fifteen

Poppy

The man Hades had called ‘DeVere' was on foot, which was never a good sign. If anything, it confirmed her suspicions. She and Hades followed him through the London fog on foot as well, the night more miserably cold and damp than any she had experienced so far.

DeVere walked for twenty minutes, until he reached a resplendent townhouse, which he proceeded to enter. Poppy and Hades hid in the shadows, watching the yellow light of his candle travel all the way up to his room.

"Right," Poppy said. "We need to go in. Now."

"What, in the gentleman's house? Have you lost your mind, little seed?"

"I beg your pardon." Poppy drew herself up, hoping she hadn't heard him correctly.

She strode across the street and pounded on DeVere's door with all her might.

Hades caught her by the elbow, hissing at her to stop it.

"What are you doing?" Now he sounded well and truly incensed. Perfect.

"I am saving a man's life," Poppy replied. "If you are not inclined to help me, my Lord Hades, feel free to take yourself home."

"Do not call me that!" For a man who claimed to hate screaming, he certainly did a lot of it—even with his voice kept low.

"You started it," Poppy said.

Where was that butler? Her heart was beginning to pound.

Please, God, let me not be too late.

Now, that was strange.

She had not prayed since Hades had taken her; it had not occurred her to.

Or maybe it had, but she had felt that she needed to do a lot of kneeling on rice before she could be worthy enough to pray. But now, the prayer lifted itself from her soul effortlessly, impulsively, and she felt that her heart, underneath all the hurt and shame, was as eager to reach for the heavens as it had ever been.

And the shame…the shame had diminished somehow.

Even though she hadn't listed her transgressions in ages and ages, she couldn't quite recall what she was supposed to have done at this precise moment; she couldn't quite recall what she was supposed to be repenting for. All she knew was that there was a man possibly dying up there, and she was the only one who could help him.

"What did I start?" Hades was hissing as the door opened, screeching on its hinges, and the butler's indignant face appeared in the opening.

"Did you or did you not call me ‘little seed'?" Poppy tried to say without opening her mouth too much, because the butler did not seem to be encouraging her to speak.

"That's not the same—" Hades started saying, and then stopped, as he realized that he was being stared down by DeVere's austere butler. "Good eve, my good man," he turned to that individual, his voice changing completely. It turned into his usual, intimidating cold tone within the blink of an eye.

"Impressive," Poppy whispered under her breath.

Hades' elbow dug into her ribs. "We require to enter DeVere's abode," he said to the butler, "if you would be so kind to step aside."

The butler attempted to sputter a question in response, and did not look amenable at stepping aside in the least, but Hades stepped right across him, his hand grasping Poppy's wrist and dragging her with him.

‘I don't like to be touched.'

Once inside the foyer, Poppy started running and Hades allowed her to overtake him and take the lead. She took the stairs two at a time, cursing her limp that did not allowed her to go any faster, and finally she reached the room she had seen the light stop at on the second floor.

She tried the door; it was locked.

Without a word, Hades stepped up and kicked it in.

The door fell in a cloud of smoke and splinters on the floor, to reveal DeVere's slender body hanging from a noose on the ceiling.

"Dear God!" Hades gasped, completely frozen on the spot.

Poppy, who had anticipated such a sight, was not in the least shocked, and ran inside the room, grabbing the hanging man's legs by the knees, and attempting to lift his rigid body towards the ceiling, so that the suffocation would stop. But he was too unresponsive and heavy, and she could barely move him.

"Help me," she cried to Hades, but he just stood there, rooted to the floor, and looked ashen.

Poppy was panting so hard she thought her heart would jump out of her chest. The man's body began to jerk uncontrollably against her hold, nearly kicking her on the chin.

"He is dying!" Poppy shouted. "This is no time to be missish, for God's sake."

That appeared to shock Hades out of his inertia, and he sprung forward. Between them, Poppy and Hades somehow freed the man from the noose, and lowered him down to lay him on the floor. He was still as a corpse; they would have to attempt to revive him.

"Pump on his back, as hard as you can," Poppy instructed Hades, and he did.

After three tries, the man woke up in Poppy's arms. He woke up crying.

Poppy smoothed back the matted hair from his brow; he couldn't have been older than five and twenty. His body, wrecked by sobs, jerked against Poppy's skirt, and she and Hades tried to calm him, for he was barely able to breathe.

"I have lost everything," DeVere gasped, fighting for breath. "You shouldn't have saved me, you shouldn't have, you sh—"

He fainted dead away.

"Is he dead?" Hades asked, with some interest.

"Almost," Poppy replied. "Come on, help me."

