The Serpent's Curse, Lisa Maxwell [new reading .TXT] 📗

Viola had no idea where the couple was taking Jianyu, and with each passing second it was growing more impossible to follow, but the ring was here. She could not leave it. Letting her affinity unfurl a little, she sensed the lives of each person in the room. Their heartbeats surrounded her, but she felt nothing from the creature.

Because this was not life, she realized. The beast was nothing more than manipulation of matter, and Viola’s affinity was for the blood of the living. It had no power over this creature.

Perhaps with her knife she could slay it.…

But Libitina was gone. It had disappeared into the crowd, along with Jianyu.

All around Viola, women still screamed and fainted, and men continued to run for cover as Paolo’s scagnozzi stirred the confusion with their own violent glee. She ignored all of them. She moved slowly, cautiously slinking on satin slippers toward the dais where the woman lay. Viola knew the beast watched her. Still, she inched steadily closer. When she was little more than an arm’s length away, the creature squared its shoulders in warning.

Viola didn’t allow herself to hesitate or second-guess. She lunged for the woman, grabbed hold of her limp hand, and started to tug at the ring. But when Viola’s fingers brushed against the cool smoothness of the ring’s gemstone, suddenly the sound of blood became riotous in her ears. Her affinity flared, stirred by the power in the stone, and for a moment she felt the pulse of life in the room. Every beating heart. And she knew she could end them all.

But the beast was already moving toward Viola, and before she could move away, the force of its weight knocked into her. Her hand lost contact with the stone, and the clamoring rush of blood went silent.

The creature lurched again, and Viola thought her bones would crack beneath its weight as it shifted to press a broad clawed paw squarely on her throat. With the pressure, Viola could not draw breath, and she knew that with one more movement, the creature would snap her neck in two. Still, she reached for the woman’s hand, careful not to touch the stone this time.

With the beast’s weight crushing her, Viola’s vision was starting to blur as she tugged at the ring until… there. Just as darkness pulled her under, the ring slipped free.

ANTICIPATION

1902—New York

Watching his gala dissolve into madness, Jack Grew felt the Book tremble against his chest. As gunfire rang throughout his uncle’s ballroom, the most powerful men in New York revealed their cowardice. The leaders of the Order had lorded their power over him for so long. They’d thought him a failure—an embarrassment—but now they screamed like women as their fear exposed their truest selves.

The old men who led the Order were weak. Impotent. They had allowed their wealth and position to blind them to the truth—their days of power were nearing an end. Jack had seen their faces while he commanded the stage. All the demonstrations he’d performed upon that stage were mere parlor tricks compared to the power that was still undiscovered within the pages of the Book. Still, the old men of the Order had been shocked. They’d been awed by what they’d seen, and perhaps most gratifying of all, they’d been afraid. And that was before Paul Kelly and his men had turned the gala into a melee.

Jack’s lips twitched as the Order debased themselves in front of common criminals. So much for their power. So much for the Order’s great might. But the amusement of the moment could last for only so long. Across the room, Jack’s beast waited, as did his prize.

The clay golem that Jack had formed with his own two hands and brought to life with knowledge he’d gleaned from the Book sat atop the broken and lifeless body of Evelyn DeMure. The harlot had tried to manipulate him with her siren’s song, but in the end, her feral magic was no match for the gifts the Book had bestowed upon him. Her end was only the beginning for Jack. Her death would bring into being the world he would build, a world where every maggot who lurked in the shadows would finally be dealt with. Once he had the ring, he’d rebuild his machine, and there would be nowhere for them to hide.

Another shot rang out, but Jack barely heard it. The familiar bitterness of morphine lay on his tongue, emboldening him, and the power of the Book urged him on. Why should he bother to cower? What bullet could touch him now?

The Book trembled like a second heartbeat in the breast pocket of his jacket, and his blood answered, churning in anticipation. But then Jack saw that someone had reached Evelyn before him. A girl in purple, whose bright satin stood out amid the sea of dark suits. She was tugging at Evelyn’s hand, trying to remove the ring.

With her cheap gown and swarthy skin, she certainly wasn’t one of the fair porcelain dolls of society ballrooms. She came with Paul Kelly, Jack realized, remembering the girl from earlier in the evening. He’d dismissed her then as nothing but a trollop from the Bowery, but now he saw the determination in her dark features. Clearly, this girl knew what the ring was. The Book shuddered again, and Jack understood—she was one of them.

Ignoring the chaos around him, he stepped down from the small stage where he’d been presiding over the evening’s events and pushed his way through the churning crowd. The Book beat an erratic tattoo against his chest as he clambered over toppled chairs, determined to reach Evelyn’s body before Kelly’s whore could take his victory. He was nearly there when another volley of shots rang out, and from nowhere, Jack found himself dragged down, pushed over, with the air knocked from his lungs.

“Get off, you damn—” Jack was already bringing his arm back to swing