by Page Morgan
“Ingrid—”
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
She hadn’t expected him to kiss her. And she hadn’t expected to have to remember how good kissing him felt.
“Because of Luc,” he said.
She dropped her hand and dared to meet Vander’s eyes. He narrowed them at her. “What has he done?”
Ingrid hesitated. “Nothing.”
Vander raised his voice and came toward her. “Do you know how much danger he’s put you in if the other Dispossessed find out?”
“I’m already in danger,” she said, though she immediately knew it was a poor retort. It only made Vander more furious.
“That’s right, Ingrid. Gargoyles are already hungry to destroy you, and now Luc would give them one more reason.”
It was tempting to be a coward and allow Vander to heap all his anger on Luc. She couldn’t do it, though. She was British. Cowardice simply wasn’t acceptable.
“You’re acting as if I didn’t have a say in any of this. I did, Vander. I do.”
He shook his head and, since there was not enough room to pace, turned in a tight circle. “He’s manipulating you. Making you confuse gratitude with affection. I can guarantee you wouldn’t feel anything for him if he hadn’t saved your life so many times, or been bound to you the way he was.”
Did Vander truly think her so susceptible? Or shallow? Ingrid stopped shrinking from him and stood her ground.
“They are my feelings, Vander Burke, not yours to pick apart and evaluate. And if you believe Luc would manipulate me, then you don’t know him at all.”
Vander took two strides across the room and stood directly before her, using every inch of his height to bear down on her.
“You’re right, I don’t know him. I know you, though, and I know what we have is real.” He took her hand in his and pressed it against his chest. “I know you feel the same things I do when we kiss. When we touch. And it’s not just our dust. It goes deeper than that.”
He’d inclined his head as he’d been speaking, his voice growing fainter though his lips had come closer. Ingrid didn’t know what to do. She did feel something when they kissed. She did like it. But she didn’t long for Vander’s kisses when they were apart the same way she did Luc’s. She longed for Vander’s company. His friendship. The comfort that came from being with him.
Ingrid wrenched her hand from his and stepped away. She couldn’t bear to look at him. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. But she had to.
“Vander …,” she said, her next words still undecided.
They remained that way. For right then, the floor gave a violent shake. Or perhaps her legs had curiously lost their strength. Either way, Ingrid tumbled forward. The lights started to wink, and a voice rose from somewhere within the apartment building. The voice was getting louder, and even as blackness swirled thick and stole away Ingrid’s sight, the words became distinguishable: “Come, my seedlings. It is time.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Grayson had hailed a hackney as soon as he’d left Vander’s flat. Just past the Arc de Triomphe, however, he’d pounded on the roof and asked to be let out. The air was crisp, there wasn’t a single cloud over Paris, and he wanted to keep his body moving instead of cooped up in the back of a stale cab.
The coil of tension along his shoulders and spine had returned that morning after two days of being absent, along with a riptide beneath his skin, swirling and sucking at him. His nose had become more sensitive as well. His mother had crossed the street to his new flat to see if he’d like to join them for breakfast, and he’d traced the barest scent of her blood as she’d knocked at his door. He’d accepted, though reluctantly, and he hadn’t had much more than a croissant and coffee before excusing himself. Being inside the rectory when the mersian blood wore off completely would not have been wise.
Grayson crossed the Pont des Invalides with his hands deep in his pockets, the collar of his coat up to block the wind. The elevated body temperature was the only thing he missed about having hellhound blood.
There was a minor problem in all of this: he would be dependent upon Vander Burke from here on out. He didn’t like it, but he’d manage it, if it meant keeping his demon side at bay. And who knew, perhaps the old boy would be Grayson’s brother-in-law soon. He and his sisters had a weakness for the Alliance, it seemed.
But he didn’t want to think about Chelle just then, or about the night before on Yann’s bridge. He’d done everything wrong. The only things he consistently felt with regard to Chelle were admiration and frustration.
