Oh, how he wanted a taste.
Swallowing against the sudden watering of his mouth, he glanced back at the road visible through the windshield of the taxi and frowned. Was he imagining things, or did the road they had just turned onto appear to run in the opposite direction of the small town whose lights he had spotted a few minutes ago?
He shifted his glance to the driver’s profile and scowled. “Où allez-vous?” He demanded to know where they were going.
The driver glanced in the rearview mirror. “Calmez-vous, Gardien. Vous ne voudriez pas faire peur à la jolie fille.”
Relax and don’t scare the girl?
Baen stiffened. In the dim light of the dashboard, he could suddenly see that the eyes that stared back at him in the reflective glass no longer appeared soft and brown but now blazed with a dark and sickly red glow.
Shit. How had the Darkness found them again? Especially so soon and when they hadn’t even known their own travel arrangements until a few hours ago?
Now was not the time to stop and ask questions, though. Now was the time for action.
Without warning, Baen jackknifed in his seat, one arm reaching back to seize Ivy around the waist, the other reaching out to wrench at the handle to open the car door. A snapping sound registered in his ear a split second before his fingers jerked at the little metal grip. The small lever snapped off in his hand, and the locked door didn’t budge. The driver laughed darkly and punched the gas pedal, sending the car into a fast, forceful acceleration that had Ivy looking around frantically, her eyes wide and startled.
“What’s going on?” she cried out, her fingers curling around Baen’s arm as he gripped her waist.
“Hold on,” he ordered, not bothering with explanations. Those could come later. Right now he needed to move. Quickly.
Pivoting on his seat, Baen pulled up his knees, then slammed both feet hard against the locked car door on the side opposite the hinge. Even in his human form, he still possessed near Guardian-level strength and the lock gave way with a shriek of protesting metal. The door swung wide, so wide that it snapped the hinges as well, and crashed backward to leave a giant dent in the front passenger door before falling away to clatter on the pavement behind the speeding car. The possessed driver shouted a foul oath, jerking the steering wheel hard so that the force of gravity tossed Ivy and Baen to the opposite side of the rear seat, away from their escape route.
It would take more than that to stop a determined Guardian. Securing his grip on Ivy with a firm squeeze, Baen gathered himself and launched them both through the opening left by the missing door. As soon as he felt his hips clear the vehicle, he launched his shift and got in one good beat of his wings, which allowed him just enough control of their momentum to turn their bodies and take the impact of their rough landing on himself.
To her credit, Ivy didn’t waste her breath screaming, but the force of the jolt did tear one short, sharp cry from her lips. Her fingers had dug into him the moment he set him moving, and she continued to cling while he climbed to his feet and glanced around to orient himself.
The squeal of brakes and rubber on asphalt accompanied a bright red pulse of brake lights. The car screeched to a stop and the driver’s door opened with such force that it repeated the fate of the rear door, snapped hinges and disarticulation included. It thumped to the ground even as the demonic driver raced toward Baen and Ivy across the open field where they had landed.
Baen set his female aside and met the charge with a bellow of rage. The demon’s actions could have killed the fragile human, and Baen intended to make clear the penalty for endangering Ivy’s life. It would be fast and brutal and bloody and would serve as a warning to any who came after that the woman was under his protection. To hurt her was to beg for death.
A death Baen would grant only too gladly.
The demon met him with a swipe of the claws that burst forth from the fingers of its human host. Like the creature Baen had fought off in the alley to save Ivy the previous night, this servant of the Darkness had no regard for the broken body it would leave behind; it craved only death and destruction. Baen was only too happy to deliver, but he would choose what was destroyed in this battle, not the demon.
Back in his natural form, Baen felt the power of the Light fill him. This was what he had been created to do—to fight against the Darkness hand to hand and claw to claw. To protect. To defend. To defeat.
To be honest, one minor demon offered no great challenge to him, and it made Baen suspicious. Why would the Darkness bother to reveal itself when it had only one human under its thrall? If it had located him and Ivy upon their arrival in France, wouldn’t it have proved a better strategy to simply note their whereabouts, leave them at a hotel, and then return with a greater force? Baen might be powerful and fierce, but he was only one Guardian. If faced with sufficient numbers of the enemy he could be defeated, or at least distracted long enough so that they could get to Ivy. Kill his Warden, and the Darkness would accomplish two goals with one blow—they would further weaken the Guild according to their long-term plan, and they could weaken Baen considerably by removing his support and his mate all in one deft strike.
By contrast, this clumsy attack by one possessed human mere minutes after their arrival in France had little chance of success and only served to put Baen and Ivy on their guard. What exactly did that accomplish for the enemy?
Even with these thoughts to distract him, it took Baen mere moments to dispatch the demon. He didn’t even bother to summon his bardiche, simply using his claws to tear into the vulnerable human flesh and his strength to snap the neck of the host, rendering the demon powerless. It fled its useless shell in a rusty black cloud of pollution before dispersing into the atmosphere. Baen hadn’t destroyed it, but he had sent it back to the plane of its origin, and for the moment that would have to do. At least Ivy would be safe for a time.
