Tempt Me with Darkness (Doomsday Brethren 1)

“Who are the people dressed like friars?” he asked.

“Definitely not clergy. They’re part of the Anarki.”

Marrok flinched. Even in his isolation, he’d known of the chaos and fear they created in their rise to power two centuries ago.

Once inside the run-down manor, a man in robes waited in an empty room, surrounded by a circle of flickering candles. His face obscured, he hovered over the still body of a naked man who, if human, looked to be about thirty.

“Who lies there?” Marrok asked Bram.

“Mathias d’Arc.”

Even a seasoned warrior like Marrok shuddered at the name. Mathias was the magical equivalent of Genghis Khan, Caligula, Vlad Dracula, and Hannibal Lecter rolled into one. Cruel, clever, hedonistic, rapacious. Brilliantly evil. A wizard of great power and no conscience, Mathias wouldn’t be happy until everyone in his path was either enslaved or dead.

“What are the Anarki about?” Marrok hissed.

“Watch.”

As the group entered the shadowed room, they formed a circle around the candles, pushing some of the entranced people inside, closer to Mathias, who lay still as death.

The robed wizard who had been waiting stood at Mathias’s head and raised his arms. “We, the Deprived, have waited centuries for this night. The Privileged will hear our thunder and feel only terror until they give us all they’ve denied our kind. Until the ‘Social Order’ laws prohibiting any with ‘undesirable’ traits and bloodlines from holding vital positions are dissolved, they will know war and pain and death. They do not know that we, the faithful, have waited for salvation. Tonight, our patience will be rewarded.”

A cheer went up from those in robes. The others were silent.

From a distant part of the house, a clock chimed low and loud, gong, gong, gong… Twelve times. The room seemed to hold its collective breath. Then silence.

Mathias’s eyes opened wide.

Around him, the candles flickered. His followers gasped. The ceremony leader knelt, then whispered reverently, “You’ve returned!”

“My faithful Anarki…” Mathias’s voice was thin and strained. “My sleeping draught fooled the Brethren but you believed in me. They thought me dead?”

“Very much so,” the first replied.

“Excellent. Did they all pass into their nextlife?”

“Within days of your sleep.”

“Your name?”

“Zain Denzell.”

“Your father served me well.” Mathias smiled. “You have brought me what I need?”

Zain nodded eagerly, then stepped around the circle, wending through the unresponsive bodies in street clothes. Finally, he grabbed a paunchy, middle-aged man and a young woman with blond ringlets in a cotton dressing gown and thrust them forward.

“Lovely. MacKinnetts?” Mathias asked.

“Yes. The Council member’s brother and his untransitioned daughter. You must be starved.”

Mathias nodded. “Indeed. Take the woman to my chamber. I will see to her very soon.”

A robed servant did so. Marrok, watching, held his breath.

Groaning and straining, Mathias rolled to one side, facing the older man. Reaching for the center of his chest, Mathias snapped. The man blinked and gasped, then opened alert eyes.

“Oh good God!” He tried to scramble back. “You!”

“Me.” Mathias smiled weakly.

Two others in robes caught the old man.

“Shall we hold him?” one asked, his voice shaking with enthusiasm to serve.

“Yes. We must prove that the order of magickind is changing.”

The MacKinnett continued to resist as Mathias struggled to his feet, then gripped the man’s throat.

“No. No!” The man scratched out. “Please…”

“Shut up! Were I not so starved for energy, I would draw out your punishment. Your anger and fear will provide me a bit. Your niece, with her young, ripe body, will provide me much more. Delicious.”

“Please, no,” MacKinnett babbled. “Auropha is a sweet girl with her whole life ahead of her. She knows nothing of peril or pain—”

“Then I’d best see to her education.”

Beside him, Mathias peered at the MacKinnett lord. With a feral grin, he laid a hand across the man’s chest.

Immediately, MacKinnett started screaming. A film of blood oozed from his pores, seeping through his yellow shirt. He turned white, kicking and flailing. Then his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He slumped over, dead.

With a wave, Zain removed the older man’s shirt, and Mathias’s mark spread across his entire chest like a series of infected boils.

“A job well done,” Mathias said to Zain. Now I will adjourn upstairs and restore myself fully with the girl. Her fear and rage will intoxicate me with power.”

“Dear God, he’s going to kill the girl as he did her uncle?” Marrok asked, appalled.

“A death like her uncle’s would be kindness. What she will endure will be worse. Much worse.”

Marrok looked at all the berobed followers standing about. “Will no one help her?”

“Who? The Deprived of magickind are ‘punishing her’ because she is Privileged. Mathias will use her to re-energize his magic and make an example of her.”

Recoiling, Marrok reached for his sword. He had never condoned the rape and torture of innocents in battle. Mathias must be stopped. But when he rose to his feet, Bram pulled him back down.

“You can’t race into my vision. It hasn’t happened yet. Watch. There’s more to see.”

“The MacKinnett chit is a spitfire,” Zain said to Mathias. “She will give you a great deal of energy.”

“Excellent. Tomorrow, send the dead to their family. It’s time for the Privileged to know their worst nightmare has returned.”

“I will see to it.”

“And the other matter?”

“We’re still looking.”

“I must have that book. With it, what I can do is nearly limitless.”

“The Anarki will do whatever it takes. I vow it.”

The vision turned black. Bram released Marrok slowly. He blinked, returning to the here and now.

Then he glared at Bram. “Bloody hell! You say that has not yet come to pass?”

“Not yet.”

Marrok released a relieved breath. “Then it may not. You have no proof.”

“Except the fact I’ve never been wrong in my life.”