A woman’s scream made him look up. Ahead, a Bohemian-looking man tugged on the sleeve of his companion before breaking into a sprint toward the Right Bank. The other man followed, his long, artfully patched and frayed coattails rippling in the wind. Grayson searched for the woman who had screamed, his rational mind suggesting that those two men had done some nefarious thing to her. He pivoted to look behind him and saw two more people—a woman and a man—also running, these two toward the Left Bank. No one ran in Paris. They walked gracefully and slowly, carrying themselves as if time revolved around their needs, able to stretch or stop if required.
Grayson continued toward the Right Bank, his senses alert. He wasn’t sure what made him go to the bridge’s stone barrier and peer down. Instinct, perhaps. When he saw the giant, shaggy, black-furred hellhound stalking along the quay in broad daylight, he didn’t startle. The demon wasn’t the creature that caused his breath to turn to syrup in his throat.
It was the smaller furred creature behind it, the one wearing the remains of a purple skirt and white shirtwaist. A Duster. A hellhound Duster, transformed. And the fur around its maw was plastered with blood.
“Christ,” Grayson whispered as another scream broke from the direction of the Right Bank.
He followed the sound. A second scream joined in, then a third, and then a chorus sounded from the head of the bridge. When he reached the street, people were tumbling through the doors of a corner café. A man surged through, knocking over a coal-filled brazier. His hoarse cries drowned out the others, and for good reason—a demon serpent had its fangs jammed deep into his ankle, its pale yellow body trailing behind in the spill of sparking coals. The man kicked his leg and fell, and he disappeared underneath another surge of screaming patrons.
Grayson rushed forward, reaching for the sword he’d had at his waist the night before. His fingers slid along his hip, grasping fabric and air. He’d left it at the rectory. Time seemed to slow for the next few seconds under the roar of panic. He forced his eyes shut and exhaled. Focus. He wasn’t Alliance, but unlike the people scattering frantically in every direction, he knew how to fight demons.
He was closer to Hôtel Bastian than he was to home. He had to tell the others—had to tell Chelle. And he had to arm himself.
Time kicked back into motion, and with it came the piercing screams of women, the wild bleating of horses, and the grating wails of a baby from some open balcony door above him. Grayson ran as if his legs were a gargoyle’s wings, carrying him with effortless speed and power. He swerved into the road to avoid an awning that had collapsed over an outdoor market, and then jumped over the ravaged carcass of a poodle, its jewel-encrusted leash still attached. Windmilling his arms, he came to a halt as a carriage teetered onto two wheels just ahead of him. The horse was bucking and braying as something that looked like a gigantic fly straddled its neck, tearing the flesh to bloody ribbons. The fly was wearing trousers.
It was the Harvest. It had to be.
Grayson bounded out of the way of the crazed horse and started to run again. The Dusters had to be under Axia’s control, or perhaps demon control. He didn’t know. He just knew that he hadn’t been affected. Because of Vander’s blood?
Grayson flung himself to the pavement as a black bird sheared through the sky toward him. Corvite. It growled when it cut through the air overhead, missing its target by inches. Grayson ignored the
flare of pain on his skinned palms and scrambled up, craning his neck to see where the demon bird had flown.
It had spun around, its wingspan easily the length of his own arms outstretched, and was making a dive for him yet again. Grayson’s legs hit a metal trash can and he bowled over it, striking the ground and working more grit into the raw skin on his palms. The lid of the trash can spun on the pavement beside him. Grayson grabbed the lid and swung it through the air, connecting with the corvite. The bird thumped to the ground in a shower of black feathers. It was only stunned, so Grayson found his feet and darted away.
If he’d had his hellhound blood, he wouldn’t have needed to run to Hôtel Bastian for a blessed silver blade. Then again, if he’d had his hellhound blood, would he even be thinking for himself? Or would he be like that Duster on the quay and the bloodsucking fly feasting on the horse?
Grayson hooked around a corner, onto a street that appeared calm and demon-free. He skidded to a halt and thought of Ingrid. What had happened to his sister?
From where Grayson stood, Vander’s apartment was farther away than Hôtel Bastian. He had to get to Chelle and the others. If Ingrid had succumbed to whatever spell Axia had laid down over her seedlings, at least she would be the predator and not the prey. And what of Vander? If his mersian blood was keeping Grayson immune, would he be immune as well? There were too many questions. He’d have to find answers for them later.
