If Angels Burn

Almost. "That's why you brought me here. You think I can operate fast enough on you to beat that kind of healing?"



"If you cannot," Cyprien said, "then my face is lost forever."



On the other side of the Atlantic, the stark cliffs of the Irish coast stood stoic sentinel, holding back storm-boiling seas. Rain ignored the cliffs, however, streaming past them and hurtling down not in sheets but in buckets and then vats, flooding the dirt roads until they were winding rivers of free-flowing mud. Crooked javelins of lightning pierced the ugly charcoal clouds, slicing through one billowing, angry mass to leap out and impale another.



The local farmers huddled under woolen covers in their modest cottages, thankful for their warm beds and the stout locks on their windows and doors. The storm had come up from the south, from Dundellan, and only a fool or a fiend would venture out on such a night.



Lucan had been many things since his bitch of a mother had whelped him into the world, but never a fool.



He steered the van around the curve of the private drive and parked directly in front of Dundellan Castle. Earl Wyatt-Ewan, the original owner, had rewritten his will to leave it and the bulk of his estate to Richard Tremayne, a distant English cousin. Wyatt-Ewan's closer, disappointed relatives questioned the validity of the new will, and as the earl's family were known to be uniformly long-winded and tiny-brained, everyone expected an extended legal tussle. Yet over the next year, each of the Wyatt-Ewans had, one by one, died in very tragic but completely unrelated accidents. Some said the castle—and the distant English cousin—were cursed because of this.



Tremayne, the essential opportunist, not only encouraged the talk, but had his people generate it.



Lucan knew he was late by several hours, but the trip to Dundellan was difficult even under normal conditions. Surrounded by three hundred acres of thick woods and mountains on three sides, and the ocean on the fourth, the old Irish castle had successfully ignored the outside world for five centuries. The air over Dundellan was presently a no-fly zone, thanks to annual contributions to the prime minister's fund; its borders were constantly patrolled by Richard's most trusted tresori.



Lucan looked down at the mud and darker fluids caking his favorite boots. His appearance would disgust Lady Elizabeth, but there was no time to freshen up. He had gone from being the Kyn's most dangerous killer to a bloody errand boy, and there was nothing he could do about that, either.



A fragment of a child's taunt rang in his ears. I'm the king of the castle, and you're the dirty rascal.



When would Lucan have his Dundellan, his lady-in-waiting?



Three inches of standing water splashed when he climbed out of the truck and went back to check the van's rear doors. As soon as he tugged on the locked handles, something inside the vehicle snarled.



"Still alive, Durand?" He bared his teeth at the answering sound of metal crashing into metal. The body of the van began to shudder and rock. "And kicking."



Back in Dublin, Lucan had removed all the copper implements used on Durand, but left him manacled by the tempered steel chains. It was the only way he had been able to get him into the van. In his current state, Durand was too damaged to break out of them. Other things that the Brethren had done insured that Durand could no longer function or be regarded as what he had been before he had been brought to Dublin.



Then again, neither can I.



The thought of releasing all restraints offered a brief, mordant quantity of sport. Which way would he go, into the castle or out into the forest? Either way he was bound to become an instant legend. Which would he want to be now, a great fierce beastie of the woods, or the killer of would-be kings?



For that matter, what would happen to Durand if Lucan removed his chains?



Liliette had predicted his fate from the moment he had removed the copper chains from her frail limbs and led her from her cell. I thank you for this, Lucan. Richard will not.



Ever the gentleman—at least in this incarnation—Lucan offered her his silk handkerchief, dampened with clean, cold rainwater. It matters little, my lady.



Ah, but everything had mattered until seven hours ago. Did no longer caring make Lucan a liar to the fair Liliette, or a traitor to his own kind? Or had he truly become an errand boy?



What if I've never been anything else?



He looked up at the tower windows, two lit from within, made golden with candle flame. They promised dry clothes, a soft bed, and a willing partner for the night. And there now, a woman came to look out through the quarter panes of rippled glass. Not Lady Elizabeth, but a small, thin colleen, her pale face framed by smooth, long brown hair. Her expression indicated that she dwelled someplace soft and dark and deep and light-years away from Dundellan.



Lucan lifted a hand that, like him, went unnoticed. "What rapture doth the angels bring."



Somewhere in the castle, more of her kind waited. Former addicts, prostitutes, transients, collected and washed and dressed like dolls. Someone gathered them from the streets and brought them to Tremayne. After meeting their host and being subjected to his unique talent, they were uniformly docile and well behaved, if somewhat catatonic, servants.