Marrok prayed that was an overconfident boast and resented the horror Bram had made him feel for the brutalized MacKinnetts. “Why do you imagine I care?”

“This problem is going to knock on your door. Soon.”

“Because Mathias seeks this Doomsday Diary, which you think I possess?”

“Yes. No other book would give him half so much power. With it, all he must do is write his destructive wishes on a blank page to bring about any tragedy he wants—even Doomsday itself.”

Perhaps Bram told the truth…and perhaps he’d created the horrific scene to manipulate Marrok into releasing the book so he could use it for his own ends. Everyone knew Bram was an ambitious knave. Mathias would first have to unlock the book to be able to use it…but as magical as he was, maybe he could.

“Certainly you can see that finding and safeguarding the book is imperative,” Bram went on. “Will you help me?”

“Mathias is magical, as are you. Cast a spell to ensure he can do no harm.”

“Nice thought, but magic doesn’t work like that. Mathias is born of a powerful bloodline with a strong tendency to produce sociopaths. As you saw, he gorges on others’ pain and terror—even forced pleasure. Those facts make him very strong. And if he returns, he has magical defenses we can only guess at. Please. Give me the book.”

Marrok grabbed him by his prissy Ralph Lauren collar and shoved him against the wall.

He did not trust the wizard for an instant. As Merlin’s grandson, he was packed with powerfully magical genes. Marrok did not subscribe to the theory that his enemy’s enemy was his friend. “Speak no more of the book to me or you will feel my blade in your belly!”

Bram shrugged out of his hold and straightened his shirt, clearly undeterred.

“I’ll take that as a no. Pity. A lot of people are going to die. But then, you see death as a blessing, don’t you?”

“Even if the book were within my grasp, why would I give it to you?”

“Because it will save you pain. Mathias will come for you once he realizes you possess it.” Bram crossed into the living area, where he sank into an overstuffed chair, propping booted feet on the table.

Marrok clenched his jaw. “I know naught.”

“Play dumb if you want, then.” Bram flashed a brittle smile. “But I have another reason for coming here. There’s someone I want you to meet, the owner of a new art gallery.”

Socializing was the last thing he had time for with Morganna returned from exile. “Nay.”

“This is a stellar opportunity. The place is called A Touch of Magic.” Swinging his feet to the ground, he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “It’s very fresh, and recently opened—”

“Naught you say of that interests me. I need a ride to London.”

“You? Facing civilization? Willingly?” Bram’s jaw hit his chest.

“I seek a woman.”

“Planning to test the limits of your curse again?”

How did Bram know of that? Nosy coxcomb. Marrok resisted the urge to tear the wizard’s head off—barely. “Shut your mouth before I shut it for you.”

Bram laughed. “The last woman you took to your bed disappeared for two days. That was a decade ago, wasn’t it?”

“Not another word.”

Crossing his arms over his chest again, Bram smiled. “I hear you astound humans and put even magical men to shame. But you’re never quite…satisfied, are you?”

Marrok refused to admit to Bram that he could not find satisfaction in sex, no matter how many women he bedded, how many orgasms he gave, or how close he came to achieving his own release. It would only give the wizard something new with which to torment him.

“When you meet the gallery’s owner, you may want to try your luck again. Olivia Gray already loves your carvings and she is quite dishy. Her magical signature is…interesting.”

“She’s one of your kind? Absolutely not! I seek one woman in particular.”

“Oh, this is intriguing. You actually know a woman? You haven’t left this place in years. Did you meet her in a ‘hot babes’ chat room?”

Again, Bram clapped him on the shoulder, and Marrok felt the wizard trying to steal into his thoughts. Wrenching away, he marched to the sword, lifted the weapon and whipped it through the air with a menacing whoosh. “Cease your infernal invasion!”

Bram inched back. “Tell me about this woman. Maybe I can help.”

The only help Bram would ever give him was a push into hell. “I know what she looks like, if not the name she uses now. I will find her.”

“Hmm. Old flame?”

Old flame, old enemy. “Take me to London.”

“I’ll take you wherever you wish to go.” Bram paused. “After you meet Olivia. She’s very interested in your art, and I promised her an introduction.”

Marrok reined in his frustration, wishing Bram would choose another day to be difficult. Or better yet, another target. His dream, the omen that could set him free, had finally arrived. Morganna was running loose somewhere in London. He would make the witch release him from hell.

“Antagonizing me amuses you, but I will not play today.”

“That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.” Bram shrugged, looking totally unapologetic. “Unless you want to hand over the book?”

Gripping the sword tighter, Marrok arched a brow. The damn Book of Doomsday wasn’t leaving his possession until he discerned exactly how he must use it to end his curse. There was just one way, according to Morganna, and he would find it.

Besides, putting the bloody thing in the hands of someone magical was putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

“Guess not.” Bram smiled tightly. “In that case, I hope you enjoy meeting Ms. Gray. I’ve shown her a few pictures of the pieces you sold in the past. She’s very impressed. I’ve already arranged a meeting for you two this morning. Won’t take long. Then the rest of the day is yours.” When Marrok resisted, Bram added, “Come now, you must have pieces to sell.”

Aye. In the last three months, he’d carved his best work ever. Marrok’s gaze cut across the room to rest on a three-foot rendering of King Arthur and his enemy Mordred locked in mortal combat. Merlin and Morganna each hovered behind their champions, spinning magic to help their knights win.

Crossing the floor to the sculpture, Marrok stared at the angles of Morganna’s wooden likeness. Fear, fury, and a flash of desire tightened his gut. How could he have been so foolish as to tangle with that magical bitch?