and sweat of innocents….”
The litany went on.
Bekker didn’t try to run. He just regarded him with those flat sharklike eyes.
When Gabriel finished, a pregnant hush fell on the room.
“I don’t want the rest of you,” Gabriel said quietly, his gaze never leaving Bekker. “Get out.”
There was a brief, pregnant pause, followed by a stampede for the back of the room. But too many of them reached the doors at once and they couldn’t all fit through.
So naturally, they started killing each other.
Balthazar saw one of the Order shoot a necromancer with human captives and unlatch the collar and bracelets, freeing his slaves. These poor souls were shoved through a side door just as a revenant tore through the floorboards, a heavy iron blade in its gore-caked fist. Gabriel kicked it away with contempt.
“Donné!” he barked, throwing out a hand.
His protégé tossed him the chains. Gabriel whipped them around the neck of one of Bekker’s bodyguards and snapped it. Another vicious jerk and the head popped off and rolled across the floor, coming to rest at Balthazar’s feet.
That’s when things officially went to merde.
Gabriel and his chains were a graceful whirlwind of death, but Balthazar lost interest in watching him when a pair of revenants exploded through the floor directly in Balthazar’s path. Viking warriors risen from the grave, with eyes of silver and the pallor of yesterday’s fish. He grabbed a gilded chair and brandished it like a lion-tamer. One crushing downstroke later, Balthazar stood with half the chair in each hand. He was wondering what he ought to do with the pieces when a crossbow bolt whizzed past his left ear. The revenant toppled.
Balthazar whispered a quick prayer of thanks. Then he scooped up its broadsword, beheaded the other, and tried to find an exit that wasn’t clogged with bodies.
Gabriel was still single-mindedly carving a path to Bekker, his mouth set in a grim line, and Balthazar had to wonder why Bekker hadn’t fled. He stood still as a statue on the dais, watching the melee around him, watching as his bodyguards fell, one by one, and Gabriel slowly advanced.
If he drained a necromancer as old and powerful as Jorin Bekker, D’Ange would gain decades of life. Maybe more.
The room was starting to empty, either because the men inside it were dead or they’d had the wits to bring a talisman of Traveling. Gateways were opening in the spilled blood all over the room, necromancers leaping into them, half with their animal masks askew. It was like some surreal, hellish scene from a Hieronymus Bosch painting.
Where was Lucas? Vivienne? Balthazar took a step toward the windows fronting the balcony and saw Constantin rush up and seize Gabriel’s arm. Gabriel shook him off, raging in French so rapid Balthazar couldn’t follow it. Apparently, things weren’t turning out the way they were supposed to. Gabriel turned away….
And Constantin reached into his cloak, unsheathed a sword and drove it straight through Gabriel’s back.
Balthazar froze, shocked to his marrow.
D’Ange blinked rapidly as a foot of steel erupted from his chest. Quick as a snake, Constantin withdrew the blade and stabbed him again. And yet again.
The sword looked ordinary enough, if forged in the old way, double-edged with a cruciform hilt now dark with rust, but Balthazar knew it had to be sanctus arma. He waited for the inevitable scream, but it never came.
Blood ran from Gabriel’s mouth. He sank to his knees, his face disbelieving.
Constantin swung the blade back to take Gabriel’s head from his shoulders when one of the Order — a loyal one, apparently — slammed into Constantin and dragged him down. The man was already dying from a dozen wounds. Constantin finished him quickly. He stood and turned back to Gabriel, now braced on all fours, head hanging low.
And Alec Lawrence stepped between them.
“He’s mine,” Alec snarled, a bloodied revenant blade in his hands.
Constantin scowled and raised the sword, but his new master beckoned sharply. “He’s good as dead,” Bekker snapped. “Leave him.”
Constantin cast a final look at Gabriel and Balthazar knew exactly what he was thinking. Better safe than sorry. But Alec still stood over D’Ange and Bekker was snapping orders. Constantin spun away, striding to one of the open doorways where Bekker’s men stood guard. They all vanished, presumably to a Gate.
Gabriel fell to one side, unmoving.
What did he offer to make you betray your mentor? Balthazar wondered with a strange bitterness. He should have been grateful that he wouldn’t be hunted like a dog for the rest of his life, but he felt … sad. They didn’t make them like Gabriel D’Ange anymore.
And then Balthazar was swept into the melee again, wondering where the hell the reinforcements were.
Old grudges were settled at the Picatrix Club that night and new ones born. Everywhere Balthazar turned, he saw flickers of black lightning, heard the roar of revenants as necromancers died. He kicked one from his broadsword, adjusted his cuffs, and took a moment to survey the scene. Balthazar had always thought the term bloodbath to be hyperbole, but in this case….
Alec Lawrence had hold of Gabriel’s boots and was hauling him toward the balcony to the garden. One of Gabriel’s arms dragged limply above his head, trailing the chains locked around his wrist. His face was a death mask.
But he hadn’t gone into the usual convulsions, the instantaneous suffocation, and Balthazar felt a superstitious thrill of fear.
What was he?
Alec crouched down and injected something into Gabriel’s thigh. Then he stood, swaying a little on his feet. His bad leg had started to buckle. The eagle mask was long gone and he looked exhausted. Balthazar guessed Alec had been occupied protecting his prize.
He failed to notice when Gabriel’s eyes fluttered open.
With a savage groan, Gabriel sat up and whipped the chain around Alec’s ankles, yanking it taut. Alec crashed to the floor. D’Ange had something in his fist, a talisman of Traveling, and the two of them sank into the slick of blood.
It happened in an instant.
“Where are they?”
Balthazar turned. Vivienne stood on the balcony, wild-eyed, Lucas at her side.
He could tell she already knew, but he answered.
“Gone.”
A police whistle sounded in the street. Vivienne screamed, an animal sound, and Lucas stepped forward, blade sweeping to behead a revenant as it shuffled toward them. Balthazar gently took her arm.
“He’s gone, Vivienne. We have to get the hell out of here.”
He dragged her back out the French doors and down to the garden below, where a dozen more bodies sprawled in the grass. It was clear now what had them taken them so long to arrive.
Vivienne was trembling as they ran to the carriage and Lucas leapt into the driver’s bench and shook the reins.
“I’ll kill him,” she whispered as they hurtled through the dark streets. “Mark me, Balthazar.”
He glanced at her face and wondered if D’Ange had finally met his match.