Richard had been the one to call them the Rapt. "For the rapture I give them, Lucan, is permanent."



They were not treated badly, but cared for and fed until it was their turn to entertain an important guest. When they were used up, they simply vanished. No one complained. The Rapt were convenient, disposable souls, mindless and pliant, whose importance in the household ranked roughly equal to that of an after-dinner mint.



Lucan was slightly appalled to find himself envying them.



The castle's massive oak doors swung inward with one push. The chilly air inside was damp and redolent of woodsmoke and lemon oil polish. Although electricity was out down in the valley, Dundellan's own generators kept the interior lights burning bright. Richard had allowed the lighting and plumbing to remain intact, but the HVAC equipment was disconnected and fifteen hearths were unblocked and used for great blazing peat fires. The master considered fire an essential ingredient to the household.



Many things that came under this roof had to be burned.



Lucan walked down the foyer, leaving a trail of drippings from his cloak and faint, muddy impressions from his boot soles on the beechnut wood floor. He looked ahead to the drawing room, where invited guests were welcomed, and the stateroom, where they were not. He walked past them and around the corner to the old library. Here the scent of tallow candles intermingled with that of aged leather and dusty rag linen pages. A tiny red ember danced in the shadows behind the old earl's desk. The cherry scent of the tobacco was light but pervasive.



Waiting up for me. He sketched a bow. "The prodigal assassin returns, my lord."



Lucan could have—should have—utilized more respect in his greeting. Richard Tremayne was the seigneur of Great Britain, and since the untimely death of Harold, the high lord of the Darkyn. Already Tremayne had won and lost a kingdom; he had no intention of surrendering this one. He had earned it, too, for he had been the one to gather and unite them; he had wisely chosen who would govern the jardins. His will had seen them through war, famine, and the march of progress.



Tremayne was more than their leader. He was the chief architect of the Darkyn's decidedly rocky future.



"I expected you two hours ago." The voice sounded deep and rich; a woman from the Paris jardin once told Lucan that listening to the high lord speak was akin to being licked and . caressed in unmentionable places by a velveteen tongue.



It was one of Richard's greatest talents, giving pleasure without resorting to any physical use of his body. His body he reserved for other matters.



"Alas, the storm erased the roads. I'd have made better time in an ark." It hadn't laundered much of the soil from Lucan's heavy coat, or yet all of the blood from his hands. Evidently his usual fastidiousness had deserted him sometime after he entered the cellar of the pub in Dublin; now he suspected it was gone forever. "The Brethren do not send their regards."



"Indeed. Were you successful?"



"Seran is missing, and Angelica is a pile of scorched bone. The rest I recovered." Lucan inspected a vase of roses. The largest bloom shed a petal, then another, then another. "I brought you something."



A languid, black-gloved hand emerged from the darkness to tug at a bellpull. "A gift?"



"An unhappy one." Lucan tossed the keys to a waiting servant. "Don't open the back doors."



The servant departed as silently as he had arrived.



"Will I enjoy this gift?" Tremayne asked idly.



"Not as much as the good brothers did."



Lucan had been under orders to bring several of the Brethren back alive. He had fully intended to, until he saw what had been done to the Durands, and the rage had swallowed him.



"One of us." Velvet turned to steel. "Who?"



"Thierry Durand." More petals fell from the roses as Lucan reached and caressed one wilting, darkening head. "Or I should say, what's left of him. They took their time and did their work well."



"Did?" Weight shifted and feet shuffled behind the desk. "How many did you dispatch to their God?"



Lucan thought of the shaved skulls and gaping mouths. He had seriously considered bringing one head back with him, but Richard despised grandiose gestures as much as he disliked dead flesh. Perhaps he would go to Orkney and bring back a few from the Brethren's abbey there. "Twenty."



"That would be—"



"The entire cell." Lucan moved to drag his wet hair out of his eyes, saw the blood clots on his hands, heard again the screams before, and the screams after. He found the square of silk he had lent to Liliette and wiped his hands with it. "I left them in their toys."



Wood creaked, and leather slithered. "Your humor will be lost on Rome."



If Lucan had his way, after this night the Brethren could laugh themselves straight to hell. In fact, he would personally escort them. "I believe I will winter in Italy this year."



"I think not." Richard's shuffling steps did not move him into the light. "They would not allow you within three hundred yards of him."