by Page Morgan
She was watching his legs and his dirt-smeared tall boots rather than looking him in the eye. He scuffed his feet closer to hers.
“And hell, lass, whoever said you had to be useful to be necessary?” He traced her jaw and, hooking his finger under her chin, guided her gaze up to meet his. “You’re necessary to me, Gabby.”
For some reason, those words left her more breathless than when he’d told her he loved her.
“Maybe I worry about you more than the others,” he conceded.
“I worry about you, too,” she said. “If they take you to Rome and put you in that … that reformatory or whatever it is they call it … Nolan, what will we do?”
He held both of her cheeks now, his thumb passing over her scars as if they were not even there. Even she had forgotten about them until then.
“Don’t worry about that yet,” he said. “I’m not. We still have the end of human civilization to focus on. And then next in line is keeping that angel blood out of Hathaway’s hands.”
His attempt at humor to lighten the moment didn’t hit its mark. Gabby shook her head, dislodging his hands.
“I don’t know if I want to be Alliance, not if it’s led by people who would order assassinations, or force gargoyles into submission, or use angel blood to make themselves powerful.”
Other than Nolan, Vander, Rory, and Chelle, she didn’t trust the Alliance at all. She held more trust for Hugh Dupuis and his gargoyle, Carver, than she did for the Directorate.
“I know. They’re not what I thought, either,” Nolan admitted. “But the Alliance isn’t broken, Gabby, not yet. We can make it better. Together.”
She didn’t know what to say. Being together with Nolan sounded wonderful, though it was dampened by the idea of the Directorate being a kind of horrible extended family they would need to invite to holiday dinners.
Nolan stood so close she could feel the rise of his chest when he breathed.
“We haven’t been alone since your bedroom in London,” he said, bringing forward a rush of blush-inducing memories and images. He smiled when she squirmed against the table.
“We aren’t alone at all. There are at least twenty dangerous men across the hall, not to mention my mother and sister and a trio of very protective gargoyles.”
“Don’t try to dissuade me from kissing you, Lady Gabriella Waverly.”
“Fine. I give up.”
“It’s your resolve that really won me over, you know,” Nolan said, shushing her ready reply with the hard press of his mouth.
The fact that they were in Constantine’s dining room and could, at any moment, be interrupted by any one of a host of intimidating people—Mama topped the list, of course—did not stop Gabby from turning to hot liquid underneath Nolan’s lips and hands. She thought of the last bleak month in London and pulled herself closer, clinging tighter to his shoulders.
He lifted her feet from the thick carpet and set her down atop the polished oak table. Nolan rubbed his open palms down Gabby’s corseted waist and then along the round flare of her thighs.
He groaned and shifted his mouth to the curve of her neck. “You make it difficult to be a gentleman.”
Gabby threaded her fingers through his hair as she’d longed to do earlier. “I thought you enjoyed challenges.”
He laughed, his hot breath waving out over her skin.
At that unfortunate moment, the door to the dining room clicked open. Gabby froze and Nolan turned his face out of her neck, but he didn’t release her from her tabletop seat.
Rory took in the scene he’d interrupted with a brief twitch of his brow, as if he was an expert in such displays.
“Your timing is horrible, cousin,” Nolan said as Gabby wriggled off the table and smoothed her skirts.
“At least I’m not her mother,” Rory replied. “Ye should come back to the library. Quick.”
Nolan started forward, reaching for his broadsword. “Demons?”
Rory shook his head. “Angels.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The perfection of the library floor reflected Luc’s face with disconcerting mirrorlike quality. He closed his eyes, loath to see himself in the humiliating bow Irindi’s sudden presence had thrown him into. Marco and Gaston had also crashed forward when her burning light had daggered through the room. Lady Brickton had screamed in alarm, and a confused murmur had gone up among the rest of the humans as the three gargoyles had grunted and fallen. The humans couldn’t see or feel the angel’s presence, though the fire in the hearth had guttered and no doubt they each felt an unexplainable density in the room, like a storm about to break near the top shelves of Constantine’s library.
