“Hart,” Liam greeted the other man with an amiable handshake. “Glad you could make it.”
The blond girl and I were the only ones who looked as if we didn’t think this was entirely normal. Well, and Magda, of course. She pressed closer to me, second set of fangs protruding slightly. Hart was handsome, dressed in a simple gray button-down shirt and jeans instead of camo gear. There was a scar on his throat.
“You know Kieran, of course,” he said. “This is Hunter Wild.” He motioned to the blond girl. “The Wilds have been part of the league since the eleventh century.”
“How do you do?” Liam murmured calmly. “Have a seat.”
Hunter nodded stiffly, eyes wide. Kieran cleared his throat, nudging her into a chair next to him. The rest of the Drake brothers filed in, stealing the last bit of air and space left in the room. Hunter stared at them. Out of everyone in the room, the vampire hunter was the one I could relate to most right now. My eyes would have bugged out of my head too, if I’d let them. This kind of group gathered together peacefully was unprecedented, outside of the old families on the Council.
“We can do good work,” Liam said quietly. “If we let ourselves. We’ve called the Council. They’ll be here in two days. Meanwhile, Hart has already agreed to work with us.”
“What, and just give up killing vampires?” Magda asked. “And you believe him?”
Hart half smiled. “We’re all learning a little discretion is all. We have a common enemy, after all.”
“Montmartre?” I asked. I hadn’t thought Helios-Ra was particularly interested in vampire politics.
He shook his head. “No, the Hel-Blar. Something has them running brave. We’ve never intercepted so many calls to the police about strange people wearing blue paint. I think we can agree they need to be hunted.”
Magda nodded reluctantly. She had no love for the Hel-Blar; none of us did. It was too easy for the Hounds to remember that we might have been like them, but for a little luck and a little hidden inner fortitude.
“We’ve been getting disturbing reports all evening as well,” Helena said. “The Hel-Blar are everywhere suddenly.”
Magda hissed. “They’re like cockroaches.”
“Only rather more deadly,” Finn agreed.
“Is Montmartre behind this?” Hunter asked. “I didn’t think he could control them. Isn’t that the whole reason for their existence?”
“We don’t know,” Helena replied darkly. “I’d really like to feed him his own—”
“Darling,” Liam cut her off smoothly.
“Well, I would,” she insisted. “Hel-Blar or not, he needs to be dealt with.”
“Agreed.”
“We can stop Montmartre,” I told them confidently. “We nearly had him last week. He’s not invulnerable.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all night,” Helena told me. “But tell me the truth, Isabeau, would the Hounds ally themselves with us?”
“We all want to stop the Hel-Blar,” I assured her. “And Montmartre.”
“And after he’s been stopped?”
“The Hounds will recognize no one but our shamanka as our rightful leader,” I said delicately. “We will never be part of the courts.”
Helena raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got enough vampires. I don’t need any more.”
“Actually, that’s reassuring,” Finn murmured. “You might try stressing that point as often as you can when it comes to the Hounds. They’re rather keen on the right to govern themselves. I think you can understand that, given their history.”
“We don’t bow to Montmartre or anyone else,” Magda agreed fervently.
“Do you think our tribes would be able to form an alliance?” Liam asked. “One that recognizes everyone’s autonomy.”
“I think so.” Despite my natural misgivings toward the royal courts and non-Hounds in general, I genuinely liked the Drakes. I believed they were trustworthy, even if I had no actual proof of it. It was something I felt in my gut. “There are many superstitions and rituals that are dear to our people,” I said. “Some Hounds will never agree to work with you because you’ve not been initiated, but they won’t go against Kala either.”
Hunter was staring at Magda and me so intently that Kieran elbowed her.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“She’s never seen Hounds,” Kieran told us.
“I can speak for myself,” Hunter snapped at him.
“Well, you’re being rude.”
I glanced at him. “At least she didn’t greet me with a face full of Hypnos powder.”
Kieran went red.
Quinn grinned, lounging back in his chair. “She’s got you there.”
“Children,” Helena said, half sharply, half fondly.
Hart’s cell phone warbled discreetly. He glanced at the display. “I’m sorry, I have to take this. Hart here.” His jaw tightened. “When?” He glanced at Liam. “Another Hel-Blar sighting. This one right on the edge of town.”
Liam cursed.
“We’ve got a unit deployed,” Hart assured him.
Liam nodded to Sebastian. “Take a guard and see if you can help.” Sebastian was out the door without a word.
“I’ll go as well.” Finn pushed to his feet. “We may as well all start working together right away. Besides, we have a certain expertise in this matter that no one else has.”
“But you’re not a Hound, right?” Hunter pointed out, honestly confused. “You don’t have the tattoos or anything.”
“No, but I’ve lived with them for nearly four hundred years,” he told her before following Sebastian. It felt odd not to go with him but I knew I was needed here more, however much I might prefer to run off and bash a few Hel-Blar.
“Let’s reconvene in half an hour,” Liam suggested to the rest of us. “We can compare notes and take it from there.”
“Come on, Buffy,” Quinn drawled at Hunter. “I’ll give you the tour.”
