Rage filled him, the likes of which Whit had never experienced, all but paralyzing in its intensity. If any harm befell her, nothing would stop him from exacting vengeance. He didn’t care if he faced the flames of Hell itself. Nothing and no one hurt Zora. And God help anything and anyone who did.
Whit grabbed a chair and, with a roar, threw it against a wall. It broke apart into splinters.
He spun, seeking some other outlet for his fury, and that’s when he noticed it. The empty mantel. The playing card—Zora’s card—was gone.
In two strides, he stood at the mantel. His fingers rubbed against the stone and came away smudged with ash.
“My lord?”
Scowling, ferocious, Whit pivoted at the sound of his valet’s terrified voice. Kitson stood in the doorway, pale and shaken. If the unflappable valet showed this much fear, Whit must have been a truly terrifying spectacle.
“Did you see her?” Whit demanded.
“N-no, my lord,” stuttered Kitson. “But some of the footmen did. A Gypsy girl ... She bolted from the room. Ran out the front door without saying a word. No one saw her come
in
, my lord. I searched the room. Nothing was stolen, so she did not break in. Not for that purpose.”
Whit’s hand strayed to the hollow of his throat, where Zora’s ring nestled against his skin. Having this small token of her brought him a fragment of peace, but it was not enough.
“Wake the grooms. Have them saddle the fastest horse in the stable.” When Kitson hesitated, Whit roared, “Now, damn it!”
The valet bolted.
The moment Kitson left, Whit slammed from the gaming room and up the stairs to his private chambers, casting off his expensive garments heedlessly. Refined silk and gentlemen’s buckled shoes would not serve his purpose. He needed doeskin breeches, stout boots. His hunting clothes.
“By Hell’s fire,” he snarled to himself, “I will find her.”
The strange city loomed all around Zora, huge, dark, ravenous. She did not know where she was, only that she must run fast. No time even for joy at being, at last, free. This was London. Coal smoke and river stench choked the air and blocked the stars. The sky gave her no guidance.
Where was she? Massive homes towered on all sides, as large as palaces. Not the London she knew, the horse fairs and markets at the edges of the city. As she ran, she passed a few linkboys with their smoldering torches guiding sedan chairs, and one watchman made a halfhearted attempt to grab her. Otherwise, the streets were empty and silent, save for the sounds of her feet on the pavement. Nothing looked familiar. She found herself caught in a nightmare of wrong turns, dead ends, giant squares, and fenced parks. After days inside, her eyes still would not be able to make sense of the darkness. She ran like a fox searching for a place to make a stand.
Lord save her, this city was a maze from which she could not escape. Instinct guided her. London was
Wafodu guero
’s pleasure garden. It reeked of vice, of wickedness, the faces of the buildings streaked and grimy, as if sin itself ran down the brick and plaster. She could not face the Devil here, where he had so many possible allies. She needed open spaces, clean air, not a sky choked with smoke.
The best thing was to run, and run fast. But where?
Think, Zora.
Her family had often approached London from the south, their caravan moving through tracts of open land before buildings began to crowd in.
South, then.
A giant river confounded her progress. Fortunately, she could swim, but she did not trust the stinking, black water. Up to the northeast, she saw a bridge.
By the time she reached the bridge, she was too tired to marvel at its size, its stately arches or high walls. She ran across it, dodging people still going in and out of the shops lining the bridge. With every step closer to the opposite bank, Zora felt her heart throb. It was too far to open space. She hadn’t even left London, yet.
Not impossible.
She must push herself to the limits of her endurance, even as her body ached from weariness. Too long had she been trapped, immobile. Powerless. Not any longer.
A fresh surge of energy washed through her as she reached the southern bank of the river. She sped on through suburban developments, houses and other buildings coming less frequently. Before her, a large field opened up. It stretched wide and dark around her. Up ahead lay a crossroads.
“Zora!”
She spun around at the sound of Whit’s voice. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so she saw him plainly. On horseback, thundering toward her, he seemed a figure of ancient myth and fevered intent. Even across the field, even in this darkness, she felt his gaze on her, pulling on her, as though he had loosed an arrow and it plunged straight into her chest.
Zora could not move as he rode closer. His presence stunned her into immobility, but her traitorous heart leapt with a complicated joy.
He pulled up hard on the reins, his horse dancing and snorting around her. Before the animal came to a total stop, Whit leapt down from the saddle and strode to her. His gaze was hard, tense. Yet not angry. He seemed both relieved to find her and, strangely, afraid. She resisted the urge to throw her arms around him, though it took far more strength to hold herself back than she liked.
He was armed. Not with a gentleman’s dress sword, but with a dangerous curved sword the likes of which she had never seen. A pistol also bulged in his coat pocket. He must believe she would put up a tremendous fight, to arm himself thus.
They spoke, their voices overlapping.
“How did you find me?”
“How did you break the spell?”
“Something has happened.” He reached for her. “I need—”
A chorus of male voices shouted from the other side of the field, calling Whit’s name.
Both Zora and Whit turned to face the newcomers. A new current of fear flooded her as she saw Whit’s four friends, all on horseback, all riding straight toward them. Bringers of the end of the world.
And bringers of the end of her brief freedom, as well as the possibility of her stand against the Devil. She whirled to Whit as she felt the cut of betrayal. She had thought him better than this—but perhaps his kiss had been false. “Needed reinforcements to steal back your prize?”
