by Page Morgan
Ingrid couldn’t form words. She had trusted the Alliance. They were supposed to help her, not try to kill her.
“Was there no one who objected?” she whispered.
“It was a unanimous vote,” he replied. “The sacrifice of one girl to ensure the safety of millions was deemed acceptable.”
The small hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as Marco stepped up close behind. He towered over her, the crown of Ingrid’s head reaching his collarbone.
“You were supposed to kill her?” he asked.
With those words, Ingrid heard all the vicious things Marco wanted to do to Carrick. Nolan’s father, however, remained aloof.
“Not I. A mimic demon.”
Ingrid jerked back, stepping on Marco’s bare feet. He braced her shoulders to keep her from falling.
“The Directorate authorized its release from our holding chamber at Hôtel Bastian with orders to target you. I released it myself,” Carrick said.
Ingrid rolled her shoulders until Marco let go of her. She didn’t mind his touch, but she didn’t want Carrick to think she needed Marco to make her feel safe. She still had powers of her own. Sometimes.
“You’ve captured demons?” she asked.
“Certain breeds,” Carrick answered.
Ingrid puzzled over how they’d captured them—and where the demons would be kept. At Hôtel Bastian? She recalled the strange room she had stumbled into, with the freezing, steel-fronted drawers. The pressure gauges and Rory’s flash of annoyance that she had gone inside. Was that the holding chamber?
“And you can give these captured demons orders?” she asked.
“Not all of them,” a new voice answered. It came from the doorway. Robert Dupuis stood with his hands clasped at his waist.
Ingrid had nearly forgotten what he looked like. He was plain enough to be easily forgettable. A head shorter than Carrick, and leaner. When he closed the door behind him, she saw that his fingers were long and feminine.
“Do you like your room here?” Dupuis asked. Ingrid stood rigid, wary of him. “Do you accept it?”
What an odd question. She hesitated before nodding. “Yes.”
Dupuis grinned. “The Daicrypta has spent decades perfecting the practice of demon capture and command. We have seen fit, in some instances, to share what we know with the Alliance.”
“I thought the Alliance and Daicrypta weren’t on friendly terms,” Ingrid said. Nolan and Vander had drawn their swords when Constantine had mentioned the Daicrypta in the sewers.
“They needn’t be friendly in order to be useful to one another,” Dupuis answered.
“So the Daicrypta decided to show the Alliance how to capture demons, hold them prisoner, and then give them orders to kill people?” Ingrid asked.
Dupuis bowed his head, a smile playing on his lips. He steepled his fingers together in front of his chest.
“Mademoiselle, do you really think us so vile? My purpose in life is not to hunt and destroy. I leave that to the majority of the Alliance.”
Carrick sealed his mouth into a tight grimace.
“It would be ignorant to reject the demon reality. They are among us and will continue to be among us,” Dupuis said, coming farther into the room. He turned to admire the tapestry nearest him while he continued to speak. “No amount of blessed silver can close the rift between our world and the Underneath. Accepting demons and learning from them—specifically, how to control them and bend them to our will—is the educated way to deal with them.”
Carrick had kept his eyes fixed on a corner of the room as Dupuis had spoken. His fists were clenched, his expression granite. He and Dupuis were definitely not friends.
“I still don’t understand. You voted to have me killed. You released the mimic demon. And yet last night Chelle told me that you were desperate to align Grayson and me with the Alliance. Why?”
Carrick sighed. “It’s difficult to explain. In short: I changed my mind. But by then, the mimic was already hunting you. I don’t want you to die, Lady Ingrid. With the raw electrical power you generate, you could become one of the Alliance’s most valuable hunters. Once your angel’s blood is destroyed, Axia and her Harvest will no longer threaten our realm, and you will be useful to the Alliance, not a hazard. Of course, my decision to save you will cost me my life, and I wanted things under way while I was still here to manage them.”
Ingrid wanted to scream in confusion. “But they still want me dead?”
