Chelle stood just outside the Daicrypta gates. The mansion was barely visible behind the immense brick wall enclosing the grounds, which ran the full length of the block. Scores of trees grew in a straight row behind the wall, acting as a second barrier to curious eyes. Grayson watched her pace the sidewalk for close to a minute. She’d bounce up onto the balls of her feet, turn, walk, bounce up restlessly, then turn and do it all over again.
Grayson hadn’t meant to take so long, but he’d been stuck in that side alley for longer than he’d expected. Letting his human form go and changing into his hellhound one had been easy. Natural, even. It was changing back that had proven difficult, especially with two hellhounds at his side. It seemed that his body wanted to stay in harmony with theirs.
Grayson had managed, though, and he’d kept it that way as he’d walked up the hills of Montmartre, the hellhounds following him through a circuitous route of alleys, roofs, and park squares. He held himself in, keeping his muscles tight, imagining his bones as immovable iron. Staying human had taken so much of the last hour’s focus that when he crossed the dark street toward Chelle, he still hadn’t quite worked out how the two hellhounds concealed in the shadows behind him were going to be useful.
“Where’ve ye been?”
Rory appeared at Grayson’s side with phantom grace.
“I’ll tell you if you promise to keep your hands off that silver,” Grayson answered.
Chelle hurried toward him. “I started to think something had happened.”
She looked and sounded furious, and when she came to a stop just beneath his chin, he knew better than to try to touch her.
“Where are Lennier and Yann?” Grayson asked, searching the sky and the roofs of nearby homes.
“Gone. Why?” Chelle stared up at him, her nose crinkling. “What happened? You smell like …”
Like a hellhound. She could smell it on him.
“I’ve brought two hellhounds with me,” Grayson said. “They’re under my command.”
Chelle pulled back and the hira-shuriken came out, two flashes of silver in her skilled hands.
“What have you done?” she whispered.
“Trust me, Chelle. They aren’t going to attack,” he answered, and letting out all his breath, summoned the hounds forward with a single thought: Come.
He didn’t need to look to know they were there. Chelle’s squint softened and her eyes grew round and alert. Rory came flush against her side, a knife in each hand. At least the gargoyles weren’t there. Grayson wouldn’t have been able to convince them not to attack.
“We can use them,” he said, though it was difficult to speak and hold himself together at the same time.
“Call them off,” Rory ordered, his vigilant eyes never wavering from the hellhounds slinking up behind Grayson.
Stay, he thought, and in the next second Rory’s brows slanted down in surprise. The hounds had lowered themselves to the paving stones.
“They won’t hurt you,” Grayson said, hoping he was right. He’d led these beasts here. To Chelle. If anything happened to her … if he failed …
“How are you doing this?” she asked, eyes flicking from Grayson’s face to the hounds behind him.
“I don’t know, really, and I don’t know how long it will last, but I’m going in.”
Chelle shook her head. “Nolan and Vander have already gone after Ingrid, along with your stubborn little sister. Stay here with us—and send them away,” she said with a glance at the hellhounds.
“I can’t,” Grayson said. “If my sisters are in there, I’m going in, too.”
Chelle gritted her teeth and let out a frustrated grunt. “Do you think I wish to stand out here twiddling my thumbs on the sidewalk, Grayson Waverly? Don’t you think I would rather be inside with Vander and Nolan doing something useful?”
A clamor rose suddenly from within the walled estate and the three of them shot to the gates and peered around the ivy-wrapped wall. The front doors to the mansion had been thrown wide, and three men scrambled into the circular drive.
“Father,” Grayson murmured, watching as the Earl of Brickton, stripped down to his trousers, waistcoat, and shirtsleeves, swung a Grecian vase wildly at one of the two men chasing him. The vase hit the man’s temple and he staggered, clutching his head.
Grayson’s father saw the closed front gates and doubled back, bolting away from the circular drive and out of sight.