“What’s happening? Luc?” he heard Ingrid say.
“Stay back,” Vander cut in. “They only bow before an angel of the Order.”
Smart bastard.
Irindi’s hollow voice bellowed. “Why have you summoned me, Luc Rousseau?”
He took a moment to understand. He’d tried to summon her the day before, when he and Ingrid had still been hiding out at Hôtel Dugray. She was showing up now? Here? In front of all these humans? Not for the first time, Luc questioned whether the Order understood or adhered to any sort of plane of time at all.
“We need your help.” Luc spoke into the floor. “The fallen angel, Axia, is leading demons of the Underneath against the humans and possessing the minds of demon-blooded humans—”
“We are aware of our fallen sister’s actions,” Irindi intoned. Luc waited for her to continue, to assure him that they were going to stop her.
No such assurances came.
Luc turned his cheek as far as it would go, attempting to see the silvery contours of her glow. “You are the only ones powerful enough to stop her.”
He felt a nudge against his head and found himself staring into his reflection once more.
“We cannot interfere with human dealings. It is not God’s way,” she said, compassionless and cold. No wonder her presence sucked the heat straight out of the fire in the grate. “The paths humans take are their own to traverse.”
Marco spoke from Luc’s immediate left. “If that is the case, what the hell are we doing here?”
She ignored him. “This Eden has been slowly crumbling since mankind discovered the ability to sin. Every new plague feels as if it is the end of the world. It is not. Humans adapt. Let this plague pass and allow God’s children to evolve.”
Luc gritted his teeth. “Allow countless humans to die? Be enslaved? Made into demons?” He pushed against the solid block of light and heat pushing him toward the floor. “How are we to protect them?”
A hushed murmur swept through those behind Luc. The humans only heard one side of the conversation, but Luc was certain they were easily inferring the rest.
Until Irindi’s reply came. No one, least of all Luc, could have expected it.
“It is not your duty any longer to protect, Luc Rousseau. You have atoned for your sin.”
He stared at his reflection, unable to speak. Unable to think. Luc peered out the corner of his eye toward Marco, who had turned his face toward him. Gaston, on his right, was also looking his way, limited as their movements were.
“I … I don’t understand,” Luc said.
“You, by your own free will, chose to save the life of one of God’s devoted servants, a human who was not under your divine protection. A human for whom you feel nothing but the shameful sin of envy.”
Luc blinked at his reflection and swallowed his confusion, trying to comprehend what she was saying.
“And yet, you chose to protect this man from harm,” Irindi continued. “It was a decision born of the one thing God holds most dear: forgiveness.”
Luc still couldn’t make sense of it. Whom had he saved? Whom had he forgiven?
“Luc Rousseau, you have earned our Lord God’s forgiveness. Stand,” Irindi commanded.
Stand. He couldn’t stand. What was she talking about?
He heard Lady Brickton’s
voice from somewhere behind all the noise in his head. “What is going on? Why have they gone quiet?” Then Gabby’s voice saying, “Shhh, Mama.”
Luc sucked in a breath as the invisible block pressing between his shoulders and locking him into a reverent bow slowly lifted. Stone by stone, the weight lightened, and Luc’s knees began to straighten. He kept his eyes on the floor, his chin tucked into his neck, even when his back became a long, straight line again. He was standing. Luc was standing in an angel’s presence and yet he couldn’t look at her. Wouldn’t look at her. He wasn’t ready.
There were many sounds coming from behind him—gasps, mutters, questions—but it was Marco’s and Gaston’s stooped figures Luc could not ignore. They were still bowing. They had not been forgiven. He had. Luc raised his eyes and nearly crashed back down onto his knees.
She was beautiful.
Luc didn’t know how, but Irindi had changed. Her entire presence had shifted. Her light, something that had always been harsh and blinding, had become a soft, golden embrace. The once-searing heat that accompanied that light, a reminder of the punishing burns Irindi had lashed him with, now felt like a warm bath.