“Right now, yes. Make no mistake, Lady Ingrid. My agreement with Dupuis is not authorized by the Directorate,” he said, fists still locked, the skin at his knuckles blanched. “I did vote for your death. I did release the mimic. I thought it was my duty.”
He flexed his fingers. “I wasn’t always a member of the Directorate. I was a fighter, like my son. I believed in the Alliance and what I thought was its mission: to eradicate demons from the face of the earth.”
His body lost its tension bit by bit as he spoke, and as he loosened up, more words flowed.
“When I did ascend to the Directorate, I saw a new side of the Alliance. Intrigue, politics, deception. None of which I liked, but I quickly learned that once you become a part of it, there is no leaving.” Carrick paused to meet her eyes. “Mine was the final vote cast. Had I broken from the total accord, my fate would have been sealed just as yours had been.”
Ingrid parted her lips, stunned. They would have killed him? She didn’t know the Alliance at all.
“You changed your mind, though,” she said. Carrick nodded, the motion slowed by some invisible weight.
“I couldn’t hold with it. The death of an innocent young girl might be acceptable to the other members of the Directorate, but it isn’t to me. I’m a man of honor. Of integrity. In my soul, I’m a fighter, not a politician. The Alliance is supposed to uphold certain morals.” He reached up with his hand and made another tight fist. “Using a demon—the very thing we hunt—to slay a human girl is beneath us. It’s beneath me, and yet I did it.” He threw his hand down. “I’m ashamed, Lady Ingrid.”
He was. She could feel the burn of his shame with every word. Still, it had come to him too late, and it was definitely too late for her to forgive him.
“How has luring her here saved her?” Marco asked. “It looks to me as though you’ve only taken my human from certain death to very likely death.”
Dupuis parted his lips to speak, but Carrick cut him off.
“The Alliance has never succeeded in capturing a mimic. The one I released had originally been captured by the Daicrypta.”
“They are exceptionally tricky,” Dupuis said, that unsettling little smile still on his lips. “When Monsieur Quinn asked for my help, I gave it … on one condition.”
Ingrid imagined that Dupuis required some sort of payment. Not money, however. By the state of their accommodations, she didn’t think they needed it.
“He asked for your angel blood. As soon as he has it, he’ll stop the mimic,” Carrick explained. “I am here to make sure Dupuis upholds his end of the bargain.”
The blood Axia had hidden within Ingrid was the only thing standing between the fallen angel and her planned Harvest of Dusters. Once it was gone from Ingrid’s veins, the Directorate would no longer see Ingrid as a threat. It was the angel blood, Axia and her Harvest, that the Directorate feared.
“And what happens to the angel blood afterward?” she asked, recalling Vander’s worry about the Daicrypta getting their hands on it. “Couldn’t Axia simply send one of her demon pets after it? The blood should be destroyed.”
“We will study it first,” Dupuis answered, fingers still steepled.
“And then, by our agreement, it will be destroyed,” Carrick finished. Dupuis bowed in agreement.
Destroying it right away sounded like a much better idea to Ingrid. Perhaps there would still be a way for her to do so.
“What of you?” she then asked Carrick. “The Directorate will know that you’ve betrayed them. That
you’ve bargained for my life.”
He let out a mirthless laugh. “I am already done for. The mercurite only saves us so many times before it starts to eat away at us from the inside. To be truthful, I’d rather be taken out quickly by a skilled Alliance assassin than waste away in my bed, my insides rotting and my brain turning to mush.”
Marco, his arms crossed tightly over his broad chest, replied, “If you’d rather not wait for that assassin, I’d be more than honored to do the job.”
Ingrid nudged him with her elbow. “Stop, Marco.”
She had no doubt, however, that he would do it, and that he’d do it with relish.
“Come, Lady Ingrid,” Dupuis said, crossing to the door and opening it. “The sooner we drain your angel blood, the sooner my disciples and I can recapture the mimic.”
Marco came out from behind Ingrid. His torso and arms flickered once with amber scales before returning to human skin.