I took the opportunity to leave the small room. I was used to caves, dark and secluded, but ours weren’t filled to the brim with people. Logan and Magda followed me, as if I had a plan. We were on our way outside when I paused, frowning. I touched my fingertips to the jumble of amulets at my throat. They were warm and vibrating slightly, as if they felt an earthquake no one else did.
“Something’s wrong,” I whispered.
Magda and I both reached for our phones, which rang at exactly the same moment. I didn’t bother to answer mine. The chain of my amulet broke and scattered the pendants across the rugs. The wolfhound tooth capped in silver and painted with a blue dye made from the woad plant broke in half. I looked up to meet Magda’s wild expression.
“Kala’s hurt,” she confirmed. “The Host attacked our caves.” She hissed. If she’d been a cat, her fur would have lifted straight into the air.
I felt oddly numb. “I have to go,” I told Logan, scooping up the amulets and stuffing them into my pockets. Charlemagne was at my side before I spoke the command. The courtiers whispered to one another as we rushed past them and out the other side of the decorated hall. “We’ll be back for the coronation.”
Logan grabbed his jacket from a coat tree. “I’m coming with you.”
I didn’t have time to argue with him and I was oddly comforted by the fact that he would come with me. Even if I didn’t need him.
And I didn’t.
“Tell my parents we’re going to the Hounds. Their shamanka’s been injured,” he tossed out to one of the stern-faced guards at the entrance.
Magda and I were already scrambling down the cliffside, scattering pebbles. Something tumbled out of Logan’s pocket when he caught up to us. He picked it up, bewildered. “What the hell is this gross thing?”
He was holding a gray dog’s paw, the nails curled in. It was wrapped in black thread and thorny rose stems without blossoms. I went cold all over.
“That’s a death charm,” I said. “A rare Cwn Mamau spell,” I elaborated when he just s
tared at me.
“It’s a dog’s paw,” he said very clearly, dropping it into the dirt. “That’s disgusting. I thought you guys liked dogs.”
“It wasn’t killed for its foot,” I told him. “When our dogs die, of natural causes,” I pointed out, “or in an attack, we use them for spell work, after the burial rites.”
“Yeah, still gross,” he muttered.
“And see this?” I pointed out a flat bone disk painted with a wolfhound and a blue fleur-de-lys. “That’s my personal mark. Someone’s trying to frame me.”
CHAPTER 11
Paris, 1793
“Papa, I don’t understand,” Isabeau pleaded. “Why do I have to wear this horrid dress? It itches.” The dress in question was gray wool without a stitch of ornamentation. She could pass for a maidservant or a village girl. Even her hair was tied back in an uncomplicated twist without a single pearl pin or diamond bauble.
“Chouette, it’s not safe anymore,” Jean-Paul answered.
She’d never seen him like this before. Nothing scared him, not Versailles, not wolves howling in the woods, not even the huge spiders that crawled into the château just before winter fell. She’d seen him fight a duel once, when she was supposed to be asleep in her bed. Now he looked haggard and tired and nearly gray with grief. Her mother sat weeping in the corner. She hadn’t stopped crying in days. Her hair was losing its curl, her face unpowdered. Isabeau shivered.
“This is about the king, isn’t it?” she whispered.
He slanted her a glance. “What do you know, chouette?”
“That the mob took Bastille, that Paris is no longer safe.”
“It’s not just Paris anymore,” he said quietly, shoving another wheel of cheese into the leather pack in front of him. They were in the kitchen, huddled by the hearth. Her old nursemaid Martine stood by the door, spine sword-straight. She wore a brown woolen dress and her hair was scraped back under a cloth bonnet. Isabeau had never seen her look so plain before. She shivered again.
“They’ve gained in strength and numbers. They’ve set up the guillotine as a permanent gallows. And the king was executed yesterday. France truly has no royalty now.”
She stared at him, shocked. “They killed the king?”
“Do you know what this means, Isabeau?”
She shook her head mutely.
“It means none of us is safe.” He wrapped a thick cloak around her shoulders. “Here, keep this on. It’s cold outside.”
She tied the ribbons together tightly. “Where are we going?”
“We’re going to my brother’s house in London.”
“England?” she repeated. Her mother wept harder, choking on her sobs. “But you haven’t spoken to him in years.”
She was interrupted by the shattering of broken glass coming from the front of the château. She whirled toward the sound. Her mother leaped to her feet, her hand clasped over her trembling mouth. Her father tensed. “Merde.
“There’s no time.” His eyes were determined, sharp as they found hers. “Isabeau, I need you to hide. Go with Martine, take your mother. You remember the broken stone I showed you?”
Isabeau nodded, her heart racing so fast it made her sick to her stomach.
“Pull it out and crawl inside. The passageway will take you out into the woods, by the lavender fields.” More glass broke, and something hard thudded against the locked front door. She could hear shouting, faintly. “Do you understand, Isabeau?”
She forced herself to look at him. “Oui, Papa.” She understood perfectly well. She was sixteen years old and better equipped to protect them than her fragile mother.
“Then go! Go now!”
