She had breathed a sigh of relief when he shifted back to his monstrous form once they returned to her apartment. Surely, she had told herself, seeing the true shape of the distractingly gorgeous man she’d spent the last night and day lusting over would cure her of that little obsession.
No such luck.
In reality, Ella couldn’t make herself think of Kees as a monster. Somehow, her eyes just wanted to skim over the small ram’s horns that curled back above his temples and the fangs that flashed whenever he spoke. His long claws made for a bit of an extreme manicure, but she’d dated men who wore nail polish, so who was to say what was normal?
Okay, so his feet made her a little uncomfortable, looking like a cross between the feet of a man and a giant raptor, but she wasn’t into feet anyway. She figured her own stubby toes and pale skin and bony ankles couldn’t exactly be called alluring, so she shouldn’t judge.
The tail was easy enough to ignore, and honestly, the wings … well, those she found oddly comforting.
Maybe she was losing her mind, but the wings soothed her. They made her want to climb into his lap and curl up against his chest. She could almost feel the warm embrace of them fold around her, shielding her from the outside world, creating a perfect cocoon of peace and tranquility. It would be like a giant hug surrounding them both, sealing them off in their own private nest.
She shivered and hugged herself tighter.
God, she had to drag her mind off his body and force it back to the matter at hand. Especially since he hadn’t so much as indicated he remembered her gender since they got out of the car at Gregory’s house.
Ella cleared her throat. “So, um, since Gregory’s gone and he can’t answer any of your questions, what are you going to do now?”
What she wanted to ask was what were they going to do, but she tamped down the impulse. She could fight that battle later if he actually tried to exclude her from their next move. She could always remind him of the magical training he had told her she needed. After hearing of the Warden’s death and sensing the nasty stuff left behind by whoever had killed him, she was inclined to agree that the idea of learning enough magic to protect herself had merit.
“I am starting to believe that the questions I had intended to ask have ceased to be important,” he told her. “I think I know why I have woken, even if the way in which it happened remains unclear. I think it is more important now to contact the Guild directly. If Gregory has been dead for three years as Greta indicated, a replacement should have been named long ago. I need to find out why this was not done, and see how much they know about the threat that killed him. If the nocturnis are active again, the Guild must know about it. They will be able to tell us if matters have become serious enough to warrant waking another of my brothers to defend against it.”
Able to tell “us,” he had said. Ella tried to ignore the warm glow his words caused. Seriously, she was becoming a sap.
“That makes sense,” she said, careful to conceal her satisfaction. “How do we do that?”
“I told you, the Guild always remains in one place. It allows for continuity in spite of the long stretches of time during which the individual Guardians might sleep. Their base in Paris has been there for hundreds of years. They designed and built the structure specifically to be an eternal stronghold from which to fight the long war. We will go to them there.”
“Um, seriously? Don’t get me wrong, I think contacting the Guild is probably the right move, but Paris is a long way away, and plane tickets are expensive. You know, since I don’t have wings of my own.”
Kees shook his head. “Traveling to Paris would take too long. We will have to contact them. We can use a telephone, yes?”
“Sure, if you remember the number.” She paused. “Although, I don’t know if phone numbers work the same way now that they did the last time you woke up. Wait, if you last woke in 1703, they didn’t even have telephones.”
“The last time I battled one of the Seven was in 1703, not the last time I woke. I had to interrupt my slumber briefly each time a new Warden succeeded into my service. So the last time was approximately sixty-five years ago.”
Ella thought for a minute, and then shook her head. She just kept remembering old movies from the ’40s and ’50s when people would pick up the phone and ask the operator to connect them to Bumbleford 8173, or something.
“Still not sure anything you remember will work. I don’t suppose their number is in the book, is it?”
“What book?”
“You know, listed in a public directory. Like, can I call the phone company in Paris and ask for a number to connect me to the Guild of Wardens?”
“Ah.” Kees indicated his understanding with a small gesture. “I do not think so. The Guild has become much more private over the centuries since it was founded. Only those whom they wish to hear from know how to contact them.”
“Hm.”
Ella pursed her lips. An unlisted phone number did present an obstacle in the path, but not an insurmountable one. There was more than one way to skin a cat. Or a gargoyle. She thought about asking Kees if he knew the physical address of the Guild’s building, but even that wasn’t likely to prove helpful. Cities, especially major ones, had changed dramatically over the centuries, and streets got renamed all the time. An old address, whether it was three hundred years old or sixty-five years old could very well lead them down another dead end.
An idea occurred to Ella, and she began to smile. It was true that cities changed, but if the Guild had its base in a truly historical building, chances were, it had been the subject of architectural curiosity and historic preservation movements through the years. And that meant that it would be well known, probably featured in guide books and photographic studies of a city as famous and often visited as Paris.
Yes, Ella decided, pushing up from her chair and heading toward her desk in the corner of her unused dining room. It was definitely time to introduce a medieval gargoyle to the wonders of the modern world.
