Anne trembled as she pressed her cheek against Gabriel’s in the darkness, felt the scratchy tickle of his beard and his warm, living body in her arms. He was still in one piece, still sane…. Or, at least, sane within the parameters of his own brand of lunacy, which in view of the horrors she’d seen that night, was starting to make perfect sense.
It had been a bravado performance—Why don’t you practice on me first?—but when she walked into that chamber and saw the rolling steel cart and the instruments laid out on it and the ghastly little man with the apron and the scalpel in his hand, she couldn’t help thinking of what she would have found if she’d come a few minutes later.
“Hello?” a voice whispered somewhere to the left. “I’m sorry, but would it be too much trouble—”
Balthazar. Anne used a trickle of earth to unlock his chains. She heard him call for Lucas Devereaux.
The collar that had circled Gabriel’s neck lay at his feet. He reached down and picked up the chains, snapping the manacle around his own wrist. “You can see better than I can,” he muttered. “Tell me what’s happening.”
“There’s two of Bekker’s men still standing,” she said, squinting down the long hall, where she could just make out grappling forms. “No, make that one. Jacob just killed his.”
“Constantin?”
“I don’t see him.”
Gabriel limped toward the dim glow of necromantic chains and Anne followed. Fire suddenly flared and she threw a hand over her face.
“Sorry, Miss Lawrence,” Jacob said. “I thought we could use some light.”
He’d taken a torch from one of the brackets and lit it with his matches. Her eyes adjusted and she saw Julian standing over the last of Bekker’s necromancers. His chains were slick with blood and so was he, but whatever wounds he’d taken were already healing.
Balthazar and Lucas were gone. Anne supposed she couldn’t blame them.
“Constantin probably fled through the gate,” Gabriel said tersely. “Balthazar told me Bekker planned to return. He may still, if he hasn’t been warned. I’ll wait for him there.”
“I’m coming with you,” Anne said.
Gabriel met her eyes and nodded. She was pleased he didn’t hesitate. “We’ll take him together.” He turned to Jacob and Julian. “Deal with the revenants. Find us when you’re done.”
“Be careful, boss,” Jacob said, his eyes fixed on the widening crack in the mosaic floor, right where Vorstmann had stood at the center of the balance scales, where four revenants were hauling themselves out. Gabriel walked past, ignoring their growls and grasping hands.
“The portal is this way,” Anne said, turning right when they reached the corridor. “We passed it looking for you.” She paused. “We found another hidden room. Where Bekker kept his victims. It was….” She shook her head, knowing the memory would haunt her forever. “It was bad.”
Gabriel looked at her, his face carved from stone. “There won’t be one more, Anne. Not one more.”
She hurried to match his long strides. “How did he take you at the museum?”
“Black lightning. He got lucky.”
“And if he uses it again?”
Gabriel gave a grim smile. “He can’t. Not if we’re waiting inside the gate.”
Her eyes widened. The limbo used for Travelling also attracted the restless dead, spirits that sought to return to the living world as ghouls. Spending any length of time in that shadowland was dangerous. Neither necromantic nor elemental power worked there. But having seen Bekker’s shrine of death, Anne was willing to risk it.
The corridor opened into a gallery with a row of tall stained glass windows on one side and a passage leading from the other. “It’s that way,” she said, heading for the passage.
A tall figure stepped into view before one of the windows. Soft dawn light filtered through the colored glass, outlining it in shadow.
Gabriel halted. She heard his heart speed up.
Constantin stared at them, his face a mask of hatred. He unbuckled the sanctus arma and threw it aside. He rolled his shoulders. And in the blink of an eye, his form changed. A bear towered on its hind legs, eight feet tall with powerful limbs, each tipped with a black claw the length of Anne’s hand. Small, cunning eyes glittered above a long snout. Constantin bared his fangs.
Before Anne could react, Gabriel was streaking toward him. He’d assumed his cat form, black with jagged gold stripes. A fierce creature — and half the bear’s weight soaking wet.
Anne’s fists clenched. She knew Constantin was playing to Gabriel’s temper.
He’ll tear him apart.
The cat’s hindquarters bunched. It slammed into the rearing bear, driving it backward. Glass exploded as they tumbled through the window.
Anne tore the length of the gallery, heedless of the shards slicing her bare feet, and looked out. They’d cleared the stone balcony below and were rolling across the lawn toward one of the reflecting pools. Brown and tawny fur blurred together. Cat and bear were locked too tightly in combat and moving too fast for her to use the power.
She cursed and picked her way across the razor teeth of glass jutting from the metal frame. Anne lowered herself over the window ledge, probing the stone for toeholds. She heard an ear-shattering roar from the bear, an answering snarl from the cat.
I could have killed him, Anne thought furiously. But she knew Gabriel wanted Constantin for himself. That he needed to settle it alone.
This insight didn’t make her any less angry.
