But that wasn’t the only threat.
Erin noted the smoke rising through the planks from below. Rhun stepped over and hauled the trapdoor open and flung it wide. A wash of heat rolled up, bringing with it a fresh clot of smoke.
She coughed, holding the crook of her arm over her nose.
Rhun reached down and helped haul Sophia into the attic. The small Sanguinist was soaked in blood — some her own, some the grimwolf’s. She did her best to straighten the shreds of her clothing.
“The wolf fled,” Sophia said, her eyes still panicked-looking. “Don’t know why.”
Erin stared over at Leopold, guessing what had changed.
A trampling of feet overhead drew their attention up to the hole. Everyone tensed, expecting more trouble, but then Christian poked his head through.
“Time to go,” he warned. “Whole place looks like it’s about to go.”
Working quickly, Sophia and Rhun hauled Jordan up. They passed him up to Christian, who caught his shoulders and dragged him to the roof with the help of Elizabeth.
Rhun turned to Sophia. “Help them get Jordan to the street. Erin and I will follow. We can make for St. Ignatius. We should be able to find refuge there.”
With a nod, Sophia leaped up, caught the edge, and vanished.
Rhun turned to Erin.
“What about Leopold’s body?” she asked.
“The fires will take care of it.”
Regret panged through her, but she knew they had no other choice. Rhun helped get her through the hole to the roof. The cold air and clean rain helped push back her sense of hopelessness.
Jordan will heal.
She refused to believe otherwise. She searched the roof, but the others had already vanished, climbing down with Jordan’s comatose form. Not wanting to leave him out of her sight for long, she hurried toward the edge with Rhun.
“I’ll carry you down,” he said, already reaching an arm toward her.
She turned to him with a grateful smile — when the roof collapsed under her.
She plummeted into hot, smoky darkness.
22
Rhun fell with Erin.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her hard against his chest. He wrapped his limbs protectively around her as they crashed through fiery timbers, smoke, and raining plaster. Then they struck a floor that was still intact. He did his best to roll, to bleed away the force of that impact.
He ended up on his knees, cradling Erin’s limp form. She was dazed. Blood ran from a deep scalp wound across her face. Flames and smoke roiled around him, but he recognized the round room where they had landed: Edward Kelly’s old alchemy room.
He lifted Erin, feeling her lungs laboring in the smoke, hearing the fluttering of a weakening heart as she suffocated. He stumbled, half blind, toward the wall, intending to follow it to the door, then to a window.
Overhead, a crack sounded as another roof beam gave way. Something huge crashed through from above. Flames lit its greenish hue, glowing through the glass.
The bell.
Instinctively, Rhun raised his arm against its evil, protecting Erin, shielding her with his body. The bell struck his arm, his back, and drove him to the floor. Thick glass shattered over him, cutting into his arm, his shoulder, slashing muscle and breaking bone.
Pain blinded him as he cried out.
Erin heard, stirring with a jolt under him. “Rhun…”
He rolled off her, slicing up more of his flesh. “Go,” he moaned.
She crawled free, but instead of following his order, she grabbed his good arm and tried to drag him away from the ruins of the bell. Before she could, the fire-weakened floor gave way under the weight of the broken bell. As burning boards fell away under him, he twisted and saw the limp form of Leopold tumble from the attic above and follow the wreck of the shattered bell, chasing it down into the fiery pit of the house.
Rhun’s body slid to follow, but Erin dragged him away from the gaping hole, keeping him in this round room. Pain consumed him, but he forced himself to fight through it, to stay in this room with Erin. He could not leave her. He might yet be of service to her.
Smoke boiled into the room from the hole left by the bell. Wind drew it up through this makeshift chimney to the roof. Most of the floor had already been burned through. Flames roared beneath them.
Erin held him, cradling him this time. She had dragged him to the wall. Rhun wished that she had left him and escaped.
“Leave me,” Rhun forced out, turning his face toward the door, toward the faint glow of a streetlamp through the smoke. “Make for the window…”
Cold blood gushed down his side. He had been in enough battles to recognize a fatal wound. But perhaps Erin could climb out that window, scramble down the front, and escape to safety. She did not have to die with him.
Still, she did not let go of him. Instead, she yanked off her leather belt, fastened it around his shoulder, and pulled it tight.
Rhun gasped as new pain flared.
“I’m sorry,” she said, coughing. “I had to stop the bleeding.”
Rhun looked past the belt’s tight constriction.
Below the leather strap — his arm was gone, severed by the broken bell.
Erin pressed her wrist against Rhun’s lips. “Drink,” she ordered.
The tourniquet had slowed the hemorrhage to a trickle, but he would not survive long without a fresh source of blood.
Rhun turned his head weakly to the side, refusing.
“Damn you, Rhun. You need the strength found in my blood. Sin now, repent later. I won’t leave you, and I can’t move you on my own.”
She shook him, but he had sagged against her, unconscious.
She tried to slide him toward the door, but his bulk was too much for her. She could barely breathe; her eyes wept with stinging tears, born equally of smoke and frustration.
A few feet away, a floor joist cracked and gave. Another section of floor fell into the fire below. Heat blazed against the side of her face, as hot as the mouth of an open furnace. Flames roared at her.
Then the smoke shifted by the door, swirling open to allow a dark shape to fly into the room.
Christian fell upon her like a dark angel. He must have followed her heartbeat. He went to grab her, but she pushed Rhun into his arms.
“Take him,” she coughed out.
He obeyed, tossing Rhun over one shoulder, and hauled her up with his other arm. He dragged her stumbling form along with him toward a wash of fresher air. Her heels crackled across broken glass to a third-story window. Christian must have crashed through it to reach them.
“How are we going to—?” she started.
Whipping around, Christian scooped her up and threw her headlong out the window.
She plummeted with a scream trapped in her throat. The ground rushed toward her — then Elizabeth and Sophia appeared below. Hands caught her before she struck the cobblestones, softening her landing, but she hit the pavement hard enough to jar her teeth.
She twisted to see Christian strike the ground yards away, rolling across the cobblestones, then smoothly to his feet, Rhun in his arms.
Relieved, Erin remained on the wet cobblestones, coughing. Between coughs she drew in as much of the fresh outside air as she could. Her lungs ached.
A shape loomed over her, then dropped to a knee. “Erin, are you okay?”
“Jordan…”
His eyes shone brightly at her. He had come back to himself again. Fresh tears rose to her eyes, but concern still rang through her.
“Your neck?”
He rubbed the back of his collar, looking sheepish. “Still hurts like a motherfu — I mean, it hurts bad.”