“Non,” Amandine shrieked, clutching his arm so tightly the fabric of his shirt tore under her frantic nails. The door splintered with such a loud sharp crack that it echoed throughout the château. Martine’s face was wild as she grabbed Isabeau’s shoulder.
“We have to go.”
Footsteps crashed toward them. The mob shouted, knocked paintings off the wall, howled with hunger and frustration. The golden candlesticks in the hallway could have bought a winter’s worth of food for an entire family. Never mind that there was scarcely any food to be had, bought or otherwise. January frost covered the fields and the orchards, and the summer crops had been thinner than usual due to weather and political upheaval.
Jean-Paul tried to tear Amandine’s hand off him, to shove her toward Isabeau for safekeeping, but his wife was wild with terror and would not move. He wouldn’t let her save him and he couldn’t risk their daughter. They couldn’t all get away, they’d be chased through the countryside, found.
“Cherie, please,” he begged his wife. “Please, you have to go.”
The mob was nearly on them. There was no time, no options left. He threw Martine a desperate glance. “Take Isabeau.”
“Papa, non! We’ll all go!” Isabeau struggled to convince him even as her mother fell completely apart in his arms.
Angry villagers poured into the kitchen in search of food, leaving a few others to vandalize and loot what they could.
“The duke!” a woman with gray hair shouted. She was so thin her ribs were visible beneath her threadbare chemise. Someone howled, more animal than human. The flames from a torch leaped to a tablecloth, catching instantly. The smell of burning fabric mixed with burning pine pitch.
Martine yanked Isabeau backward and out into the dark predawn kitchen garden before she could struggle. They landed in the basil, crushing the dried shrubs under them as they rolled to the shadows under the decorative stone wall.
“Vien.” Martine tugged on her hand. “Je vous en prie.”
“My parents,” Isabeau said through the tears clogging her throat. “We have to help them.”
“It’s too late for them.”
“Non.” But she could hear the shouting, the tearing of hands through the barrels of salted meats and baskets of dried apples. She could hear her mother’s strange yelping, like a terrified cat, and her father’s cursing as he struggled to shield her.
“Your father would never forgive either of us if we didn’t get you to safety,” Martine told her quietly, urgently. Isabeau knew she was right. Martine took advantage of her stunned pause to pull her off balance and drag her running into the edge of the woods. Torchlight gleamed from the kitchen window as more of the cloth caught fire. Smoke billowed out of the open door.
She watched her parents from the tall cradle of an oak tree. The mob dragged them to a farm cart and lashed them to the sides. Isabeau’s father stared straight ahead, refusing to search for his daughter lest he give her away. Isabeau knew somehow that he could feel her there, up a tree, stuffing her fist in her mouth to keep from screaming out loud. Martine clung to the trunk beside her, her face wet with silent tears. The cart rolled away.
“I’ll go to Paris,” Isabeau swore. “And I’ll find a way to save them.”
•
Isabeau waited until Martine was asleep before making her escape. They’d found an abandoned shepherd’s hut; the wooden slats were pulling apart under the wind and there was snow in the corners, but it was better than the exposed January night. They risked a tiny fire, barely enough to warm their toes in their sturdy boots. Isabeau drew her knees up to her chest and let her thick cloak fall around her like a tent. She closed her eyes and pretended to drift off until she heard Martine snoring softly. She was shivering lightly and the gray in her hair seemed more pronounced, the lines around her eyes deeper. Isabeau couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her behind, but she couldn’t expect her old nursemaid to go with her.
Paris was a death trap.
But there was no possible way she could go anywhere else. Her parents were being dragged there even now. They would be paraded through the streets, condemned of some royalist crime, and executed.
She had to stop it.
And Martine would have to try and stop her.
So it was best all around if she left now, before it was even
harder. Her eyes felt gritty and swollen, her stomach was on fire with nerves, but underneath it all she knew she was doing the right thing. She left Martine most of the coins her father had sewn into her cloak, keeping only enough to see her to the city. Martine would need it more than she did. She’d have to find passage to England or Spain, or a villager to take her in. Perhaps someone would marry her. She was plump and pretty and dedicated; she deserved to be loved and taken care of the way she’d taken care of Isabeau her entire life. It should have been Isabeau’s job to find her nursemaid a new position, a new family to live with; or else beg her parents to keep her on until she was married and had babies of her own. None of that was likely now. Marriage was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind. The king was dead, Marie Antoinette was imprisoned, and most of the aristocracy had been murdered or fled to make cream sauces and pastries for the English.
Isabeau was sixteen years old, and she was clever and resourceful and she would do whatever needed to be done. She would free her parents and then find a ship to take them somewhere, anywhere.
She pushed the door open, wincing at the cold wind that snaked inside, fluttering the last of the fire. Martine moaned and shifted uncomfortably. Isabeau shut the door quickly and waited pressed against the other side, listening for the sound of Martine’s voice.
Satisfied that her nursemaid hadn’t woken up, Isabeau crept away from the hut. The night was especially dark without a moon to light her way. She was alone in the frosty silence with only a light dusting of snow for company. She walked as fast as her cold feet would let her, stumbling over twigs, keeping to the forest on the edge of the road.
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