Chain of Iron

Belial stretched up toward that nothingness, reaching out his hands. Cordelia jerked Cortana free—for a moment, Belial seemed to look at her, his face a mask of ferocious hatred—and then it was as if he was seized, and carried up into the outer darkness. There was a flash of whiteness, the ragged flapping of wings—and he was gone.

Slowly, James let go of Cordelia. As his arm loosened around her, color came back to the world, color and sound: Cordelia could hear birds again, the sound of wind in trees, distant voices. She could hear Lucie, whispering words of farewell.

Cordelia opened her hand, releasing Cortana. It fell to the ground, striking the earth with a sound like a tolling bell. She backed away from it—it was not her sword now, despite what had just happened. No one who had sworn fealty to the Queen of Demons should bear a blade like Cortana.

“Daisy! Are you all right?” James caught at her shoulders, turning her toward him. His eyes raked over her anxiously, checking for injuries. “You’re not hurt?”

Cordelia glanced down. She was scratched, but that was nothing to the spot in her heart where the knowledge that she was Lilith’s paladin now bit like teeth. She couldn’t look at James—she glanced over and saw Lucie, who was kneeling by Jesse’s body. He lay where he had fallen, motionless and unbreathing. If he had not been truly dead before, he was now. Lucie looked utterly lost.

Cordelia closed her eyes, and hot tears spilled down her cheeks, scorching her skin.

“Daisy,” she heard James say; she felt his stele brush over her arm, the faint sting and then the numbness of healing runes being applied. “Daisy, my love, I’m so sorry—”

“James!” called a puzzled voice, and Cordelia opened her eyes and looked over to see Matthew waving from beside the bronze statue. He looked utterly baffled; he was kneeling beside Charles, who was sitting up with his back against the side of the fountain. Charles looked pale, his hand to his chest, but seemed very much alive.

“James!” Matthew called again, cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting. “What on earth is going on?”

 

The three of them—Lucie, James, and Cordelia—bolted back across the park toward the Fairchild brothers. James fell to his knees beside Matthew, who still had his stele in one hand. His other hand rested on Charles’s shoulder.

It was quickly clear that Charles and Matthew had been frozen the moment Belial had entered the park; no time had passed for them at all. As far as Matthew was concerned, he’d looked up between one moment and the next to find James and Cordelia standing at the other end of the park with Lucie, who seemed to have appeared out of thin air.

“Charles? What on earth?” Lucie gasped; she was already white as a sheet, and the sight of Charles bleeding on the ground didn’t seem to be helping. “I don’t understand—”

“Neither do I,” said Matthew grimly, drawing two more healing runes on Charles’s bare forearm. Charles seemed only half-conscious, his eyelids drooping, his shirtfront wet with blood. “We need to get Charles to the Institute—they can summon the Silent Brothers—”

James shook his head. “Not the Institute. It won’t be safe.”

Matthew’s forehead creased in confusion. “Why wouldn’t it be safe?”

Cordelia sat down on the edge of the fountain as James explained, as quickly as he could, what had happened. It seemed a great deal to him, and yet it also seemed to have taken no time at all: already the events were a blur of motion, shock, and blood.

When he reached the part of the story that involved Lilith, he found himself slowing down. Charles was resting against his brother, breathing harshly but steadily. Lucie said, “I don’t understand. Why would Lilith—Lilith, the Queen of Demons—think that Cordelia was her paladin?”

“Because I am.” Cordelia was sitting on the edge of the fountain. She had placed Cortana back in its scabbard. Her posture was rigid—she looked like someone who’d been dealt an awful blow and was tensed for another. “I swore fealty to someone I thought was Wayland the Smith.” James saw Matthew’s expression change; he looked down, suddenly, at the ground. “But it was Lilith, disguised. I was foolish to assume Wayland the Smith would want me as a paladin. It was a trick.”

“We were all tricked, Daisy,” said Lucie. “We all believed it was Magnus Bane we spoke to at the Shadow Market. You were not foolish.”

“I was arrogant,” Cordelia said. James wanted more than anything else to get up and to put his arms around her. He held himself back. “If it had not been for James—and for you, Lucie—this might all have ended in more disaster.”

“That is not true,” said James intently. “You are the one who delivered the second blow to Belial—without you, I could never—”

“Don’t go.” The voice was a hoarse whisper. James froze; it was Charles. His eyelids fluttered, though he seemed barely conscious still. His head moved restlessly from side to side, his bare hand clawing at the ground. Matthew laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder, guilt and worry etched on his face, just as Charles said, very clearly, “Alastair. Don’t leave.”

They all stared at each other in astonishment—all, James realized, except Cordelia. She looked chagrined, but not at all surprised.

Matthew blinked. “He’s hallucinating,” he said gruffly. “He needs another blood-replacement rune—”

“I’ll do it,” James said, and was in the process of following through when Lucie cried out and leaped to her feet, pointing toward the main entrance of the park. Riding toward them through the gates, on a brown bay horse with a white star on its nose, was Malcolm Fade, High Warlock of London.

Catching sight of them, he dismounted from his horse and strode over. James, feeling he had lost the ability to be shocked or surprised by anything, finished the blood-replacement rune and rose to his feet. “Mr. Fade,” he said as Malcolm approached. “What are you doing here?”

“Just happened by,” said Malcolm, crouching down to peer into Charles’s face. He put a gloved hand under Charles’s chin and muttered a few words in a low voice. There was a spark of dark purple flame, and Charles jolted, blinking around as if he’d just woken up.

Matthew stared. “Is he—all right now?”

“He ought to see one of your Silent Brothers,” said Malcolm. “But he’s better, certainly. Whoever he is.” He squinted. “Is that the Consul’s son?”

“Warlocks never just ‘happen by,’” James said. “Not that we don’t appreciate your help—”

For some reason Malcolm looked sharply at Lucie. She stared back at him, her expression hard for James to read. At last Malcolm straightened up. “The gate between worlds has closed,” he said gruffly. “Leviathan has been forced out.”

James sprang to his feet. “The attack on the Institute—it’s over?”

Malcolm confirmed that the Institute had been attacked, the attacker had been a single monster: the Prince of Hell, Leviathan, who had slipped through a door, a gap between dimensions. “There were a few injuries, and quite a bit of property damage—but your people were very lucky, in fact. The Portal connecting Leviathan to Earth was very small, only about the size of the Institute courtyard.”