Doctor D’Arco, Sorcerer of London

Chapter 30

The Sorcerers’ Sepulcher

“Damn you, Simon!” I bellowed into the still air of the sepulcher in my consuming, tear-blind passion, the side of my futile fist striking down against my husband’s name engraved on his secret tomb—again—again, as my shoulders heaved with their great, racking sobs, and I felt the shudder of the impact through my bones, the sting of some edge of the newly chiseled epitaph drawing a fine streak of blood, but I did not care.

How dare he! How dare he come back to me now, mocking me from the safety of his stone sarcophagus that all my implacable fury was helpless to destroy; how dare the Order hide from me his death and his remains—oh, how I longed to pry open that heavy lid with my soft, thin fingers, send it crashing to its ruin on the floor, and see with the haunted fire of my own wild eyes what was left of him! Who interred him here? Who knew the truth of his disappearance beyond doubt, and thwarted me? Who let him rest in this place, trespassing neighbor to my joys and travails in Victor’s hallowed subterranean halls; who protected his unjust sleep while I wandered in doubt, as if whatever remained of my husband’s rotten carcass were the last and greatest secret he locked away from his own wife?