Grayson began to jog down the side street. Up ahead, a woman ran from one side of the street to the other, a child in her arms. They disappeared into a building, and the slam of a door followed. It was the only sign that the chaos had traveled this far. No street would be spared if demons and Dusters were out together.
Grayson broke into a run, his mind laying out the streets, charting a course to rue de Sèvres. At this pace, he’d be there in ten minutes.
Ahead, the road bent into the narrow warren of medieval streets that hadn’t been razed and widened, the way the boulevards Saint-Germain and Saint-Michel had been decades before. These roads had been ignored and left to accommodate local foot traffic and perhaps a horse or two astride.
Grayson rounded the corner, where a small bistro, currently empty, had set out tables and chairs. He ground to a stop so quickly his heels kept slipping forward, his body falling sideways. He caught himself on a chair, propelling himself back up and into a wolf’s direct line of sight. Not a meaty, greasy-furred hellhound, but a lean, lanky wolf. The only thing that set it apart from the wolves Grayson had seen before were its pitch-black eyes—no iris, no white, just fathomless black—and a maw filled with fangs that sawed back and forth in its bloody gums.
Grayson’s stomach churned. Rose-tinted saliva dripped from the demon’s mouth, and clumps of long, blond human hair were caught in its teeth. The demon wolf snarled, its black eyes fixed on Grayson. He gripped the lacy iron back of the bistro chair and held it before him as he might a shield. The wolf surged forward, and its teeth crushed one of the curled chair legs as if it were made of papier-mâché. The wolf jerked its head and tore the chair from Grayson’s clenched fingers.
He slammed into one of the tables and swiped up a glass ashtray to defend himself with. As if it would to do more than give the wolf something to pick its teeth with. The demon wolf lunged for Grayson—and then combusted into green sparks.
Grayson stared at two, six-pointed silver throwing stars clattering to the ground at his feet. And then Chelle was in front of him where the demon wolf had been, retrieving her hira-shuriken and stowing them back in her red sash.
She stared at Grayson with marked disbelief. “You are you.”
“Chelle,” he said dumbly, releasing his death grip on the ashtray and taking hold of her arms instead. They were thin and muscular beneath the billowy white sleeves of her shirt, and they also threw him off fast.
“The Dusters,” she said harshly, avoiding his eyes. “They’re attacking humans with the demons. Why haven’t you changed?”
A grating shriek thundered overhead. A jade-winged gargoyle hurtled over the rooftops and collided with another winged creature, this one a skeletal horse with a forked tail and featherless wings. Fire streamed from its snout.
“It’s difficult to explain,” Grayson said. There wasn’t time to tell her about the mersian blood or Vander’s experiments. The sight of the gargoyle’s talons punching through the wings of the demon gave him hope. Wherever she was, Ingrid had Marco to protect her.
“Come on,” Chelle said, and she started in the direction Grayson had been heading, into the labyrinth of medieval streets. He followed, his heart thrashing.
“I was in the Tuileries when I saw a hellhound leading two Dusters on a rampage,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “We’ll go to Hôtel Bastian. The Roman troops might already be—”
Chelle was cut off by a woman jumping through the smashed display window of a boulangerie. The woman landed on the sidewalk in front of Chelle. Grayson reached out to pull Chelle back, but again she wrested her arm free. She spared him a glance of irritation—and that was when the long, razor-edged tail protruding from underneath the woman’s dress swiped through the air and sawed into Chelle’s thigh.
She screamed and her knees buckled. Grayson dove forward, catching her before she could hit the sidewalk. He moved quickly, pulling a hira-shuriken from her red sash. He sliced his palm before whirling the star toward the female Duster. The star missed, and the Duster sprinted away.
Chelle clawed at her thigh and gasped for air, her face contorted in agony.
“Let me see it.” Grayson peeled her hand back, but the wound wasn’t gushing blood. It wasn’t even that deep. Nothing someone as fierce as Chelle would lose every last ounce of coloring over.
Her lips pressed together and her eyes fluttered shut. “P-poison.”
