A Matter of Circumstance and Celludrones (26 page)

“And since they can’t be killed…” Greyston said, actually sounding
interested for the first time since the conversation started.

“We’re stuck with any demons left on our side,” Kelan finished,
looking him in the eye. “That’s not a risk we’re prepared to take and hence my
uncle’s desperate measures. He hoped that one or more of the children he’d
chosen would demonstrate the ability of demon sight.”

Lily shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She’d recently had the type
of visions some might easily refer to as the second sight. She’d seen Lady
Ostrich in them, not once, but twice. “Demon sight?”

Kelan looked at her, nodding. “While demons have a natural tendency to
wreak havoc on a large scale, there have been instances where one has gone
undetected by us for years. As valuable as the manifestation of other abilities
would obviously be, identifying the existence of any demons remaining in our
world is how we’ll win this war. We’ll have confirmation of when it’s finally
safe to seal the breach.”

“How does this demon sight work?” she asked.

“Being aware of a demonic presence. Casting a web of mental probes to
find demon energy. Visions.” Kelan shrugged. “My uncle didn’t fully know what
to expect and I know even less.”

Greyston caught her eye and shook his head, his brow drawn into a
furious scowl.

He’s reached the same conclusion.
She stood and walked to where
Ana lay upon the workbench, needing to distract Kelan from the thoughts racing
through her mind. Both times, Lady Ostrich had been the blurred figure. And
what about all the other spells that had come before? There’d always been one
person in the scene not wholly tethered to the image, the figure Dr. Ragon had
suggested may be the persona of her mother.
Oh, dear Lord, I see demons.
A shiver rippled along her spine. Her knees buckled and she had to put a hand
on the workbench for support.

“When did Lady Ostrich come through the breach?” She tried to sound
modestly interested and no more. “This last time, I mean?”

“I won’t know that until I’ve trapped it,” Kelan replied. “There are
two things we can compel a demon to tell us without invoking a price: their
true name and the date they entered our dimension.”

January 1845.
That’s when she’d succumbed to her first spell. A
few months before—no, she kept forgetting—straight after her fifteenth
birthday. Near enough to when Greyston had first discovered his ability to
time-run. But how? Why? And how could Duncan McAllister possibly have known it
would happen to them? She took a deep breath to quell the rising panic and made
a show of tugging Ana’s skirts neatly over her ankles to keep up the pretence.

“By the way,” Kelan said, “your ship has returned. They passed
overhead a few minutes ago. There’s a plateau further up on the cliff top large
enough for docking.”

Lily spun around.
Jean.

“I’ve sent Armand to guide them down the hill,” Kelan added, his full
attention on Greyston. “There was no reason for you to leave the protection of
Cragloden.”

“That’s not your decision to make,” Greyston snapped and stormed from
the room.

Unperturbed, Kelan calmly closed the book and carried it into the
alcove.

Lily stared daggers into his back. “You deliberately antagonise him.”

“You’re wrong,” he called out. “And I wouldn’t have to try and manage
him at all if he didn’t overreact to every little thing like a temperamental
child.”

“You’re not qualified to judge how big or little an impact each of
those things might have on him,” Lily fumed on her way out the door.

Kelan hadn’t been running from his family, friends and home for six
years. Kelan hadn’t survived the incineration of Cragloden and then lived in
the shadow of all those futile deaths. Kelan hadn’t only just discovered hell
was rising, one demon at a time!

Evelyn was already on the portico when Lily got there, just in time to
see Greyston disappear from sight around the perimeter wall.

“What’s the Red Hawk doing back do soon?” Evelyn demanded. “Greyston
distinctly ordered them to wait in Edinburgh for Jean. What does this mean?”

Lily looked at her helplessly. She had no comforting reassurances to
offer, not when they both knew exactly what it meant. “We should prepare for
the worst, Evie.”

The forbidding man with ice blond hair and black thunder in his eyes
marching up the drive a short while later was not the worst, she expected that
was still to come, but he was high up on the list.

Evelyn groaned. “How in the blazes did he get here so quickly?”

“Did you send your message?” she asked, watching Armand come through
the pedestrian entrance next with William in tow.