“I had another question,” Ingrid said. “Where is Luc?”
Carrick looked to Dupuis, whose annoying little smile withered. Both men then shifted their attention to Marco.
The gargoyle took in a deep breath, arms still crossed over his broad, naked chest. A low, gurgling growl escaped on his exhale.
“They have him,” Marco answered, meeting Ingrid’s stare. “I suppose we should do as they say.”
Lennier dropped closer to the sloped roof of the Daicrypta building, Gabby clasped to his albino body. He released his hold on her and she fell less than a foot to the slate-topped roof. The pitch was slight. She barely slid an inch before Nolan took hold of her arm and steadied her, Lennier already flying away.
He and Vander had come to the roof first, in case a disciple had been stationed there, as Alliance were on the roof of Hôtel Bastian. Constantine had left, and Nolan had ordered Chelle and Rory to stay below on the street. He’d tried to order Gabby as well, but considering she wasn’t officially Alliance, she hadn’t been under any obligation to comply.
Yann’s feathered wings hovered overhead, beating cold air down around them. He lowered Léon to the roof and then spiraled up and away. The Duster landed sure-footedly, though he still looked sick with nerves.
“What now?” Vander asked as his eyes swept along the dark roof.
Gabby didn’t see a roof door or a skylight to drop through. Léon picked his way down the roof toward a knee-high balustrade of carved stone. Gabby followed. Once closer, she noticed a dog-headed gargoyle protruding from the exterior of the stone railing. It reminded her that this was Dimitrie’s territory. Would he sense their arrival?
“The room Dupuis assigned to me is just below,” Léon said. Gabby tilted forward until she could see the double-hung top-floor window. “The window had been nailed shut, but I was able to pry the nails up before I escaped.”
“Through the window?” Gabby asked.
“No,” Léon said. “The window was my first plan, but things happened too quickly. I wound up escaping from the draining room.”
A cold wind gusted up over the ledge. The draining room. That was where they would be taking Ingrid. Or maybe they’d already taken her there.
“Climbing down is too dangerous,” Nolan said, still higher up on the roof’s slope.
Gabby swung her leg over the parapet.
“Stop, Gabby!” Nolan barked.
She felt something cinch around her waist, and then a lurching tug. She fell forward, her legs still straddling the stone balustrade. Her hands landed on glistening ropes that had latched around her middle. Léon stood with his arms outstretched, silk webbing having streamed from each fingertip.
“Léon, let her go.” Nolan extended his broadsword, both hands on the handle. Vander touched his arm.
“No, don’t,” he said. Nolan glared at him. “Don’t you remember how strong that silk is? He can lower us to the window.”
Gabby tested the silk webbing with her hands, stretching and pulling it. It was tacky but strong, each length of silk the thickness of her pinky finger. With ten of them wrapped around her, Léon could lower her with ease.
“You will not fall,” Léon whispered.
She threw her other leg over the parapet.
“Gabby—” Nolan called, but with a quick breath, she let her backside slip off.
The webbing cinched tighter but held. She dangled midair, feeling a momentary flutter of panic when she began to drop smoothly toward the window. The room was black. When she hissed up to Léon to stop lowering her, she gripped the sill and within seconds had opened the window and climbed inside.
She took her dagger, sliced through the webbing, and waited. A few minutes later, Nolan and Vander joined her inside the room, and then Léon himself climbed down the side of the building, his sticky fingers clinging to the exterior limestone.
“The draining room,” Gabby said as soon as he’d ducked inside. “How do we get there?”
Léon wiped his hands on the sides of his trousers, then shook them out. “It’s in the basement.”
“Excellent. We have five possible floors on which to get caught,” Nolan muttered.
“There are guards on every floor at every flight of stairs,” Léon added. “But there is a servants’ stairwell two doors down from here to the kitchens, and from there, a set of stairs to the basement rooms. The draining room is the one farthest down the corridor.”