Look out, Google. Here we come.
* * *
Kees’s jaw had dropped when Ella first opened the wonders of the Internet. He had heard of such things during his slumber, of course, but to witness the enormous wealth of information so easily accessed so quickly and efficiently …
His mind, as Ella would put it later, was blown.
Not that finding a single ancient building in a city as old and crowded as Paris was easy, of course, but Ella had determination on her side. With the help of several maps, both modern and historical, she first had Kees point out which section of Paris the Guild has settled in. Then, armed with the number of the corresponding arrondissements, Ella began the laborious task of drawing up a list of historic buildings so she could find photos for Kees to look at. Once he identified the correct building, a little Internet sleuthing should tell her the current street address. With that, finding the owner and some contact information would be only a matter of time.
It took four hours to find the building. When she showed Kees the digital photograph of the classical stone façade with Gothic detailing and decorative sculpture recessed in niches along the walls, his eyes narrowed and he grunted in satisfaction.
“That is it. That is the headquarters of the Guild of Wardens.”
“Good,” Ella grunted in return. “Now, let me get back to work.”
She did, while Kees got back to the refrigerator.
They had eaten lunch together about two hours ago, Ella munching her sandwich while still hunched over her keyboard; Kees plowing through four times the food on the other side of the desk. The gargoyle, though, said he was hungry again. Apparently, it took a lot of fuel to keep those enormous muscles performing. Ella tried not to think about them. At least, not while she was working.
Another two hours passed and Ella squealed with triumph. “I got it!”
She leapt out of her chair, ignoring the protests of her stiff muscles, and did a little victory dance in the fading lig
ht from the dining room window. She loved solving puzzles, and this one had been a doozy.
Kees looked up from where he had been sitting on the sofa, studiously examining her remote control. “You have a number to call? What is it? Where is your telephone?”
“Whoa, hold on, big guy.”
Ella held up a hand, which Kees walked right into as he stalked around the sofa to the computer.
“What is the number? We must call immediately.”
“I said, hold your horses.”
He growled. Ella felt the sound rumbling under her palm, but instead of frightening her, the sensation fascinated her, as did the warm, rough-smooth feel of his skin beneath her hand. She had to force herself to pay attention.
“I found the listed owners of the building, not the phone number,” she explained, reluctantly dropping her hand and raising her gaze to his face. “It’s a trust, which I suppose makes sense if the Guild has been operating for centuries and intends to continue doing so. But more importantly, I found the names of the trust’s managers, a law firm in Paris.”
“Then why are we wasting time? We must call.”
“We’ll call once I dig up the number. It should only take a few minutes, but you do realize that’s it currently about two o’clock in the morning, Paris time, right?”
“The hour does not matter. Find the number. We will call the Guild immediately once you do. Trust me, someone will answer.”
“All right. Give me five minutes. Ten, tops.”
Ella settled back into her desk chair and tried to ignore the feel of Kees’s dark gaze boring into her while she typed and scrolled and clicked. The man proved a potent distraction just being in the same room. Having him actively watching while she worked wreaked havoc on her concentration.
She returned her focus to her Web search and reread the text of a news link. Her heart took a nosedive into her stomach, and she read the words a third time. She bit her lip as she clicked on the link.
“What is it? What is wrong?”
That was the other problem with Kees staring at her while she worked. He knew immediately when she found something and he always demanded she share that very instant.
Her expression tightened as she waved him forward. “This is a news article from an English-language news site in Paris. I didn’t find it right away, because it was published more than a year ago, so it got buried under more recent results.”
She shifted aside so he could see the screen more clearly. Kees leaned over her shoulder and focused on the headline that filled the computer monitor:
23 DEAD, NO SURVIVORS AS CATASTROPHIC FIRE CONSUMES HISTORIC BUILDING
The Guild of Wardens no longer inhabited the shell of the old structure in the ancient quarter of Paris. No one did, according to the article.
The Guild had been destroyed.
Ella felt the silence take over the room. It covered everything like a blanket, making the atmosphere heavy and claustrophobic.. She even found herself turning her head to look at Kees, just to make certain he hadn’t turned back to stone. He held himself too stiff and still she worried for a minute until she saw his chest expand when he drew in a breath.
“Read the article to me.” His voice sounded tight and fierce as he barked the command. He pushed himself away from Ella’s desk and began to pace, his tail swishing behind him like an angry cat’s. “Tell me everything it says. Tell me exactly what happened.”
Ella’s heart ached as she turned back to the screen and read about the destruction of Kees’s strongest link to the human world. She knew the loss of those twenty-three lives must represent the loss of centuries and centuries of friendships and families and a community that was all he had, a rock the stone-skinned sentinel could lean on during his long ages of sleep. And now it had been ripped away from him.
Ripped away more than a year ago, and he hadn’t even known.
The story couldn’t possibly make him feel any better, but Ella read it anyway. He deserved to know. According to the news article, the fire had started in a “file room” in the old building, feeding quickly on dry paper and books. The Guild headquarters was described as the home and offices of a “private research society” concerned with “historical and political philosophy,” a description Ella thought dry enough to burn all on its own.