Grayson swore. That thing had been a Duster, not a demon, and yet it had still injected poison?
“Tell me what to do.” He took her head in his hands to keep her from rolling it side to side, and made her look into his eyes. “Chelle, what do I do?”
Her hand clutched at her trouser pocket and Grayson rifled through it, his fingers closing around a glass vial the size of his pinky finger. Mercurite. He uncorked the vial with his teeth and spat it out. The viscous silver liquid ran like honey over Chelle’s blood-smeared wound. It beaded into wide globules and seeped into the torn flesh. Chelle grunted and tensed, her back arching off Grayson’s thighs. But a few moments later she was still squirming and panting in agony.
“Not … working,” she gasped.
He chucked the vial, shattering the glass on the ground. The few drops of remaining mercurite balled together on the pavement, creating a miniature silver dome. Mercurite was supposed to destroy all demon poison.
But a demon hadn’t attacked Chelle.
“It’s Duster poison,” Grayson said, staring at her wound. “We have poison, too.”
Why hadn’t he thought of that before? They were half demon—why wouldn’t they have poison?
Chelle began to seize. Grayson stood up, cradling her against his chest and pinning her arms and shoulders. The only other thing that cured demon poison was gargoyle blood. He had no idea if it would prove as useless as the mercurite had, but there was nothing else he could think of. The only gargoyle he could approach—the only gargoyle he trusted—was Luc.
“You’re going to be fine,” he whispered as he started to run, Chelle’s body shivering and twitching.
Her voice came through as a whine. “Common … grounds.”
Good. Even locked in anguish, Chelle was present enough to know his plan. For once, Grayson didn’t feel inadequate. He’d take care of her. He’d make her safe. And then he’d let himself think about Ingrid.
She smelled the acrid bite of smoke. Heard the muffled blare of screams. Ingrid woke with her face cheek-down on something soft. Grass. The Champs de Mars. The two thoughts were so clear that when Ingrid opened her eyes she expected to see the exhibi
tion buildings surrounding her. Instead, she saw the curved brass legs of an upholstered theater seat. She wasn’t lying on grass, either, but on a floor of red velvet carpet.
She tried to push herself up, collapsing twice before succeeding. Her arms were stiff, and her hands stung with the fiercest case of pins and needles she’d ever had. As she struggled to sit back upon her knees, her head spinning like a dervish, Ingrid saw she was most definitely not on the Champs de Mars. Why had she thought such a thing? She wasn’t in Vander’s room, either. She had found consciousness on the carpeted floor of a theater balcony box. How on earth had she gotten here?
She wobbled to her feet, clutching the edge of one burgundy upholstered seat with her numb hand, and looked out over the theater in horror. It wasn’t just any theater, but l’Opéra Garnier, and below, flames had consumed the stage.
An echoing crack ripped through the theater, and Ingrid shrieked as the stage collapsed in a ball of fire. More screams sounded from the other side of the balcony box door, and suddenly Ingrid was back in her friend Anna Bettinger’s ballroom, the curtains going up in flames, guests tripping over one another to flee the fire that Ingrid had accidentally set.
She held up her numbed hands before her. Her gloves. They were gone.
Had she done this?
She coughed as the box filled with smoke. She staggered toward the door and pushed it open, only to be met with another gray wall of smoke. Ingrid fell to her hands and knees. The air was easier to breathe near the floor, though barely. She coughed and choked and crawled, not knowing where she was going.
She remembered being in Vander’s flat, and the darkness that had overcome her. The voice tunneling into her head: Come, my seedlings. It had been Axia.
She had come for the Dusters. She was here. This was her bedlam.
Ingrid crawled toward the sounds of screaming, the blare of whistles and bells. The smoke seemed to lift a little, and she saw that she’d crawled into an enormous room. Light streamed through the billows of smoke. There were windows ahead. A whole wall of them. Her eyes stung and her vision blurred, but she still spotted a door on the far right-hand side of the ballroom. Hope that it might lead to a terrace drove her to her feet. She hurried to the door and clutched the handle but had to sink back down to the floor to drag in a breath.