Firelight

Mckinnon flailed against him. His blows upon Archer’s legs grew weak and ineffective. When he took on a bluish hue and blood began to bubble from his nose like froth, Archer eased his step a fraction.

“Now,” Archer said, bending over the snarling, coughing man, “you’ve begun to bore me.” He reached down and yanked the ring from Mckinnon’s finger, far more cruelly than necessary, then stepped away.

Mckinnon wheezed and rubbed his neck tenderly. “Ye bloody frozen bastard.” He hauled himself to sitting and spat a large glob of something foul upon the floor, but made no move to get up. He knew better than to challenge Archer now. “Ye best start runnin’ now. The moment that moon waxes…”

“Yes, I’ve heard it all before.” Archer strolled toward the door, stepping lightly over broken bits of a chair. “From your father.”

“Cocksucker.”

Archer stopped and glanced at him. Already the blood was easing its flow from Mckinnon’s nose, the puffed flesh about the man’s face regaining its natural color.

“Careful,” Archer said. “You wouldn’t want that to heal before you reset it.”

Mckinnon let lose a volley of curses as he set his nose straight with nary a flinch. Archer laughed lightly but his humor faded as he clutched the ring in his palm. “Stay away from her, Ian.”

He was almost through the door when Mckinnon’s call stopped him.

“Benjamin.”

He did not turn, but waited.

“Why did you bring her into this nightmare?”

Guilt slashed at Archer, unexpected and raw. He closed his eyes for a brief moment. “Asks the man who’d take her from me if he could.”

Mckinnon made a bleak sound. “I suppose I understand you better than I thought.”

Archer’s head suddenly felt too heavy to hold up. “Then we’ve come full circle, you and I.”

“Aye, and yet damn if ye aren’t making the same fool mistakes ye’ve witnessed in me,” Mckinnon retorted sharply, the misery in his voice bringing forth the Scottish accent he tried so hard to eradicate. “If ye have any love for her, show her what you are before it’s too late for her to flee.”

Chapter Twenty-one

Archer did not allow himself a moment’s rest until he was locked in his library. Curtains drawn, the lamp turned up high, he hunkered down at his desk and forced his hand to uncurl. The golden ring against his black palm was real enough; still he drew a deep breath and studied it to convince himself it was truly in his grasp.

Yes, it was. He picked the ring up and felt a pang deep in his breast. The familiarity of it. Some nicks were new but others he remembered well. Even the weight felt like home. Three quarters of an inch wide, the golden ring had a stylized engraving of the sun merging with the moon at it center.

Archer smiled and ran the tip of his finger over the engraving. His mother had given it to him on the day he’d left for Cambridge. A sun for her son. He had always been her sun, the child born as the rays of the setting sun passed over her bed. And Elizabeth, her moon, born a full hour after Archer as the moon appeared in the darkening sky. As children, he and Elizabeth had often curled up in her lap, listening with rapt attention to the story of their birth. Mama had been proud of delivering such strong, healthy twins.

His smile wavered thinking of them, and the pang in his chest intensified. Too long parted from this ring. He thought of Elizabeth’s ring, la luna. Mama had given her the moon, a glorious moonstone ring that Elizabeth had cherished.

“Keep it safe for me,” she had said with her dying breath, using what little strength she had to pull it off her finger and force it into his hand. He had cried then, desperate sobs that he ought to have held in for her sake but couldn’t. The one and only time he remembered crying as a man. He’d begged Elizabeth to keep it on, if only to give her strength. But she’d been adamant. “I’m at peace with death. Don’t let this ring follow me to the grave, fratello.”

It had been his most precious possession from then on. And now it rested safely on Miri’s slim finger. To see it on Miri often made him smile. Archer pulled himself out of his sentimental reverie with a deep breath. There were more important matters at hand.

Archer remembered well the day he had pressed the ring into Daoud’s hand as they stood on the docks at Cairo, the scent of spices mixed with the dankness of the Nile still sharp in his memory. “Send word through this,” he’d told his steward and the one man he trusted with his life. “You know how it works?”