He scowled at his approaching friends. “You do not understand.”
Before she could demand an explanation, the men were upon them. Like Whit, they, too, jumped down from their horses. They formed a ring around Whit and Zora, a shadowed, confining circle whose presence stole the very breath from Zora’s lungs. Four men, each exuding sinister power. Whit moved closer to her, shoulders squaring, almost as if trying to protect her.
Why would he protect her when he had enlisted his friends to drag her back to captivity?
“The hell, Whit?” the dark, scarred one asked hotly.
“I ask you the same damned question,” Whit shot back.
“We were told we had to find you,” said a younger blond man. “That you were in peril.”
“Told by whom?”
The dark one jerked his head toward a mounted figure that Zora had not seen. When the figure drew nearer, sedately walking his horse forward, Zora gasped. She could not believe it.
The mounted figure was
Whit.
Yet it wasn’t. Whit stood beside her, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Her gaze flew back and forth between the two Whits. The one next to her wore serviceable hunting clothes, while the other Whit had on evening finery. Save for the manner of dress, the men were identical.
“God protect me.” She gulped.
“You see it, too?” the Whit standing beside her demanded.
“Your brother?” she tried to guess.
He shook his head. “None of my brothers survived childhood.”
Yet when the mounted man spoke, it had Whit’s voice. “If you continue on this path, Mr. Holliday will be extremely displeased.”
“We have his gifts,” said Whit’s scholarly friend, placating. “There is no need to earn Mr. Holliday’s disfavor.”
“
Look
at him,” Whit growled, pointing at his elegantly dressed double.
The four friends glanced at the Whit on horseback, then back at the Whit standing next to Zora.
“What of him?” The dark man frowned. “He found us, told us you were in danger.”
“
He
is the danger,” answered Whit.
The double merely sighed as Whit’s friends looked plainly baffled.
Realization hit Zora. “They cannot see,” she murmured. For some reason, Whit’s friends did not perceive that the man on horseback looked, and sounded, exactly like Whit.
When she spoke, the double turned its gaze on her, then narrowed its eyes. Cold, calculated hatred. Instinctively, Zora edged closer to the Whit beside her.
She remembered, belatedly, that she had power of her own. Yet when she reached for the magic that Livia had given her, she found ... nothing. Just cold ashes where brightness had once been. Perhaps the priestess’s own magic had been too weak to grant Zora anything lasting.
Damn. Zora would find more comfort in knowing she could set someone on fire.
“
She
is the threat,” the double said, as if reading her thoughts. “She leads Lord Whitney astray, jeopardizing not only him, but all of you.”
“The Gypsy girl?” asked the young blond man. A puzzled frown appeared between his brows. “She has influenced him with her feminine ways.”
“Now she has a power far greater than a woman’s wiles,” corrected the double.
Zora almost corrected him, since she had no magic anymore. But it was better for an enemy to think her more powerful than she truly was.
So the double must have believed, for it continued, “And she means you all great harm.” It added with icy menace, “Unless you destroy her.”
“Wait—” cried Zora.
A hiss resounded loudly in the field. Whit unsheathed his sword. He took up a ready, fighting stance.
The sight astounded Zora. He was defending her. Skillfully. For a gentleman and man of leisure, he made a remarkably convincing warrior.
“No one bloody touches her,” he warned, his voice low and edged.
Shocked silence followed. Whit’s friends stared at him as though he had suddenly grown claws and fangs. Zora, too, could not believe that Whit had actually drawn his sword against his friends. It was clear that they cared about one another with the fierce friendship that men cultivated over many years. It was also clear that no one ever expected Whit to position himself against them.
But he had. To protect her.
“Whit ...” The dark man was stunned, uncomprehending.
“He’s been beguiled,” the double snapped. “He knows not what he does. Disarm him before he hurts someone. Before he hurts himself.
Now.
”
Whit’s friends reluctantly obeyed the double’s command. They slowly advanced on Whit, hands upraised, as if approaching a cornered animal. One of them said soothingly, “Be at ease, Whit. We only seek to help you.”
“Step no closer,” Whit warned. Yet he hesitated, plainly reluctant to lash out against his friends.
God above
, Zora thought,
if only I had the fire magic given to me by that damned ghost!
Fire ...
A fire always burned in the middle of her band’s encampment. Images of the campfire flickered in her mind, warming her. She had thought of her band’s fire at the moment when Livia had first given her this magic,
felt
that fire burning within her. The strength of her people.
Yes ... she understood now. She needed a font for her magic, something from which she could draw power. If she could reach her band’s campfire, her power would be restored, fortified. She would have a way to fight
Wafodu guero
and his minions. Fight for herself. And Whit. He defended her against his friends and his double.
She had been right about him all along. Even though she could not trust him, he was worth saving from the Devil.
Now!
her mind shouted. While everyone, including the double, was distracted. She hated leaving Whit, but if she reached the campfire, she could return to help him. She could not voice her plans, lest the double or his friends hear.
Fast as a thrown knife, she bolted between two of the men, evading their outreached hands. She ran toward the waiting horses. Shouts sounded behind her, but she would not allow herself to turn, to see. Instead, she leapt onto one of the horses in a flurry of skirts. Someone, she could not tell who, made a grab for the reins, but she pulled them away and blindly kicked out. Her heel connected with a solid torso, and there was a gasped oath. It wasn’t Whit’s voice. There were sounds of struggle, of men grappling.