He turned to find her gazing at the driver’s destroyed body with a vaguely gray cast to her skin. Hurrying to her side, he tugged her close and felt her tremble against him. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Are you hurt? Did the fall from the car injure you in any way?”
She shook her head, but her gaze remained locked on the corpse. “No, I’m fine. I’m just a little … um … I’m fine,” she repeated. “I’m fine.”
Baen wondered if she was simply answering his question, or trying to convince herself of something she did not quite believe. He shifted to block her view of the fallen man and waited until she dragged her gaze up to meet his. She looked a little dazed and a lot worried, but he decided she would be fine with a little time and distance.
He urged her away from the road and the car that still idled in the center, lights pointing into the hedge that bordered the pavement. They appeared to be in a quiet area, still close enough to the airport for few humans to be likely to wander here, especially after it had closed for the night. Still, he had the feeling they should not linger. Better to get them to the nearest town, or even to Paris, where they could better blend into the crowds.
Yes, he thought. Right now, the more humans surrounding them, the harder it would be for the Order to isolate them and attack. Not that the nocturnis ever cared about avoiding collateral damage, but searching for a needle in a haystack always presented more of a challenge than searching for it on a blank sheet of paper.
Decision made, Baen scooped Ivy into his arms and cradled her tightly against him. One thrust of his powerful legs launched them into the dark sky and on toward Paris. When Ivy barely uttered a word of protest, he pressed his lips together with grim determination. If she didn’t fight him about being carried through the air, then she must be even more shaken than he had believed. Time to get her to safety. Once they were secure for the night, they would have the chance to determine what this latest attack had to tell them about the Order’s next move.
Whatever it was, he had a feeling that countering it would require more than simple brute force.
* * *
<
br /> Ivy wasn’t certain whether she fell asleep or just passed out for the duration of the short trip from Beauvais to the center of Paris. Frankly, it didn’t really matter. So long as she didn’t have to watch the hard, hard ground flashing before her eyes like a portent of her own painful death, she was fine with it.
Had Ivy mentioned that she really didn’t like unsupported heights? Or falling from them? Or, worst of all, landing after falling from them? The whole chain of events just made her twitchy.
Either way, she felt just as glad not to remember any of that journey. When she woke to the soft jolt of Baen’s landing, she opened her eyes, relieved to find herself standing on solid ground. Sort of. Judging by the top of a chimney stack a few feet away and the view overlooking a cozy neighborhood in one of Paris’s central arrondisements, Baen had once again chosen to use a rooftop as his own personal helipad. Or Guardi-pad. Whatever.
Deciding it would be pointless and disconcerting to ask him about the flight, she settled instead for, “What time is it?”
The Guardian shrugged. “Most likely two hours or so before midnight. Not late. The trip from Beauvais was not far.”
He said it with the unconcern of someone who didn’t have to worry about the consequences of being dropped from a height of a couple thousand feet. Winged bastard.
Patting her satchel to reassure herself it was still there, Ivy reached into the pocket of her jeans and pulled out her cell phone, relieved to find it present and working. “Okay, well, first thing we need is to find a place to stay. After that, we can figure out everything else. Personally, I would kill for a cup of coffee right about now, but we should be able to get that in a hotel room.” She pulled up her Internet app and started searching for accommodations.
A few seconds later, she found herself scowling and muttering at the glowing screen.
“What is the trouble?”
She shook her head and scrolled down the page. “Nothing. It’s just that I’m not finding any place to stay in this neighborhood that has more than one room available. Apparently this is a really residential section, so it’s all little B and Bs or rooming houses, no major hotels. Damn it.”
“We do not require a second room.”
“Excuse me?” Ivy looked up and shot him a level glance. “I do not sleep with men I’ve only known for twenty-four hours.”
He didn’t even bother to hide his dismissive expression. “I have recently woken from a sleep that lasted more than three hundred years. I will not require rest for some time. You may sleep undisturbed.”
She eyed him suspiciously, the voice in her head grumbling. Those were pretty big words for a man who’d kissed the snot out of her a few hours ago. Had he suddenly lost interest in her? Was it from carrying her pudgy ass all the way from Beauvais?
Oh, get a grip! she scolded herself. There she went again, talking crazy to herself. She was not here to try to catch the Guardian’s interest, so it didn’t matter if he thought she was fat or thin or the next best thing to sex on two legs. They had a purely professional relationship and nothing else.
Except for when he tried to devour her whole, like a bowl of ice cream on a hot summer day. That hadn’t felt too professional. It had felt delicious.
Down, girl. She tried to wrestle her libido into submission and scoured the listings on her phone to at least find a room that offered two beds. A girl could never be too careful, after all.
She skimmed through the listings, checked the reviews, then shrugged and clicked the button to book the room. After all, they would only be there for a few hours; it didn’t need to be the George V. It just needed a door, a lock, and a bathroom.
And two separate beds. Everything else was window dressing.
“Okay.” She checked the map on her phone, oriented herself, then shoved her phone back in her pocket. “Five blocks that way. Any ideas on how we get down from here?”