Daoud’s black eyes had been deadly serious as he nodded. “You may count on me, my lord.”

There had been little time then. Archer’s past had caught up with him once again. He dared not stay in Cairo a moment longer, lest all his work be discovered. And they’d been so close to finding a cure. Daoud had been the clear choice to stay behind; his knowledge of ancient languages was beyond even Archer’s.

Daoud had embraced him, kissing both cheeks with solemn dignity. “Go with God, my lord.”

“And you.”

His friend’s lonely figure, lined silver in the moonlight, had faded into the darkness as Archer sailed away.

Weeks later, Archer had received word; Daoud had been found at the foot of the Great Pyramid—killed by thieves, the magistrate had said. But by then, the man’s final message was already in Archer’s hand: “Have care, my lord. I fear someone does not want this uncovered.”

Archer knew then that Daoud had been aware his life would soon be over.

The knowledge that he’d led death to his good friend brought bitterness to his mouth. But now he would finally know if Daoud had been successful.

Breath stilled with anticipation, Archer pushed his pinky nail deep into the crescent moon and, hearing a familiar click, turned his finger counterclockwise. The hidden mechanism moved, and the ring slid apart, revealing an inner compartment that Archer had installed. Archer’s breath caught sharply. A small length of paper was wrapped around the inner ring. No, not paper but cloth, two thin rectangles of cloth inscribed with blood, he realized, as he gently eased the tightly rolled package open and held one, then the other, carefully beneath the lamplight.

Archer could only marvel at Daoud’s skill as his eyes traveled over the tiny print, so neat and clear. It was in code but easily read since Archer knew the cipher. The weight on his shoulders did not lift as expected but crushed him as he read. He drew an unsteady breath, the cloth before his eyes blurring. He blinked hard. No cure, but a solution—if one could call it that. Mckinnon had been correct. No cure. Only despair. In all these years, he never thought the cure would be his own destruction. Christ, he had been so certain.

His chest ached. He longed to put his head to his desk and give in to self-pity. Ruthlessly, he pushed away the image of Miri. Not now. He’d never make it through the night if he thought of her. His lips pursed tight as he read the missive once again.

“Hidden away in Cavern Hall all these years,” he muttered. The irony was not lost on Archer. The scene of his downfall was the last place he would have looked for the answer.

The edges of the ring cut into his palm. He had thought his curse derived from ancient Egyptian magic but it appeared he was wrong. Druids. Archer knew nothing of their myths or ways. To his knowledge only one man did, and he was damned put out at the idea of approaching him. He could not stomach pulling another into danger, yet he had to be sure it would work. Then catch the monster before it struck again.

Two men stood over the body, one tall and thin, his fair hair like old hay in the pale morning light. The other was thicker, shorter, his shock of red hair too bright to be cowed by dreary atmosphere. Their voices floated in the mists, mingling with the lapping of water and the low gong of a distant buoy. Quite easy for the killer to hear them from behind the pile of abandoned crates at the edge of the pier. Normally, staying behind to observe the aftermath of a kill held no interest. But as the body had been found so quickly, watching the police arrive at the wrong conclusions was as good an amusement as any.

“A foul business, this,” said the ginger lad. Carefully, he wrapped the gold coin he had collected from the victim in a cloth and pocketed it.

The blond man nodded absently, his attention on the dead man’s head, where twin holes marked the absence of ears. It had been a pleasure to divest Lord Merryweather of them, the killer thought. “And getting fouler by the day.”

Ginger adjusted his brown cap, angling it against the weak sunlight. “You realize this here is Lord Archer’s property.” He inclined his head toward the warehouse behind them before squinting at the taller man. “You still question whether the bastard is guilty?”

“Careful, Sheridan.” The blond knelt down beside the body to study it. “You are speaking of my brother-in-law. And a peer of the realm.”

“Thousand pardons, Inspector, but let’s be reasonable, eh? Every victim we find is connected to Archer in some way. Witnesses have seen a masked man lurking about at odd hours. They say—they’re saying he’s the devil in disguise.” The young man quickly crossed himself.