Luc stared, transfixed, at the flickering silver glow of Irindi’s form. She was like the center of a flame, trembling and impossible to touch. He held out his hand to try anyway.
“Luc?” Ingrid’s strangled voice pierced him. He dropped his hand.
Looking around, he saw that he’d taken at least five or more strides away from Marco and Gaston. He didn’t recall moving.
“Luc, what’s happening?” Ingrid asked, her voice cleaving through what remained of his trancelike state.
“Come.” Irindi beckoned.
Luc took a step back. “I can’t.”
He couldn’t leave. Not now. Not when Ingrid needed him most. He couldn’t leave her ever.
“Don’t be a fool,” Marco grunted where he remained prone.
“I’m not,” Luc said, his mind clearing as Irindi’s summoning warmth began to cool.
He couldn’t leave Ingrid. He couldn’t leave the Dispossessed, not when Axia and her demons were sharpening their teeth on the human world. The gargoyles had chosen him to lead. He was elder.
“You wish to remain cursed?” Irindi asked. She hadn’t needed to. She knew every thought streaming through Luc’s mind. Every emotion.
Remain cursed, or finally, after centuries of denial, be allowed entry into God’s kingdom. A place he had once dreamed of constantly, wondering what it looked like and who might be there. His parents? His sister, Suzette? And then he’d met Ingrid and he hadn’t given God’s kingdom another envious thought.
“I do,” Luc answered.
He felt the cold clench of his stomach and the sensation of falling as Irindi’s glow sputtered.
“Very well,” she said, and then her light flickered out completely.
Ingrid watched, unblinking, as Luc spoke to the angel that no one else—at least no one else standing—could see. The air was humid and thick within the library, and a sudden wind outdoors had started gusting against the tall, mullioned windows. Ingrid’s skirts hung like wet canvas around her legs. She’d noticed the fire’s flames shorten to cautious licks as well. Was this what it felt like to be in the presence of something holy?
Ingrid didn’t like it.
Nor did she like it when Marco and Gaston both leaped to their feet, each of them immediately rounding on Luc.
“What were you thinking?” Marco snarled.
Luc remained composed, though he swiftly glanced Ingrid’s way. Marco followed the direction of Luc’s gaze and laughed. The sound was harsh and mocking, and without his having to say a word, Ingrid knew Marco believed Luc had made a horrible mistake.
“I am all curiosity,” Gabby’s Daicrypta friend, Hugh, said from where he stood at the empty birdcage. That he was Robert Dupuis’s son had stunned and frightened Ingrid at first, but now that she’d met him, she understood why her sister had placed her trust in the man.
“Has the angel gone, then?” Mama asked from her spot on the sofa. Poor Mama. Angels and demons and gargoyles, all on the same day.
Gaston crossed a meaningful glance with his human before nodding. Constantine patted Mama’s hand, while his valet and protector returned to glaring at Luc.
“I don’t know what to say, so I’ll say nothing,” Gaston murmured, and promptly left the library.
Ingrid stared at Luc and Marco in turn and thought she might scream. “Will one of you please tell us all what has happened?”
Marco’s false grin fell away. He followed Gaston out of the library without bothering to meet Ingrid’s pointed stare.
“Irindi can’t help us,” Luc finally said, his words clipped by some emotion Ingrid had trouble reading. Anger? Sadness?
There had been more to the angel’s visit. Everyone in the library knew as much.
“Won’t be attending Sunday services after this,” the husky London Alliance leader, Benjamin, said before gesturing to the woman dressed as a man. Nadia was her name, and she and Benjamin slipped off to seclude themselves near a row of encyclopedias.
Only one red-capped Roman and one Parisian member had been ordered to remain at Clos du Vie. They slowly cut their eyes away from Luc and reentered their own conversations.
Gabby and Nolan came forward. “She isn’t going to help at all?” Gabby was fuming. “What use is God if he turns his back on us?”
“He hasn’t turned his back on us,” Vander replied softly.
