Twenty minutes later, Ivy sat at the long, gleaming table in the manor’s “informal” (which she was pretty sure just meant improbably smaller) dining room, waiting for her blush to subside. It had appeared when the entire population of the world barged into her bedroom to find her canoodling with Baen, and so far it showed no signs of fading.
It should have helped that no one other than her seemed the least bit concerned about what had been interrupted. Should have, but didn’t. Ivy just wasn’t the sort of girl who got caught in flagrante delicto. At least, it had never happened before Baen. He was turning out to be such a bad influence.
She hoped he didn’t think she had missed the subtle hints of encouragement the other Guardians had been giving him since they joined the large group downstairs. They might think they were badass warriors skilled in covert tactics, but when it came to communicating about women, they revealed themselves to be no different from any men, and she wasn’t the only one who noticed. The other female Wardens sent her looks of encouragement and solidarity. Ones a heck of a lot less obvious than those exchanged by their mates.
Hmph. Men.
As the last of them settled into their seats, Rose stood at the head of the table and took a deep breath. “I cannot tell you how pleased I am, how enormously relieved, to see you all here in one room. After all this time, I had begun to worry this would never happen, and if it had not, I fear our prospects for the future would not have been worth discussing.”
Ivy glanced around. Fourteen chairs surrounded the long board, each one filled with someone who took those words very seriously. All six of the risen Guardians and their Wardens had gathered at Maison Formidable. Ash and Drum had arrived straight from Belfast in the middle of the night, and Kees, Ella, Spar, and Felicity had followed early this morning. Aldous and Thiago had once again joined them at Rose’s request. The only piece missing, from what Ivy could tell, was Rose’s mysterious seventh Guardian.
“I know from speaking to some of you last night, and the rest of you briefly this morning, that many of you have similar questions,” Rose continued. “I know also that some of you have doubts, about why you are here. About me. I do not blame you, but I ask that you bear with me very briefly while I tell you a story, one that I hope will explain everything.”
Several of the Guardians shifted restlessly, but their Wardens looked mostly curious, so they settled down again without offering a protest. It struck Ivy how these huge, intimidating warriors seemed to defer to their companions in most situations, though she doubted that would hold true if they scented any real danger. In that case, if Baen’s behavior was anything to go by, she figured all bets would be off.
“Already a few of you know me, but I will introduce myself to the others. My name is Rose Houbranche, and for the last two years, I have been working in secret to gather up the survivors of the Order’s purge against the Wardens’ Guild.” She spoke clearly and calmly, but emotion was threaded through every word. There was no mistaking that this story of Rose’s was very—deeply—personal.
“I am like most of you. I have never been initiated into the Guild, and I was not given formal training to use my special gift, or to work with magic as the Wardens do. In fact, before I began my work, I had no knowledge of magic at all. I had never heard of a Guardian or a Warden and I thought demons were a relic of the Catholic church’s paranoia about sin and damnation. In my world, nocturnis and the Order of Eternal Darkness did not exist.”
Ivy saw several of the other Wardens at the table nod in clear sympathy with Rose. Ella in particular looked as if she were remembering the moment her eyes were opened, and Fil appeared ready to jump up from her seat and shout “Amen” like a parishioner at a revival meeting. Ivy couldn’t blame either of them.
“I remained ignorant of everything about this endless struggle of ours until the night that the headquarters of the Wardens’ Guild exploded. That moment changed everything, because I saw it happen.”
A murmur swept through the room as those gathered took in this revelation. If it was true, it had to have been one hell of a way to learn the truth. Ivy, and everyone else at the table, immediately wanted to hear the details.
Rose didn’t make them wait. She lifted her voice a little so she would be heard until the whispers died down. “My presence that night was purely an accident.” Her lips quirked. “Or, at least, one of those things one calls an accident before one truly understands how Fate makes itself known in our lives. I was in a building across from the Guild, ironically enough, trying to extricate myself from a date that had turned out to be a very, very poor choice on my part. The explosion on the other side of the street was powerful enough to shatter the windows in the apartment of the man who was attacking me, and I used that as a distraction to flee from him. I made it down the stairs and out onto the street in time to see something I thought at first must be a hallucination, or a trick of the light and the smoke pouring from the ruins of the Guild. It was an enormous, winged figure soaring up into the dark sky.”
Oh, yeah, Ivy thought. That sounded plenty familiar. What was it with the Guardians and their dramatic entrances?
“Perhaps I could have dismissed the sight,” Rose continued, “had the creature not rushed back to earth and snatched me from the path of a spell thrown by a lurking nocturnis. Not many of them were on the scene, but one who was saw me standing very close to the rubble. Perhaps he thought I had escaped, or perhaps he just did not want to take a chance by leaving a witness to the Order’s crime, but that cultist tried to kill me, and it was a Guardian who saved me. The first, I believe, to waken to the call of the growing danger.”