The blaze broke out at night, the first bad sign, when society members and employees were sleeping. Outdated wiring took the blame for fire alarms failing to sound, and the age of the building was cited when the report mentioned exits had been blocked by fallen debris, trapping victims in the flames. By the time other residents of the street noticed the flames and called the fire department, the inferno already raged out of control. Officials made the decision to concentrate their efforts on saving neighboring buildings, and the Guild headquarters burned until nearly noon the next day before the blaze was brought under control and finally extinguished.
As of the time the article was written, the cause of the fire had not been determined, but authorities were “investigating.”
Kees listened to every word in silence. Ella felt a flash of surprise when she realized that even in his enormous natural form, he made hardly a sound as he paced across her wooden floor. Of course, considering how gracefully he moved at any size, she shouldn’t wonder at the quiet.
She did wonder about what he was thinking, though. His expression had turned back to stone, even if the rest of him remained awake and alive, and she couldn’t detect so much as a hint of emotion behind the carved mask of inscrutability.
When she finished reading, Ella swiveled her chair to face her companion and twisted her hands in her lap. She wanted to reach out and touch him, wanted to comfort him, but she didn’t know how. Didn’t know if he would let her. Right now, he looked as forbidding as he had the first time she saw him move in the museum gardens. This time, he didn’t frighten her, but that didn’t mean she felt confident in offering him her sympathy.
She couldn’t keep silent, though.
She stayed in her chair, but her eyes followed him across the room.
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured, wishing she could find other words. Better words. “For your friends. For you.”
His stride caught, hesitated, just a bit, just for a second, but he didn’t turn to look at her. “The fire was not an accident, no matter what their authorities chose to reveal. Wardens can create fire, and they can extinguish fire. Such a thing as an uncontrollable blaze could never have occurred unless there was Dark magic deliberately fanning the flames.”
Ella started, realization jolting through her. “You think the nocturnis caused the fire. You think they tried to wipe out the entire Guild?”
Finally he looked at her. Gone were the black eyes and pinprick flames she had grown accustomed to. In their place, the very fires of hell seemed to burn. Not even the fire at the Guild could have burned so hotly and so bright.
“I think that twenty-four Wardens are dead in three years,” he snarled, fangs bared fully and fiercely. “I think such a thing has never occurred in all the ages that I have known. I think that such a thing feels to me like an act of war against those who oppose the Darkness. Do you think differently?”
“No. I—I—I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think I know enough to know.” She wished idly for a jolt of caffeine. Or maybe liquor. Something that would clear the confusion buzzing through it. A short pause let her try again. “I think it’s really weird that we went to find our Warden, and he turned out to be dead without you getting a replacement like you expected. And I think it’s even weirder that the people who were supposed to provide that replacement wound up dead, too. But I also think that the things you guys go up against, the things that killed Gregory and burned down the Guild house? Those things scare the crap out of me. And the thing they want to do? That scares me even more.”
When Kees opened his mouth to roar at her, she held up a hand and pushed herself to her feet.
“I think there’s something really big
going on here,” she continued, “bigger than just you and me. You’re one Guardian, and I’m one human being. Whether or not I have the potential to be something more someday, I’m not even a Warden, and I so do not feel capable of rushing out of here and taking on an entire Order of magic-wielding sociopaths and their demon overlords. I don’t have that kind of courage. Or that kind of stupidity.”
She saw some new kind of emotion flash behind Kees’s blazing eyes, but it was gone too fast for her to read. All she could do was read his expression, which at the moment was bad enough. He looked like he wanted to simultaneously howl at the moon, bench-press Mount Waddington, and rip the heads and limbs off every last living member of the Order of Eternal Darkness. And then he could really start to vent.
Her reptilian hindbrain had its suitcases in hand and was screaming at her that South America was really nice this time of year, but Ella didn’t move. Whether that was because her legs were frozen in fear, or she knew Kees wouldn’t hurt her was not a question she wanted to bet on right now.
She gathered her courage and reached out to lay a hand on his arm. She could almost feel the rage seething beneath his skin like flows of lava. Somehow, just touching all that anger and contained power filled her with strength and she felt her spine straighten.
“I think that if this is an act of war, you’re going to need an army to take into battle,” she said, marveling at the strength of her own voice. When had she become some kind of warrior woman?
“The Guild has been destroyed, human,” he sneered. “What army would you have me gather?”
“The building was destroyed, and we know that Gregory is dead,” Ella agreed, “but does that mean the Guild itself was wiped out? An organization that’s been around, according to you, since practically the dawn of time? I’m pretty certain any group like that is going to be made up of more than twenty-four humans. There have to be survivors out there. Not to mention the other Guardians. If you’re still around, shouldn’t they be, too? If you’re this anxious to kick demonic ass, imagine how your friends are going to feel.”
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