Ashes of the Broken Gate

Damien Blackwell hoped against hope that he’d left the worst of it behind him. For the first time in far too long, the nights were still and quiet in the city of London, tea cooling on the table, a faithful cat on watch at the door, and Vivian at his side with the promise of a future he’d never thought he’d have a right to. He’d even dared to buy a ring and hope for a future with the woman he loved.Until the night the silence is broken.A child is brought to Vivian’s hidden rooms above her apothecary shop alive, barely, burning with a fever even Vivian’s medicines cannot touch. Demonic symbols writhe beneath the child’s skin like bruises that breathe and pulse to a rhythm that echoes the beat of a heart too large for such a small child. Vivian sets out salt and crushed hyssop, draws chalk symbols on the floor, and duplicates each and every one with an obsessive care because these are not simply symbols. These are a key.When the symbols are complete, they resemble a door as if viewed from directly above a gate shaped like a clock face, and four barbed symbols driven into the floor like nails.Anchors.The rabbi’s warning echoes through Damien’s mind like a tolling bell thirty days a portal a Sovereign who wants children and as Vivian delves into forbidden texts on the history of her family proof positive that for generations her bloodline has been working to mend the boundaries between worlds she and Damien realize the true horror of what is already in motion the child is not simply a victim. She is a key, just as he is a key, just as three others are keys, each one holding the power to open a door and unleash a terror beyond imagination.Should Damien Blackwell and Vivian fail in their mission, the damaged gate will not open smoothly. Instead, it will burst open, tearing holes in the fabric of the living world, one anchor at a time. And London will be the first city to feel the ground beneath it give way. Every rescue attempt will draw the tether of the child’s soul tighter. Every passing hour will bring them closer to the apocalypse that will come not with trumpets, but with cracks in the ground.To stop the coming apocalypse, Damien must do what he promised himself he would never do again: draw the circle, speak the words, and enter the realm of Salicuthie, the Frozen Abyss, where regret is etched in the very fabric of the ice itself. In the starving city of Rahul, the Infernal Vanguards hunt them by name, infernal machinery churns beneath the iron corridors, and mercy is no longer affordable for anyone. Vivian’s gifts can mend the damage, close the breaches, but every spell requires a price: blood, breath, memory, or more. And Hell keeps track of all debts.Because the thing within Damien is very much awake.Xandros, the patient one, the amused one, the hungry one, purrs in the back of Damien’s mind, offering power that is too good, too easy, too sharp. The more Damien Blackwell approaches saving the innocent, the more the demon hungers to get out. And if Damien Blackwell lets the demon out, even slightly too far, the gate will stop, but Damien will become the gate.Ashes of the Broken Gate is Book Three in The Damien Blackwell Chronicles: a dark, gothic descent into the world of ritual magic, impossible choices, and the price of loving someone when the abyss is always listening.For readers of occult mystery, demon-tainted protagonists, hellish realms, dark fantasy with a beating heart.