“Damn.” Grayson leaned against the wall. He hadn’t forgotten about his father, but he hadn’t really cared, either. Hadn’t worried about him the way he was worrying about Ingrid.
He turned back to Chelle and Rory and stopped. The hellhounds were gone.
A yelp, then a low growl sounded from behind the wall.
“They jumped it,” Rory said, glaring at Grayson. “Was that yer command?”
No. Grayson grasped the sides of his head, his insides turning to fire as the urge to shift consumed him. He had to stop them. They were under his command.
“I thought—” he started to say, barely able to breathe.
He heard his father scream and his muscles and bones twisted and popped. He threw back his head and a growl ripped from his throat. Before he’d even finished shifting, Grayson had sprung into the air and over the Daicrypta wall.
Ingrid watched with dread as Dimitrie closed the door and threw a heavy bolt into place. He set his crossbow on one of the steel tables, and with carefully controlled motion, turned to her. “My human told you to undress.”
She backed away.
“Touch her and I’ll slice off your fingers and feed them to you,” Marco grumbled, still immobile on the floor.
Dimitrie laughed at the improbable threat as a hand wrapped around Ingrid’s ankle. She shrieked and kicked her leg, but Carrick Quinn’s fingers clung like briar thorns. He was still on the floor, his face a mask of agony.
“Forgive me for … what I’ve done.” He gasped before letting her go. She spun away, and Dimitrie caught her in his gangly arms.
Carrick fought to rise to his knees. A cough ripped from his throat. Blood flew from his mouth and splattered onto the floor.
Ingrid stopped struggling.
“He needs help!” she cried to Dupuis. The Daicrypta doyen was still fiddling with the machinery.
Carrick was a traitor, yes, but he was also Nolan’s father.
“The mercurite poisoning is incurable, I am afraid,” Dupuis answered, uninterested. “If he is lucky, the internal bleeding will finish him off within the hour. Dimitrie?”
Dimitrie grabbed the collar of Ingrid’s blouse and wrenched the fabric apart. A handful of abalone buttons scattered, leaving bare skin and the lace top of her camisole exposed.
While Marco roared another vow to tear off more of Dimitrie’s appendages, Ingrid sank her teeth into the gargoyle’s forearm. It took Dimitrie by surprise, though she doubted it hurt. He only pushed her away and swore.
“Forget the clothes!” Dupuis snapped his fingers. “Get her on the gurney.”
The bulbs overhead brightened again, their shrill hum rising to a scream. Ingrid squinted up at the glowing orbs of shuddering white light. She needed her electricity. Needed it now. She stared at the hot white glass and the wires inside strained to brighten. Ingrid gasped as dual currents clawed down her arms and prickled at her fingertips.
“Stop her,” Dupuis ordered. The lightbulbs had drawn his attention. They hummed louder, grew brighter. Dupuis’s look of alarm told Ingrid exactly what he didn’t want her to realize: the power-draining machines weren’t pushing the bulbs to their limits. She was.
“Dimitrie, now!” Dupuis shouted.
The gargoyle leaped forward and clamped his hands around her shoulders. She seized his arms in return, and where her fingers dug in, flickering braids of electricity tasseled out. She saw them quiver over his shirt; felt them tunnel through his flesh, into his nerve endings. The straining lightbulb above them popped and went black. Dimitrie shook, sick gurgling noises low in his throat. Ingrid screamed when he shot back, out of her grasp, as if blown by a heavy gale. He landed hard on the floor and didn’t move.
Ingrid’s knees buckled. She landed on one, her hands flat against the floor. Her palms stung, the muscles in her arms trembled, and yet this time, something was different.
She still felt it. A tickle just beneath her skin. It wasn’t much. But it was there.
“My sincerest apologies,” Dupuis said, so close behind her that she flinched and started to turn.
His arm came toward her face and struck the side of her head. Ingrid went down into a swirling black fog.