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Contents
Dominic
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Vincent
PROLOGUE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
1
Temple of Bacchus
Else World, 1837
“Her name is Emma.”
The Facilitator’s voice echoed off the ancient stone walls, lending his words authority as he directed Dominic’s attention to the large, mirrored disk positioned prominently in the middle of the temple’s bloodied floor.
The image of a woman, who existed somewhere in a neighboring world, was reflected on the disk’s surface like a living portrait. Her countenance was serene, oblivious. For she was unaware she was being watched.
Carved from polished obsidian as black and impenetrable as the night, the six-foot mirror was encircled by nine more disks of lesser circumference. Each was concave and had been shaped from a disparate exotic stone intended to represent one of the lunar phases. All were set at an angle meant to capture the moonlight streaming in through an aperture in the roof and to direct it toward the central mirror where the woman was on view.
“You expect me to rape her,” Dominic stated, his voice flat.
The woman’s hand moved, and a page flipped. She was reading.
“We expect you to do what is necessary. As always,” the Facilitator replied, speaking for himself as well as the two silent Acolytes who flanked him.
At first glance, the woman appeared to be plain, unremarkable in every way. Dominic judged her to be a quarter of a century old like himself, perhaps a little older. Except for the occasional movement of her hand, she was utterly still. Her head was bent intently over a tome entitled The Fruits of Philosophy, which lay before her upon a polished desk.
She wore spectacles, and her profile was half turned from him, so that the shape of her delicate cheek was limned by flickering candlelight. Tendrils of ash-brown hair curled along a vulnerable nape.
The garment she wore was stiff and lengthy, and it almost completely hid her body from view. He’d heard that Earth-World females sheathed themselves in swaths of fabric impermeable to the masculine eye but until now had believed this to be only a rumor. Her breasts were full and her figure shapely. Why did she hide it?
“You’ll bow to Our Will in this matter?” prompted the Facilitator.
Dominic grunted a grudging assent. His hard, quicksilver gaze flicked over the woman again. He’d been required to do worse in his life. And he had little choice.
From the corridor behind them came the swishing sound of the votaries’ brooms. Solemnly they swept the sacred remnants of what had been a colossal statue of Bacchus into vessels that would later be placed in reliquaries.
Rage simmered in him. This hallowed sanctum—his home—had been brutally attacked. And to think that just hours ago he’d been out fighting the very beings who had taken advantage of his absence to defile it!
He resided here, alone for the most part, sleeping in an alcove with few creature comforts. Like a bird of prey, he swooped down on the enemies of his people by night and returned to the relative protection offered here in the temple to roost by day. But this attack had altered his schedule.
“Seven were killed in the strike here last night,” the Facilitator informed him, though he hadn’t asked. “And the amulet in the statue has gone missing. We can only thank the Gods that the time involved in its removal prevented our enemies from reaching these mirrors.”
“Our ‘enemies,’” Dominic mocked, shooting him a cynical look. The stench of demons was everywhere, yet the Facilitator adamantly refrained from referring to them directly, as if doing so might somehow raise them in the flesh.
“They weren’t ‘prevented,’” he informed his elderly companion. “They came here with specific intentions. They destroyed the statue but painstakingly hacked its genitals and right hand off. The fact that they left only those pieces undamaged and to be discovered by us in this mess was no accident.”
It had been a message directed at him, for those were his susceptible points.
The Facilitator’s placid gaze didn’t alter.
“It’s widely known that these scrying mirrors allow us to see into the adjoining world,” Dominic persisted. “They were purposely left intact so that we might continue to do so.” He jerked his jaw toward the woman in the mirror. “Let me postpone this new duty until I can find out the reason behind this attack. Until I can hunt down the demons who were responsible.”
The two Acolytes on either side of the Facilitator stirred for the first time, murmuring in distress. Whether in response to his suggestion of postponement or to his profanity in calling the