She dangled by the tips of her fingers, stretching, and her left foot brushed the gilded oriel of the window below. Anne braced herself and found a decorative frieze with one hand. When her weight rested fully on the oriel, she turned and dropped down to the balcony. The impact drove a shard of glass deeper into her foot. She grunted with pain as the ankle gave way, twisting.
The reflecting pool roiled with waves. The bear raised a paw and swept it down with brutal force, shredding the cat’s flank. Anne limped across the lawn, eyes locked on Constantin. She threw a weave of breaking power at his skull, but he lurched aside at the last moment and it flew wide, knocking chips of stone from the marble fountain.
The cat crouched in the water, bloodied sides heaving. One paw hung limply. Anne saw the white of bone poking through. Constantin roared and rose to his full height. Then eight hundred pounds of muscle crashed down. A red stain spread through the water.
Anne drew a sobbing breath and staggered for the pool, leaving her own bloody trail across the grass. When she reached the edge, she saw no sign of Gabriel. Only the massive bear, floating on the surface. She waded in and grabbed the huge shoulder, rolling it over. Its throat was gone, the spine severed. As she shoved it away, the bear dissipated like mist. A man with a black beard and sightless eyes drifted among the lily pads.
Anne reached into the red murk. She sank to her knees, groping along the slimy bottom. Then she felt an arm. She hauled Gabriel to the edge, grimacing at the deep slashes covering his body. His eyes were closed and he wasn’t breathing. She rolled him to his back and pumped his chest until he weakly coughed out a mouthful of water.
Gabriel gasped. His eyes opened to slits. “Merde,” he muttered. “That hurt.”
Anne took his hand, utterly weary. They lay on the grass without speaking as the sun rose and the sky lightened to a pale blue. Birds sang in the trees beyond the fence. A bee droned past, circled three times, and settled on a patch of clover.
“It didn’t feel as good as I thought it would,” Gabriel said at last.
Anne turned her head to stare at him. They were both streaked with blood. Gabriel looked like death warmed over. No, not even warmed over. Served cold on a dented tin plate.
She started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“You should be glad it didn’t feel good. Whatever he became, Constantin was your friend once. Me, on the other other hand….” Her laughter faded. “I expected I’d feel worse after killing all those men. Not the necromancers, the others.” She gave a vague wave. “They’re around here. Twelve of them. Twelve, Gabriel. But I didn’t. I felt nothing.”
He gazed at her with a troubled expression. “Don’t start with that monster business again.”
“No. Bekker was the monster.” Anne frowned. “Do you really think I have an evil temper?”
He dragged a hand through his hair, massaging the scalp. “You heard that?”
“Right through the stone wall.”
“No, I don’t think you have an evil temper.” Gabriel smiled. “Certainly not compared to mine.”
They both looked over as Julian shot out one of the balcony’s French doors. His steps slowed as he saw Constantin floating in the pool. “I hope he rots in hell,” Julian declared in a loud voice.
They rose up to their elbows on the lawn.
“We just found Bekker dead at the portal.” Julian gazed down at them, a question in his eyes.
Gabriel looked startled. Then a slow grin spread across his face. “Balthazar and Lucas. It had to be.”
“Thank God,” Anne murmured, falling back. “I don’t feel like moving for a while.”
Gabriel noticed the condition of her feet and scowled deeply. “Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?” he demanded. “Hold still.” She winced as he picked out a sliver of glass. Fresh blood welled and Gabriel pulled his shirt off. It was conveniently pre-shredded, first by Vorstmann’s scalpel, then Constantin’s claws. He tore off a tattered strip and bound her foot, propping it in his lap.
“What happened to your boots?” Gabriel asked.
“I left them outside the fence. Remind me to get them on the way out.” She closed her eyes. “I like those boots.”
“Find Jacob,” he told Julian wearily. “Gather any talismans you can find.”
Anne forced her eyes open. “Look for ones to Travel, will you? I bet Bekker has lots. We’re going on holiday after this and it would make things very convenient.”
Julian smiled at her. “I will, Miss Lawrence.”
“Just call me Anne.”
Gabriel regarded the gargantuan house with disgust. “Nom de dieu, the Sun King would have blushed to live here. I wish I could burn the fucking thing down, but I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“What will happen to it?” Anne wondered.
Gabriel shrugged. “Bekker had no heirs. Leopold will seize it, along with his other assets.”
“That hardly feels like justice,” she said bitterly.
“I know. But there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Julian caught Anne’s eye. “At least the world can know what sort of man he was.” He looked back at the house. “If we make sure the local gendarmes find that room.”
“Just hurry up,” Gabriel said. “We need to be gone in half an hour. It’s a long ride back and my wife needs bed rest.”
Julian nodded and jogged to the house.
“You were right about Balthazar,” Gabriel said, stroking her calf. “He has changed.”
Anne thought of the count. Even hanging in chains, he’d looked casually vulpine.
“Or,” she replied with a faint smile, “you never knew him in the first place.”