the sound a feeble whistle. As though it were caught in the throes of death.
It took an instant for Celine to understand. The demon in the shadows had attacked something in her cell. She moved to help the wounded soul beneath the window, but her toes slid in something wet, her right foot skidding out from under her. Gripping the wall to steady herself, Celine looked up as a dry cackle emanated from above.
Terror racing through her veins, Celine fought to stand straight, her knees threatening to buckle out from under her. Pippa screamed and backed away.
“Be gone from here!” Celine demanded into the blackness looming above her, her fingers trembling around her shears.
The thing blurred from the ceiling to the floor like a tempest across a field of wheat. Then it stood slowly, its long figure unfolding in a beam of waning moonlight. Before Celine could blink, it rushed toward her, taking her by the wrist, slamming her back against the rough plaster wall. It drew close, smelling of blood and rain. The damp of the earth. It breathed deeply of Celine’s neck, its teeth grazing the lobe of her left ear, leaving a trail of sticky wetness.
“Each time you evade me, I only want you more,” it gasped, its voice like metal against stone. “You cannot escape. You are mine.” Then it dragged its bloody fingers across her face, as if it were marking her.
A horrified scream caught in Celine’s throat. She kept rigid, her eyes unblinking, struggling to detect anything of note. Anything that might help identify the creature in the light of day. But the room was too dark, the demon far too close. Pippa’s footsteps pounded down the corridor, her screams jumbled and nonsensical.
“Death leads to another garden. Welcome to the Battle of Carthage,” the thing whispered in Celine’s ear, its words a crazed rasp, its accent refined. “To thine own self, be true.”
Celine stabbed it in its chest with her sewing shears. Roaring, the demon shoved her to one side with inhuman strength, an earsplitting cry rending through the darkness. Celine’s head struck the floor in a dull thud, her vision distorting from the blow. She fought to focus on the figure looming above her. All she could distinguish was the silhouette of what appeared to be a man, tall and well muscled, his chest heaving, the sleeves and hem of his coat tattered.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Celine said in a hoarse tone.
The demon’s laughter was a wet gurgle. “You will be.”
Commotion rang through the hallways beyond Celine’s cell. Doors banged open, and the cries of young women layered through the thick darkness, their footsteps pattering across the stone floors, their candles wavering over the walls.
Then the demon leapt out of Celine’s window with preternatural grace.
Her skull buzzing and her vision hazy, Celine reached for the fallen box of matches. Labored to sit up and light one, her toes slipping through the pool of sticky warmth collecting by her feet. Her fingers shook as the match burst into flame, the peppery scent of gunpowder suffusing the air.
Celine’s heart hammered in her temples, her limbs bereft of warmth. The moment the match’s flame stretched tall to spread its light, Pippa burst through the entrance of the cell, brandishing a fireplace poker like a fencing épée. Her resounding scream turned into many, mounting like ripples across a pond. Horrified, sleep-laden faces craned for a glimpse beyond the doorway, regretting their curiosity in the next instant.
For nothing could have prepared them for the sight that met their eyes.
Strewn across the sill of Celine’s open window was a man’s mangled body. One of his legs was crooked at an unnatural angle, an arm bent behind him, nearly torn from its socket. His wispy beard trailed onto the stone floor. Red bubbles frothed around his mouth as the blood from a gash in his neck trickled downward, seeping between the cracks in eerie tributaries.
Above his body—painted onto the wooden shutter—was another symbol, sketched in crimson:
THE LONELY FREEDOM OF A MISTY STREET
Numbness enveloped Celine, settling on her shoulders, winding about her limbs. She welcomed it. Wished it would swallow her whole.
A demon had touched her. Marked her.
Taken another life.
William, the kind gardener who resembled a wizard, had been murdered tonight in Celine’s cell, on the cusp of the witching hour. He’d perished much like Anabel, his throat torn out in gruesome fashion, the blood spilling from his body as fast as his heart could pump it. This time the