“Hysteria,” said the inspector. “We’ve got claims of Lord Archer appearing in five different places. Simultaneously. Young Jack trailed him to Lord Mckinnon’s home last night, then straight home, no detours. We must step carefully and not succumb to hearsay or fairy tales.” He glanced up at Sheridan. “Now, let us return to the facts before us. What do you see? What is the pattern?”

“A bloody mess.” Sheridan coughed hastily. “All right. Heart taken each time, the sick bastard. This one’s missing his ears. Cheltenham lost his tongue—bloody gruesome—and Sir Percival his eyes.”

The inspector rubbed the end of his mustache with his thumb. “See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.”

“Portentous devil, our killer.”

“Hmm…”

Portentous devil, how very amusing. So, the inspector liked to think there was a pattern, did he? Really it didn’t matter what those old fools had seen, heard, or spoken. They simply had to be punished; they had shunned Archer, forced him to withdraw. And he had disappeared for too long. Now that he was back, he would suffer before he was destroyed. Killing his friends, and making London society believe Archer was responsible, was too much fun to resist. The only problem remaining was the woman. She had brought him back to London, and so she would live. For now. That didn’t mean one couldn’t toy with her a bit first.

Chapter Twenty-two

Everybody lies. Miranda stood before the dressing room mirror, waiting in dull silence as a maid hooked up her party dress for the Blackwoods’ masquerade ball. She blinked at her wavering reflection.

Victoria’s warning had come back to haunt Miranda. Without doubt, Archer kept things from her. He still was. Lying. But then, so was she.

The maid’s small form blocked the mirror as she gently smoothed Miranda’s bodice, then turned to collect white satin gloves and a fan. Miranda’s reflection returned, the lamplight above her catching red glints in her hair, giving it the appearance of live coals. The image of fire and destruction burned bright in her mind’s eye. She had scorched that marble worktop, and it had broken in half like a piece of burned toast.

There were lies, and there were lies. Was a secret a lie? If one wanted to protect another?

She could not fault Archer for his protectiveness. The killer’s frustrated rage was growing; he would strike again, and soon. Miranda felt it on some level of intuition she could not fully understand. Archer would try to protect her, wrap her up in ignorance like cotton wool. But who would protect him? Miranda could, and she would. If she had to call upon the fire she would, exposure be damned.

She glided down the stairs to meet Archer. She held tighter to the banister as he came into view, his feet planted slightly apart as he stood in the center of the hall, his eyes on her. He looked like a highwayman, standing there with his silken mask and long black opera cloak, a scarlet vest the only slash of color in his inky attire.

Yes, there were lies. But there was also truth. The truth of feeling. Deep down, she knew this man. Archer. Beyond the mask. She knew his soul, his heart. Perhaps that was enough.

“That does not look much like a costume,” he observed as she came near.

She might have said a number of things, demand they talk, or spill her soul. She simply held up her mask. “That is because I have not finished putting it on.”

Archer snorted softly. “And who shall you be once you don your grand disguise?” Calling it a disguise was to use the term in its weakest form. The small, silver lace mask, shaped like a butterfly and set with crystal beads, concealed only the area about her eyes.

“La luna,” she said with a smile.

“Then I shall be la notte to your moon.” Archer lifted the hard black mask he held and slipped it over his thinner silk one. Donning the full mask changed his identity from the man who smiled at her with ease to the unyielding face of Lord Archer. It was several moments before she realized she stared at him.

He took a step closer, his lovely mouth and sculpted jaw hidden away once more. “Which is really only lip service since everyone shall know I haven’t a costume.”

“Nonsense,” she replied a bit thickly, for he was very near. “It will be the first party in which no one gapes at you like a mindless fish. And I, for one, am glad of it.”

A smile came to his eyes. “You are very protective of my feelings, Lady Archer. It is sweet.”

Heat flared on her cheeks. “La,” she said, fumbling to put her mask on. “I simply find ignorance intolerable. Stare the first time, fine, but the second, or th—”