“Mr. Ashdown, as much as we appreciate your offer, you need to release the Mórrígan,” Sam urged. “She’s not just a goddess of death and destiny, she’s?—”
Mr. Ashdown’s laugh cut her off. “Goddess? My dear, she’s a monster, like any other, if one more pleasing to the eye than most, and like any other, she has her uses. We caged her, kept her from being a danger to the public, which is better than you in the Society do, what with your killing everything the Otherworld coughs up. If we enhance our lives at the same time, can you truly blame us?”
“Yes,” all three women said at once.
Mr. Ashdown sighed and looked at his watch. “This would go so much easier for you if you’d just be reasonable?—”
He cut off as Hel shot the raven-masked man in the hand. He dropped his revolver with a shout, and Miss Shinagh launched herself at Mr. Keene, an inhuman snarl on her lips and the moonlight knife in her hand. His eyes went wide behind his rabbit mask as he stumbled back, drawing a sword from his cane.
“We’ll have none of that, now,” M. Voland said, his eyes agleam behind his stag mask as he wrenched the camera from Sam’s grasp, dashing it upon the floor. The song swelled, pulling at her thoughts.Let us in, let us end him end this?—
No.She wouldn’t lose herself. Not again. Her heart was in her throat, her thoughts scattered like leaves, unable to think of anything but how it had felt to have the sheer weight of him pressing her against the wall, the painting cutting into her back.
The song rose to a scream as M. Voland grabbed for her.
A shotgun blast seared the air beside him, shattering on the wall of the cage in a spray of steam and liquid metal. M. Voland cursed, flinching back just in time, turning to see Hel with the shotgun across the ram’s throat. She kicked out his legs and dragged him across the floor, his face purple, his hands scrabbling at the cold, unforgiving metal.
M. Voland cursed, turning to Hel as she tossed the ram aside and swung his shotgun like a bat into Mr. Ashdown’s mask, shattering the hollow of his left eye.
“Fuck!” Mr. Ashdown screamed, blood sheeting down the side of his face where his mask had broken, but he held the arcane device before him like a ward. Something was different about it?—it hummed with energy, a sound that scraped against Sam’s skull like a hive. It almost seemed to float in his hand. “Stop this nonsense at once or the Mórrígan dies.”
Hel held the stolen shotgun steady, aimed at the eye revealed behind his mask. “You’re bluffing.”
The Vespertine needed the Mórrígan, had spent all those resources capturing her. But then, resources were hardly a problem for the Vespertine, were they?
Mr. Ashdown laughed a little wildly. “Did you truly think the ritual wouldn’t have a failsafe? We are playing with forces greater than you could possibly comprehend?—”
“Have you ever seen a shotgun blast at this range?” Hel asked. “You won’t have a face left. You’ll be lucky if you still have a head.”
Mr. Ashdown blanched but held his ground. “Oh, you misunderstand. I’ve already primed it. My finger is the only thing keeping it from going off. It’s always a pain to disarm afterward, but it earns its weight in gold at times like this. Wouldn’t you say?” He went on with the calm certainty of a man who knew he’d won. “Now, that being said, I don’t wish to kill her. Or you, for that matter. I am not a murderer, no matter what you?—”
Hel cocked the shotgun. The words shriveled in his throat.
“Moriarty,”Miss Shinagh said, her voice a warning. For a moment, Sam thought Hel would fire anyway, and damn the consequences; that she would burn the world before she would give in to a man like this. For a moment, so did Mr. Ashdown, sweat beading behind his shattered mask, beneath those helpless brows. But then Hel cursed and raised her arms in surrender, letting the shotgun swing from her thumb.
“There’s a good girl,” Mr. Ashdown said, nodding at M. Voland, who wrenched the shotgun from her hand. His men climbed dizzily to their feet, eyeing them balefully from behind the fragments of the skull masks still clinging to their faces, bloodied where they had cut into their flesh. “Now. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to let my men tie you up. If you struggle, if you even think of struggling, the Mórrígan dies.”
Mr. Ashdown nodded to his men, and three of them stepped forward with heavy rope.
“I’m going to enjoy this,” M. Voland’s voice slithered in her ear, and an old fear woke in Sam’s bones, primal and inescapable, the song racing in her mind. He pulled the rope tight around her forearms; Sam could feel the sensation begin to leave them, as if even they didn’t want to be present for whatever happened next, could feel the blood pooling in her wrists.
When he was done, he dragged her over to where the others knelt, facing the Mórrígan, who watched them like a wolf in a cage.
It would be all right, Sam told herself. M. Voland wouldn’t do anything while the others were watching. Even if theyknew, he wouldn’t go that far where they could see him. There was a sense of propriety to their violence, a sense of decorum.
“We have wasted enough time,” Mr. Ashdown said with disgust as he looked at his watch, spatters of his own blood marring the face. He twisted the arcane device in his hand in a series of increasingly complex motions as sweat beaded on his brow, until at last, the hum faded, and the device lay quiescent in his palm. “Watch them. If they try anything, activate the device.”
“It would be my pleasure,” M. Voland said smoothly, his voice deferential. Mr. Ashdown transferred the device to M. Voland.
“No,” Sam blurted. “Not him.”
“I’m afraid you’re not in a position to be making demands, young lady. Perhaps now you’ll come to understand the virtues of obedience,” Mr. Ashdown said mildly. He turned to his men. “Come. We have work to do.” Their footsteps retreated behind them.
M. Voland’s smile spread into a wolfish grin.
Jakob,Sam thought desperately. He was still coming, was probably already there, and he had that knife. He could free the Mórrígan and end all of this?—if they could convince him not to kill her. Except he had no idea how to find them, and even if he somehow managed to track them down, M. Voland would see him coming, and the Mórrígan would die. Unless...
Her eyes hooked on the spider’s web of glass and iron that made up the ceiling, and the crows crying out against the red sky. Sam had used her connection to the Mórrígan to reach the crows before, to lead her to Miss Shinagh. She closed her eyes. She could feel them still?—the crows, hundreds of them, brushing against her mind with the tips of their wings.
