Chapter Twelve
Cleo cocked her head and listened, before locking the door to her room.
Her father was out on business, and she had overheard enough of his afternoon meetings to know that he was up to something. There had been mutterings about some form of relic, and she'd heard him pacing his study, chanting something under his breath. It wasn't in her realm of study, but she'd heard the words once, and spent the afternoon meditating until she could unearth the memory.
He was trying to perfect a ritual chant that would summon a demon.
Cleo knew the laws. She also knew her father. She had never thought him a bad man—a bitter one, perhaps, who had found himself exiled to this estate outside of London for the whole of her life—but this... this unnerved her. A demon was a dangerous creature to toy with, a supernatural creature from another plane who could be contained for information or some service, and yet often managed to trick their way out of such protective measures. Every story that she'd ever heard about demons had ended badly.
She had vowed to help Sebastian somehow, and yet now she was facing another decision that made her stomach twist itself in knots.
For years she'd wondered what could destroy an entire city in her London's Doom vision. She'd never been able to answer it before, but now... A demon, unleashed, could destroy London. It could do it in a heartbeat.
She had to stop her father, but going to him wasn't the answer. Indeed, she'd decided that even mentioning that she'd met Sebastian would not be a very good idea either. Thus, she had to take care of matters herself.
The advantage to being blind, wearing white lace, and looking like a doll was that people thought you were stupid, or helpless. Her father thought her nothing more than his puppet. He said things when she was nearby, as if he thought she wouldn't understand them and certainly couldn't act upon them. He had taught her how to harness her will, but never allowed her to learn areas outside her talent of divination. Cleo had been a very good student. She had spent many, many hours practicing her foretelling and predictions.
Taking out a set of crystals that she used to help clear her mind, she crossed her legs and sat on the floor beside her bed with her back propped against it, just in case a vision hit her. Once her mind was clear and open to probability, she started whispering names of people who might be able to help her.
She went through a whole list of names she knew, and none of them seemed to spark any potential prediction, or if it did, then it wasn't a very helpful one. Some of the images that hit her were downright bloody, so she discarded them immediately.
Finally she said the one name she'd been avoiding. "My father."
That name obliterated her in darkness and the sound of screams. She shook off the premonition with a hard swallow. Telling her father she knew anything was not going to end well.
Cleo bit her lip. Who was powerful enough to deal with Sebastian, her father, and this shadowy mother Sebastian spoke of? Who was powerful enough to deal with a demon?
The Prime.
It was a dangerous thought. The Prime had betrayed her father once. His name wasn't even allowed to be spoken of within these walls. Her father hated him, but there was a little tingle along her skin, as if she had made a right choice.
"The Prime," Cleo whispered, and let her mind open to possibility.
Vision clamped down hard on her and her body went rigid.
A man turned to his lover—the woman whose eyes Cleo was looking out of—grief etched on his face. “Is there no other way?” he whispered.
“If you see them, you'll set into motion a chain of events which will only end in disaster,” Cleo found herself saying, only it wasn't her voice.
Then she was looking at a man who stared in the mirror. She couldn't see his face, only his back and the finely tailored fit of his coat, but his reflection was far older than he was. Wings of gray gleamed at his temples in the reflection, and there were faint lines around those mercurial eyes; eyes that seemed to look right at her, as if the reflection saw her standing over his shoulder. The young man reached out and touched the mirror and it exploded, shattering his older reflection.
Vision flashed, again and again and again. She saw the same older man divided into three, and each of the pieces were pulling in different directions. Then he was standing in a room, and a shadow slipped up behind him and stabbed him in the back. Blood splashed across her sight, and when it dripped away, there were three gleaming relics sitting around a pentagram that had been carved within a circle. Over a dozen robed figures knelt around it, chanting, and the older man was tied within the circle and bound to the floor with his bloody ribs spread open in supplication.
The vision shifted, becoming something she knew far too well: her recurring nightmare. Cleo saw what she had called London's Doom, only this time she wasn't dreaming. It began with its usual sense of dread, with clouds boiling over London and people screaming as they fled. Lightning flickered within the darkness, building up to something...something that shouldn't be unleashed, something that would destroy the entire city. Cleo stood alone in the city streets, helpless to do anything as the darkness approached. Houses were smashed by wind, and bodies crushed all about her.
She was in the vision, like she always was, and she couldn't escape.
"No," Cleo whispered, though the word disappeared into the winds that were whipping past her as the cloud rolled inexorably toward her. She'd never seen the end of this nightmare. She didn't want to. It was always the same. Always terrifying and merciless, sucking the hope out of the world.
"Stop it, Cleo!" she told herself, unable to turn away. "Wake yourself out of it."
The edges of the vision began to grow hazy, as if her physical body were snapping out of her meditation. And then something caught her eye, something that was different.
This time, there was a tiny spark of golden light floating upward in the air, as if it were standing up against the darkness. It was so small, it should have meant nothing, yet it seemed like the darkness couldn't swallow it whole.
When she woke out of her meditation, it was with a gasp. She was no more aware of what any of it meant, but at least she wasn't screaming.
Cleo spent long minutes with her knees huddled up against her chest and sweat dripping down her face. She felt like she'd run for miles, her entire body wrung out in exhaustion.