Then Hades was pulling the bell for the servants and running back to kneel by the unconscious man. The next two hours passed in a pandemonium of activity and panic, as everyone did battle to save the young man's life.

They succeeded, barely.

Two hours later, having left the Viscount DeVere very much alive, hoarse and tearful in the care of his dumbfounded butler and servants, Hades and Poppy finally stumbled out into the street. A doctor had been called, but he wouldn't be there until midmorning, probably.

A pale dawn was breaking out in the horizon, and the sky was clear and starry above their heads.

"Good God." Hades was still panting. "Is that what you have been doing? Every night?"

"I mostly waited outside of your club for a desperate soul to save," Poppy replied. "Once only, I walked in. Well, and a second time. But the rest of the nights, yes. I stopped them from hanging themselves. Sometimes I fished them out of the Thames. Sometimes I was too late."

"Good God."

"You said that."

"It bears repeating."

Poppy stopped walking and leaned her elbows on her knees in an extremely unladylike manner. She was panting so much, her chest hurt.

"You," Hades said, stopping beside her and leaning an arm over her back, as if to touch her, "are an angel." His fingers did not meet her dress, but hovered right above her skin. "And I am Hades," he mused. "Thus my name. I finally understand. That is why they call me Hades, isn't it? Because I lead people to their death."

Poppy replied nothing to that, because she thought it kinder.

He had, after all, spoken the truth.

Alexei

As soon as they got back to the club, he left Poppy to the care of her friends and sprinted towards his rooms. Once there, he knelt over the chamber pot, fully expecting to be violently ill. He waited for a few minutes, but nothing happened.

The nausea persisted, as did the echo of his own words:

‘Thus my name. I lead people to their death.'

The dying man's bulging eyes, his jerking legs, the sobs that tore from his throat as he woke up, were constantly in front of his eyes. He retched miserably, but there was nothing in his stomach to come up.

"That's it," he murmured, gasping as he sat back. "I can't endure this any longer."

He picked himself off the floor and walked to Nikolaos' rooms.

The prince was fast asleep, but other people's comfort had never stopped Alexei from getting what he needed. He climbed on the bed and sat next to his still, sleeping form for a few minutes. When that did not wake the prince up, Alexei grabbed Nikolaos' shoulder like a bloody wet nurse.

"What-what?" Nikolaos sprung up, ready for battle, his hair a black mess, his eyes wild and focused, hooded with sleep. "Are they upon us?"

Alexei did not know from which battle's nightmarish field he had awoken the Greek prince, but he spent a few seconds reassuring him that he was safe in the Hellion Club. Nausea still rolled in his stomach, but he swallowed it down.

"Oh, it's you," Nikolaos said, sitting up, properly awake. "What do you want now?"

"Help me," Alexei blurted out.

"You need to be more specific, my lord," Nikolaos said, biting back a smile, which irritated Alexei, but now was not the time for anger.

"Tell me what to do. How can you endure it?" he said.

"Endure what?" Nikolaos looked fairly puzzled, but invested in the conversation.

Alexei gestured helplessly around. "Life," he said.

Nikolaos moved his long legs under the covers to get more comfortable. Alexei, in all his hurry, had somehow managed to bring a candle with him, and in its faint light he could see the prince flash a smile, all white teeth and dimples.

"You won't like the answer," Nikolaos said.

"I need it, whether I like it or not," Alexei bit his lip, fighting a sudden urge to cry as if he were five years old.

"God," Nikolaos said. "God is the answer."

"Ah. You are right. I don't like it."

Nikolaos considered him for a moment. "What do you not like?"

"I don't like any of it. What did He ever say that was worth listening to? He told Miss Wyatt…Well, her brother did, but he is a so called ‘man of religion', isn't he? He told her vile things about herself. She…I cannot stomach even putting it into words. But I swear to you, the girl sometimes lapses into a pet-like state, as if she has been damned trained or something. Obeys without word, can't fight back…She is broken. She has been made to feel sinful for pretty much existing and breathing, and to kneel on…" He stopped, shutting his eyes.

The nausea had reached a critical point.

"Made to kneel on what?" Nikolaos sounded absolutely horrified.

Alexei winced. "Never mind."

"Now look here," Nikolaos said, sounding harsher than he ever had, "I don' know who told this lady of yours all this, but it wasn't God."

"Oh? And what does He tell you, do you think, then?"

Nikolaos sat up. "That I am enough," he said simply.

Suddenly, he had all of Alexei's attention.

They sat talking there until well into the evening, and when Alexei finally left the prince's rooms, he wasn't exactly a changed man.

But he wasn't the same man who had entered them either.