That turned out to be easy. Baen had chosen his landing spot carefully, locating a building of no more than four stories with an exterior fire stair extending up to the top floor. With a little help from him, Ivy found herself lowered to the top landing and quickly led the way down the metal structure to the street.
She didn’t even pause at the bottom, wanting to put space between them and the building. Baen might have the ability to move as silently as a shadow even once he shifted to a human appearance, but her mortal feet had clanged hard against a couple of those steps. If any of the building’s residents panicked and called the police to report prowlers, she didn’t want to find herself in the nearest police station, or trying to explain to the local gendarmes what she had been doing at that address.
She kept an eye out during the short walk to the small B and B, but within twenty minutes, they had been welcomed by a beautifully apathetic manager and shown to a small room under the eaves of a seventeenth-century town house on a quiet side street. The moment the door closed behind their host, Ivy plopped herself onto the end of the closest of the twin beds and let out a groan of exhaustion. Apparently, even the last eight months of work as an operator on the Wardens’ Underground Railroad hadn’t been enough to prepare her for the previous twenty-four hours.
But then again, she wasn’t sure anything could have.
While she sat and tried to get her bearings, Baen prowled around the small space, poking into everything, then pushed aside the lacy curtains to peer out the multipaned window. He said nothing, so Ivy finally gave him a verbal poke.
“Any sign of the boogeyman?”
He grunted, a sound she took to mean that he heard and understood her sarcasm but refused to respond to it. Instead, he merely said, “We should be safe enough here for a few hours. I will keep watch while you rest.”
Ivy frowned. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
“We have been attacked three times in the space of a single day.” He let the curtain fall and focused his hard gaze back on her. “I find it difficult to ascribe such events to random bad luck.”
The man—er, Guardian—had a point.
To be honest, Ivy had been trying hard not to think about that. The chaos of the attacks themselves, combined with the appearance of Ash and Drum and all the other things that seemed to have happened in rapid-fire succession, had made it easy to simply react and set thinking aside for another time. It looked like that time had finally arrived.
“Yeah, I guess that is kind of weird,” she acknowledged. “The first time was easy to explain, and I guess since Martin turned out to be on the Dark Side, that one can go down to him, but this last one? The cabdriver? That one caught me off guard.”
“Why do you believe the first attack is so easily explained?”
The question took Ivy by surprise. “Well, that’s something I’m always aware is a possibility when I’m transporting a Warden out of England. We all know the Order is after them, so we need to stay on our toes and be prepared for an attack at any time. I mean, clearly they don’t want us getting the Wardens to safety. That completely blows their plans.”
She paused as a thought occurred to her.
“Which, if you think about it, actually points to Asile not being one of them. Why try to stop Wardens from reaching him if he was just going to let the Order kill them anyway?”
“Any number of reasons. To maintain a certain appearance of uninvolvement? To prevent closer scrutiny? As a kind of perverse game? I can conceive of many possible explanations.”
“Wow, that makes me feel better.”
This time, he ignored her sarcasm. “In any event, I am not certain that I agree the first of the attacks can be so easily explained. Did you not keep your identity and your purpose a secret? And did you not take precautions against being discovered or followed during your movements?”
“Of course I did.”
“Well, then? How did the demons find you?”
Ivy’s mind raced. She didn’t like the implications of his questions. “Maybe that’s down to Martin, too. After all, we think
now that he’s been working for the nocturnis all along.”
Baen lifted one shoulder. “This may be true.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“I do not. Martin’s involvement with the Order still does not explain the third attack, and nothing explains the persistence of so many attacks in such a short amount of time.”
“So what’s your theory, then?”
He fixed her with his gaze and she watched as his eyes went from dark and human to black and burning and something else entirely. “It has occurred to me that the only element common to all three incidents is you, Ivy Beckett.”
The statement sent her reeling. Threw her for a loop. Knocked her upside the head. Did all sorts of metaphorical things that all amounted to shocking and scaring the shit out of her. What the hell was he trying to say?
“Are you trying to tell me you think that I’m working with the Order, too?” she demanded, outrage propelling her to her feet.
Baen’s startled expression told her he had never intended for her to draw that conclusion from his statements. “Of course not.” He dropped his arms from their position folded over his chest and his stance noticeably softened. “No, Ivy. I know that you would never aid the Darkness. I did not mean for you to think I even suspected such a thing. I do not.”
“Well, then?”
He stepped forward to grasp her gently by the arms, his huge hands careful of their strength. “I am not wary of you, little human. I am wary for you.”
“What do you mean?”
He hesitated, his palms absently stroking back and forth across her upper arms until she felt gooseflesh rise on her skin. Even that simple, comforting contact made her tingle. She couldn’t explain her reactions to the enormous supernatural protector, but she was beginning to be able to predict them. He was quickly becoming her own personal kryptonite.
“I have come to suspect that the nocturnis are watching you, little one,” he finally told her, his tone making his reluctance to do so obvious. “I believe they have been for some time, and I believe they perceive you as a threat that must be … dealt with.”
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