Thus my presence here, and not at my own wedding. The sounds of revelry could be heard only faintly through the door to the study, like
vestiges of memory. We need intelligencethe whereabouts of Whit. What can you or your master tell us?
Very little, said the geminus.
Bloody nonsense. Cerebral as John usually was, he also possessed a temper of quick and biting ferocity, and it snapped from him now like a whip. Were to believe that the Devil himselfa being of unimaginable powerhe and all his minions have not the means between them of locating one damned man?
His Gypsy girl, too, added Edmund.
Without a lick of magic between them, Leo said.
Lord Whitney did surrender his power to manipulate chance, the geminus conceded. The Gypsy, however ... It shrugged. She can still manipulate fire. Her ability did not come from my master. The one who bestowed that ability on her is also the one who shields Lord Whitneys location from my master.
Damned mad Roman ghost, muttered Bram.
Its tone belying the studied indolence of its pose, the geminus pressed, Has Valeria Livia Corva appeared to any of you of late?
All of the Hellraisers, including Leo, answered, Nay.
Cant say as I miss her presence, said Leo. Hovering at my bedside, babbling at me to turn my back on the Devil and renounce my magic. As though the words of an insane specter could possibly induce Leo to give up his gift of precognition. I make my damned fortune investing in the future. And she thinks Ill willingly give up my ability to see that future? She is mad.
Power, said John with a cutting smile. No greater gift.
Aye. Leo had dreamt about power, obsessed over it. And the Devil had given it to him. And because of that, here I am, with the elite of Society celebrating my wedding to a peers daughter.
Like hell would Leo willingly give up that power. To keep it, he would do anything.
The ghost has been absent, however, noted Edmund. Her strengths diminished.
My master senses that she is but gathering her resources after she depleted them in Manchester.
You were there, said Leo, turning to Bram.
Witness to part of it, nothing more. Brams voice was as dark as the shadows. Whit and his Gypsy wench, they destroyed a gaming hell belonging to Mr. Holliday. Whit and the girl barely escaped with their lives. I saw a chance, a final chance, to bring him back to the Hellraisers. Talked to him. But the bastard remained adamant. Wanted all of us to give back our magic, and to join him in the fight against the Devil. The scorn in Brams words left no question as to how he felt about Whits entreaty.
You should have used your gift of magic, John snapped. Persuaded him to return to us.
Dont you think I wanted to? Bram fired back. But Id used it on him in Oxford, when he gave Leo that souvenir.
Leos hand rubbed at his shoulder. The scar from the rapier blade had faded, but it would never disappear, nor the memory of the Hellraisers fighting Whit outside the Oxford tavern. The final break in their friendship, cauterized by the Gypsy girls fire and Whits steel. You didnt have to force him to fight us. He didnt want to.
Whit either stands with us, or hes our enemy. Theres no middle ground. No possibly, no perhaps. Not when it comes to being a Hellraiser, and the power we have.
Yet you didnt use that power on Whit in Manchester, John persisted. It could have allied us once more.
Tightening his jaw, Bram glared first at John, then the geminus. I can only use my ability once on someone. A limitation of which I had not been informed.
The geminus said, bland and mild, The gifts my master has bestowed on each of you cannot be without boundary, else you may do yourselves a terrible injury.
Considerate of your master, drawled Leo. His own magic had its particular constraints, but he learned them quickly and made the necessary adjustments. In truth, Leo could not be overly critical of Mr. Holliday, for though there were restrictions to Leos ability to see the future, the benefits far outweighed the limitations.
Leo knew one benefit: his wedding celebration happening at that very moment. He thought of Anne, his pretty, genteel bride, a woman he would never have had the temerity to talk to, let alone court and marry. Leo had grown up amidst the smell of leather and a single, smoky brazier filling a cramped little house. A saddlers son. But Adam Bailey had possessed ambition, and his son had even more.
The Demon of the Exchange. Even before he had received the gift of foreknowledge, Leo had earned this name. Fearless, ferocious, and uncompromising in his investments.
He made the wealthy peers shake in their silver-buckled shoes. Just as he desired.
His bride was afraid of him, too. He saw
it in her eyes, the look of a woman confronting an animal she wasnt sure was tame.
He wasnt certain he wanted a wife who feared him. It seemed a petty, mean way of conducting a marriage, the sort of thing a bully desiredexerting ones might over a creature that constituted no threat.