“Far too late, apparently.” She edged away. “I can’t do this now. Tell
him…tell him anything.”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Lily grabbed her arm and held her in place. “Look
at the state of your marriage from the last time I tried to help.”

As Devon climbed the steps, Lily saw his eyes weren’t blackened with
temper but from the dark circles sagging beneath. He stopped a few feet from
them, his gaze boring into his wife, ignoring Lily completely.

He shoved a hand into his trouser pocket, then brought it out again
and opened his palm beneath Evelyn’s nose. “I thought you were dead.”

Evelyn scooped her wedding ring from the palm of his hand. “Devon, I’m
sorry, I never intended—”

He sliced a hand through her apology. The silence thickened, Devon’s
scowl darkening by the second and neither Lily nor Evelyn daring another word.

“Lord Harchings, I presume?” Kelan said from the front door, breaking
the tension. “Welcome to Cragloden.”

Devon rounded on him. “What sort of household are you running here?”

“We’ve seen better days,” Kelan agreed amiably, waving Devon inside on
the promise to discuss everything through to a satisfactory conclusion.

William, hovering at the bottom of the step, waited a moment more
after Devon had stepped inside the house before trudging up to them. “They told
His Lordship you had died during the night,” he muttered, mangling his cap in
his hands. “I didn’t even know they’d sent word, and someone from the hospital
met him at the Dirigible Docking Yard. By the time I could speak to him, it was
too late.”

That was it, then. Lily’s heart suddenly weighed a stone. Jean had not
survived the night. Jean was dead. Killed by Lady Ostrich. Greyston hadn’t been
able to save her. The damnable McAllisters had been nowhere in sight, despite
their proclamations of saving the entire bloody world. Jean was dead. Her
mother was dead. Countless others…

A firestorm of anger rose inside her. It was a torrent, burning
through her veins, flushing out the helpless, useless, timid woman who relied
on men to save the day and yearned to dive beneath the bed covers until it was
safe to emerge. The weight slowly lifted from her chest and she could breathe
freely again.

She may not be as knowledgeable or ruthless as Kelan, she may not be
as courageous or as strong as Greyston, but she saw demons. She wasn’t a pawn.
She was a weapon. If Kelan was to be believed, she alone had the power to bring
about the end of this war once and for all. And, she decided there and then,
she wouldn’t do it from the shadows.

Chapter Sixteen

E
velyn
spent the morning avoiding her husband. She wasn’t afraid to confront Devon,
precisely, but she was terrified of herself. The guilt and remorse at what
she’d unwittingly put him through didn’t completely eclipse her initial anger
at the man.

Last night she’d discovered demons weren’t just a metaphysical evil
preached from the pulpit and her mind was still reeling from the horror of that
reality.

Greyston had returned from the Red Hawk and brought Paisley with him.
Evelyn and Lily had stayed with the poor girl until she’d fallen into an
exhausted sleep in Greyston’s bedroom a few moments ago. Jean was dead. Paisley
was distraught.

The pressure of all these emotions were expanding in her chest,
pushing so close to the surface that any encounter with her husband could only
end up in disaster.

Lily closed the bedroom door behind them and turned to her. “Have you
spoken to Devon yet?”

“He’s avoiding me as much as I’m avoiding him.” Evelyn sank into the
padded sofa of the common landing between their appointed rooms. At the
concerned expression on Lily’s face, she stretched her legs out gracelessly and
huffed, “Don’t worry so, Lily, no doubt he’ll search me out as soon as his
temper has simmered.”

“You need to return to London with him.” Lily perched on the other end
of the sofa. “I didn’t quite appreciate the danger I dragged you into, Evie.”

“You didn’t drag me anywhere.”

Lily gave a small smile. “I assumed Greyston could protect you—me,
everyone, really, but now…” Her gaze flickered to Paisley’s bedroom door. “Now
I realise how naïve I’ve been.”

“You weren’t to know Lady Ostrich was a
demon.
” A shudder
trembled Evelyn’s shoulders. “I still can’t comprehend the notion of a demon
being more than a spiritual reference in the bible.”

“Neither can I,” Lily murmured. “But that doesn’t make it any less
real.”

