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The Great Ellini by @obliviablack

Logline

Jack Cade, a descendant of demons in an alternate Victorian Britain, must fight to regain his memories when the woman he loves is wrenched out of them.  

Blurb

Eleven years later, in the city of Oxford, he met her again for the first time...

In 1870, Jack Cade is admitted to the new-breed stronghold of Pandemonium, a colony of people just like him: descendants of the vanished demon race, all of them extraordinary in little ways, and deranged in much bigger ones. There, he falls in love with Ellini Syal, a shy, insular woman who spends most of her time scampering barefoot over the Edinburgh rooftops.

In 1881, he meets her again, but has no idea who she is. All he knows is that there are dark, horribly suggestive gaps in his memory, and that Ellini is running from something she refuses to talk about. Can he work out who she is and what she's done in time to save her from the creatures pursuing her? Can he save himself from the amnesia and the creeping indifference that are eating him up piece by piece? Or is amnesia preferable to the kind of memories he will have to unearth?

The Great Ellini is the first book in the epichistorical-fantasy-romance The Powder Trail, a series where the past and thepresent meet, part, and reunite with explosive consequences.

~Prologue~

Edinburgh, 1870

Jack didn't want much. He didn't have any designs on world domination or a ripe old age. He just wanted to see the woman from St. Michael's Church again. The object of his deepest, darkest, dearest memory.

That probably wasn't going to happen now because he was dying. He kept his hand clamped over his stomach, but dark blood still oozed between his fingers, as if he was a punctured barrel of tar.

It had all been so stupid. A duel with a man he'd never wanted to kill, over a girl he didn't even care about. And now he was staggering over the moonlit hills outside Edinburgh, dying by inches, with nobody to help him, and no one to explain why he'd done what he'd done—least of all himself.

He must have blacked out on his feet because there was no moonlight when he next opened his eyes. Everything was blackness, as though the entire world had seeped out of the wound in his stomach. Was the man he had killed still back there? Was he supposed to bury him? Or maybe run for help?

But he couldn't remember which direction they'd come from. And anyway, what kind of help could he expect, even if he found his way back to the town? He was a murderer.

He weaved aimlessly over the fields, choosing his path mainly because it sloped downhill and so took less energy to follow. His breath was coming in sharp, rattling gasps between his teeth. He couldn't feel anything but heat from his stomach—heat in every pore of his skin—and yet he shivered as though he was staggering across the arctic tundra.

Oh god, why couldn't that stupid duel have waited? He had been so close to finding the woman from St. Michael's. He'd felt nearer to her in Edinburgh than anywhere else, as though the town's shadowy alleys were an extension of her dark black hair.

The city was far behind him now, of course. He had staggered into the demon republic. If he looked back, he could still see the rusted iron sign stretched over the road. Its letters were reversed now, but when he'd been standing on the threshold, they had read, 'Now Entering Hell on Earth'.

That was the last place she'd been seen—the dark-haired woman from St. Michael's. But it would be almost embarrassing to find her now. What would he say? 'I've been searching for you all my life. Now please find a convenient place to bury me?'

Technically, this was the home of his people—as much as the ragged, dispossessed descendants of the demon race could be said to have a home anywhere. The demon republic in Edinburgh was the only place where they'd founded a settlement. But it was grand and esoteric, and the only way in was by invitation. If they found him here before he bled to death, he was going to be in even worse trouble than he'd have been with the police.

He climbed a ridge and staggered into the hollow on the other side, not even noticing until the water came up to his knees that he had wandered into some kind of pool. The moon came out again, dyeing the water silver.

And that was when he saw her, waist-deep in the water. She was bare-armed, but not even shivering, dressed in a white bodice and a petticoat which swirled about her elbows in the stream. Her clothes had turned transparent in the water, and Jack wondered dimly if he'd stumbled into heaven, and if the angels could possibly be allowed to show so much nipple here.

She waded forwards, her mouth forming a perfect little 'o'. It was as though she was frightened towards him, rather than frightened away.

Did she recognize him? But he'd been a child then. A helpless bag of bones and bruises who had nothing in common with the man he'd become. Except, right now, for the helplessness.

He resisted blacking out for as long as he could. This was a mystery he wanted to get to the bottom of, especially if it involved a closer examination of her bodice.

But when she finally waded towards him and reached out a tentative hand, he had done all the resisting he could. He was unconscious before she touched him—which he would be very annoyed about when he woke up.