“Stick up for him all you like, Mr. Burke. I, however, am not convinced.” Ingrid’s sister walked away, toward the sofa where Mama still sat. Nolan clapped Vander on the shoulder in tacit support before trailing Gabby.
A second passed before Ingrid realized she, Luc, and Vander had been left alone.
“Seer, I saved your life this morning,” Luc stated with unnecessary intensity.
“You won’t hear another thank-you from me,” Vander replied and started to follow Nolan. Luc held up his arm.
“Have you been ordained yet?”
Vander pulled back. The question seemed completely irrelevant to the situation at hand, and yet Luc looked desperate to know.
“He isn’t being ordained until …” Ingrid paused, trying to remember. It seemed like years since the afternoon they’d strolled the Champs de Mars and Vander had asked her to attend the ceremony. “Until Sunday. Isn’t that right, Vander?”
He wouldn’t want her there now.
Vander frowned, his attention still on Luc. “Today is Wednesday, Ingrid.”
“What? It is?” Ingrid shook her head. She couldn’t believe she’d lost track of the days.
“You’d just returned from the Underneath,” Vander said as Ingrid tried to calculate where she had been and how she could have forgotten. “I didn’t want to bother you about the ceremony.”
Vander had been ordained. He was officially a reverend.
Luc rubbed his cheek before scratching his fingers over his scalp. “Of course it was you.”
“You know what, Luc? I won’t pretend to care what you’re talking about.” With a short, icy nod toward Ingrid, Vander excused himself.
Until that moment, Ingrid had never felt relieved to part from his company. She watched him disappear behind Hans and Hathaway. Both men had their eyes trained on her and Luc. She knew Hathaway had voted for her death once, and there was little question that Hans, had he been a Directorate member, would have agreed.
She turned her back on them and navigated her way toward the glass doors where Hugh Dupuis had released the corvite. The afternoon light had taken on a jaundiced tint, painting the shingled roof of Constantine’s stables a light honey. The day was winding down, and once again she had no idea where her brother was.
It had been quite a while since Ingrid had felt ordinary, without the lashes of a sparking electric whip beneath her skin. Vander’s mersian blood had rid her of that, and even now on this second day since her injection,
Ingrid felt nothing. But the mersian cure couldn’t subdue the twitching of the line that had always tethered her to Grayson. Perhaps he no longer felt it, and perhaps for her, the line had grown slack. It was still there, though, and she could feel the incessant thrum of the connection, as though someone were bouncing upon it.
“Where are you?” she whispered against the cold glass. A circle of fog bloomed.
“I wish I could tell you,” Luc said as he came up behind her. He’d read her mind yet again.
She drew an infinity symbol in the circle of fog, her finger dipping and curving again and again. “I hate to think of him out there alone. What if his mersian dose has worn off?”
“He knows where Vander keeps the vials,” Luc answered. His solid reasoning was exactly what she needed. “Speaking of which, Vander should give you another dose.”
“I’m doing fine,” she insisted, though mostly she just didn’t want to have to sit with Vander and take his cure now that she’d made it clear she could give him absolutely nothing in return.
Ingrid turned to look over her shoulder at Luc. “You’re not going to tell me what happened just now with Irindi.”
“No.” The reply was quick and hoarse—and final.
She resumed gazing at the well-kept stables, the wide barn boards meticulously trimmed and nailed, the Pegasus weathervane cast in polished copper.
“I saw her, Luc. No net is going to be able to take Axia down, especially not if she knows it’s coming.” She kept her voice hushed, not wanting to upset Gabby. Her sister had already looked panicked when Constantine and Hugh had explained the elements of a severix demon.
“Then we need to find another way.”
“We need to surprise her,” Ingrid said, remembering the sickening tremor that had gone through her when the dagger had sunk into Axia’s flesh and muscle.
“She knows we’re sitting here, waiting for Hugh’s corvite to return. She knows we have a net. She knows everything.” The flaw in their hasty plan gaped open before Ingrid. “Why should she come when she could send her demons and Dusters? We aren’t going to have a chance at her.”