“The proof is overwhelming,” Evelyn agreed. Her gaze rested on Lily
for a long second. There was something remarkably different about her friend.
The green flecks in her hazel eyes glinted hard as diamonds. The line of her
mouth was drawn firm in stubborn determination. To do what? “Will you be
returning with me?”

“It’s safer for me to remain here.” Lily jumped to her feet and took
to pacing. “Dr. Ragon was wrong about these spells I suffer from. They’re
visions of demons.”

“As in a premonition?” Evelyn asked, automatically reverting to the
age-old bond of gypsy visions and fortune-telling.

“It’s more like a window that suddenly appears between me and them, in
the present moment, allowing me to glimpse across distance but not,
unfortunately, ahead of time.” Lily stopped her pacing to look at Evelyn.
“Duncan McAllister somehow pre-empted this possibility and Lady Ostrich must
sense it too, or at least sense that I’m a threat to her.”

“I don’t know, Lily, it all sounds somewhat—”

“Far-fetched?”

“I was going to say ridiculous, but I’ll settle on bizarre.”

“I’ve already had two visions of Lady Ostrich.” Lily sat again, turned
slightly toward Evelyn with her elbows resting on her thighs. “The first spell
came shortly after my mother’s death. Both Greyston and I highly suspect Lady
Ostrich, or at least some another demon, was responsible for that gas
explosion. I’m not sure what the connection is, but there must be one. From
what I understand, a demon can take on different guises and I’d never have
guessed Lady Ostrich wasn’t human. Who knows how many other demons I’ve seen?
Or perhaps even different guises of the same one?”

Evelyn tried, but couldn’t see a single fault in that logic. Then her
eyes flew wide. “Other demons? There’s more Lady Ostriches strutting about?”

“That’s what I’m hoping to help establish,” Lily said. “A demon
detector is exactly what the McAllisters have set their hopes on too. They just
don’t yet know it’s me.”

Evelyn finally understood what Lily had been trying to tell her. Her
spine stiffened and her chin went high. Images of Jean swamped her mind. Skin
melted to bone. Hollow cavity where her eyeball should have been. Jean, her
body spread prostrate and lifeless on a cold slab in the basement of some
hospital.

“You’re not a demon hunter and I don’t give a
flottersnip
about
any visions or the McAllister’s high hopes.” Her voice pitched in fury. Lily
couldn’t even contemplate air paddling without paling suspiciously close to a
faint. How the blazes did she mean to take on demons and survive? “They
can’t—no one has the right to demand this of you.”

“Lady Ostrich killed my mother,” Lily said quietly. “You know me,
Evie, I won’t take any needless risks. I’ll keep safe, that’s a promise.”

“S-So that’s it, then?” Evelyn spluttered, not at all placated. “This
is going to be your life from here on? Hunting demons until your luck runs
out?”

“Nothing quite so dramatic,” Lily said, her droll tone blatantly
aiming to reassure. “There aren’t hoards of demons roaming the earth. Perhaps
two or three, at the very most. I fully intend to be home in time for the next
season.” Lily settled deeper into the sofa with a gentle smile. “Don’t forget,
I still have a husband to find.”

Only slightly mollified, but with no clever argument to change her
friend’s mind on the horizon, Evelyn released a disgruntled sigh. “Whatever
for? You’ve already cast off every social restriction without one.”

Lily’s smile opened into a chuckle. “I always imagined you’d be proud
of me when this day came.”

“I never imagined it ever would.” Evelyn scowled at her. That was it.
Lily simply wasn’t acting herself. She couldn’t leave Lily here alone…well, in
a castle filled with people but not one of whom Evelyn trusted enough to be
unselfishly on Lily’s side.

As if plucking the thoughts directly from her head, Lily straightened
and the amusement in her eyes dampened. “That’s another reason why I need you
in London. I haven’t given up on love or marriage, neither of which will be
likely if my reputation is shredded. I want you to put it about that, while we
were travelling, I took up a fascination with the church and am temporarily
cloistered to a nunnery—some or other remote highland convent—to determine if
the life suits.”

The tension in Evelyn’s shoulders relaxed, now that she recognised
some of her old friend. “Your aunt will never believe that.”

“I’ll pen a letter for you to carry to her,” Lily said. “I’ll make my
search for inner peace plausible enough to persuade the Pope himself.”