Gabby knew it was just five floors, but it felt as though he were giving them directions to Africa.
“Léon and I will draw the guards and disciples away,” Nolan said to her. “I know I can’t keep Vander from Ingrid, and I’m quickly learning you’re as stubborn as you are impatient.”
He took Gabby roughly by the arm, dragged her toward him, and crushed his lips to hers. She breathed in sharply through her nose, too stunned to kiss him in return before he broke off and stepped back.
“What was that for?” Gabby asked, a little dazed and embarrassed. Vander and Léon had edged away from them, toward the door. “Luck?”
“No,” Nolan said with his trademark arrogant grin. “It was because I love you.”
He didn’t wait for her response. He withdrew his sword and he and Léon charged out of the room, making whooping noises and catcalls to draw the attention of whatever guards lurked at the top of stairs.
Gabby drifted across the room to Vander’s side, Nolan’s voice still ringing in her ears. She knew she had to have a ridiculous expression on her face because Vander laughed.
“Well, in that case, I’d best keep you alive, Lady Gabriella,” he said. Then, together, they fled the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was worse than Ingrid had imagined.
The style and warmth of the posh upper floors had deceived Ingrid into thinking the room where Dupuis planned to drain her blood would be just as elegant and charming.
It wasn’t.
The room, located in the basement, was a medical nightmare. A series of steel-topped tables lined one wall, and strewn about them were all sorts of beakers and tubes and sharp-edged instruments. The walls themselves were just the stone foundation, the low ceilings constructed of plaster and hewn beams. The harsh electric light only made the room feel more cramped, and the corners were draped in shadow.
Three wheeled gurneys, each outfitted with leather restraints, were positioned against the wall directly in front of Ingrid as she walked in, Marco on her heels. Beside each gurney were serpentine tangles of tubing attached to cylindrical copper-and-glass vats.
No wonder Léon had run away from this place.
“The average human body holds approximately five and a half liters of blood,” Dupuis explained as he came to stand beside the vats. His long fingers traveled over the twists of clear rubber tubing. “We shall draw out your blood, separate it in this system, and then immediately pump the filtered blood back into your body.”
He brought his hands back into a steepled position. “The transfusion will be lengthy, I am afraid.”
Ing
rid tried to keep her trembling to a minimum. She had to do this. They were holding Luc against his will. Feeling her fear and being unable to come to her must have been excruciating for him.
“How will these machines know to withdraw my angel blood and leave the rest of it?” she asked.
Logic always calmed her. If she could have something to concentrate on, some specific focus, perhaps she could get through this. Because it was clear, now that she had followed them into this nightmare room, that if she didn’t give Dupuis her blood, her father and Luc would never leave this place alive.
“We’ve never drawn angel blood before, but we have drawn demon blood. It has a different cell structure. We’ve developed a way to magnetize and pull out those different cells,” Dupuis said, his cheeks flushed with either excitement or pride. Neither one suited the moment. “This separating system will draw out every cell that differs from your human cells, and will therefore only return those that are human,” he continued, lifting up a second tangle of tubing, which ended with a needle.
Ingrid held up her hand as his explanation settled. “Wait—all the cells that aren’t human?”
Carrick cleared his throat. He was leaning against a steel-topped table, one arm hooked around his stomach, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. She remembered that the mercurite poisoning was eating him from the inside.
“If you drain both her demon and angel blood, how much blood will she be left with?” Marco asked.
“She won’t survive,” Carrick said, his voice strained. “We agreed on the angel blood, Dupuis. You said you could remove it and leave the rest. The Alliance can still use her if she has her demon gift.”
Dupuis transformed his face into a carefully drawn mask of regret. “Yes, well, this is where the risk enters. I cannot guarantee she will survive.”
“But you can guarantee that you’ll have your angel blood,” Ingrid said. “You don’t care if I live or die.”
“Of course I do not care,” he replied, hardly concealing his amusement. “However, it would be better for our reputation should you live. So we shall try our hardest, yes?”