For the first time in her life, Ivy got to witness an honest-to-goodness shocked silence. All this time she had thought it was just an expression, but it was as if Rose’s confession had knocked the wind out of all those present; or at least all those who hadn’t known the woman for more than a few hours.
“Two years.”
It was Ella who finally shattered the quiet, even her naturally soft-spoken voice sounding like a shout in the tense room.
“A Guardian rose two years ago, and never tried to contact the rest of us?” The demure art historian fisted her trembling hands on the table and glared at Rose as if she wanted to jump across the polished wood and strangle the other woman. “Because, trust me, I’d know if you had reached out. I’ve dedicated every waking moment from the first time I set eyes on a Guardian to finding the rest of them so that we could figure out what the hell the Order was up to and put a fucking stop to it!”
Kees looked almost as surprised as the rest of them to hear his mate use that kind of language. He draped his arm across her shoulders and pulled her against him, his hands stroking as if to soothe. From what Ivy could see, Ella didn’t want to be soothed.
“We’ve all been searching high and low for the other Guardians, for other Wardens, for anyone who could help us deal with this nightmare,” the irate woman continued. “And you’re going to sit there looking like a goddamned ice princess and tell us you were here all along, but you didn’t contact us because you had your reasons? That’s bullshit. Fuck your reasons, and fuck you!”
On the other side of Ella, Felicity reached out to grasp her friend’s hand while glaring daggers at Rose. The tough platinum-blonde barely stayed in her seat and most of that had to do with her own Guardian, Spar, pressing a firm hand on her shoulder. Still, he didn’t look any happier with the situation than either of the human females.
“Where is our brother, then?” he demanded, pinning Rose with a blazing stare. “Why is he not with us right now explaining for himself why he abandoned his family? What kind of Guardian allows his Warden to make excuses for him?”
Rose laced her fingers together over her stomach, the only betrayal of her anxiety. Her expression remained cool and serene, the picture of the ice princess Ella had accused her of being. “Ghrem cannot leave his post. It is why all communication with the rest of you has so far come from me. Please believe that I understand you feel betrayed by our actions, but please allow me to explain why we have had no choice.”
Wynn pursed her lips, looking no happier than her friends. Oddly, Kylie (the Warden Ivy had pegged as the most outspoken) was the only one not watching Rose with an expression of distrust and anger. The small, usually vibrant hacker appeared intent but neutral in the face of Rose’s upsetting tale.
“You can give it a shot,” Wynn said, “but I hope you don’t have any money riding on us being happy about it.”
Beside her, Ivy could hear Baen’s snarl of agreement. He had tensed like a coiled spring at hearing the Frenchwoman’s story, but he’d remained in his chair. Ivy figured the surprising restraint from all the Guardians had its foundation in their innate sense of honor and the fact that Rose was an unprotected woman. Those two small facts were probably the only things standing between their hostess and whatever the French word was for “body bag.”
“Thank you.” Rose nodded to Wynn, choosing to accept her words at face value instead of reacting to the sarcasm evident in her tone. “Ghrem took me immediately from the scene of the explosion. There was nothing we could do for anyone inside. They would have died instantly, and the few nocturnis fled immediately at the first sound of emergency sirens. They had no desire to face the police or firefighters who rushed to the scene. Sales lâches.”
She spat out the French insult, and Ivy didn’t have to speak the language to understand the woman’s contempt for the Order’s thugs. The meaning came through loud and clear.
“Also, I admit that I did not cooperate easily with my Guardian,” Rose admitted, color staining her cheeks. “I panicked when he snatched me up, and I fought to escape him even as he took to the skies. I don’t know what I was thinking, or if I was thinking at all. I could have caused him to drop me, but I was terrified, and I had no idea who—or even what—he was. At least, not until he found a safe place to land and forced me to listen to him. To his crazy story.”
She shook her head. “I felt certain one of us had to be insane, n’est-ce pas? Either I had lost my mind and conjured up this strange beast with wings and claws like a devil, or his tale of an ancient association of evil cultists sworn to serve the embodiment of evil … One of these things had to be the result of madness. Nothing else made sense. It took Ghrem hours to convince me of the truth of his words and then for him to calm me enough to accept them. To accept that he had recognized me as his Warden, and that he had been woken from his sleeping spell in order to save me so that we could discover the Darkness’s latest threat and put a stop to it.”
Once again, everyone around the table seemed uncomfortably familiar with the scenario Rose described. Every one of the Wardens appeared to be recalling a situation where they had found themselves in Rose’s shoes. It was the first step in perhaps allowing them to understand the reasons for her long years of secrecy.
Perhaps. No one looked very happy yet, but then, Rose wasn’t finished with her tale.
“Perhaps if we had been able to regroup, to step back and make plans calmly, we would have been able to reach out to you all and gather you here with us sooner,” she said, “but we were not allowed to make that choice. That nocturni who had attempted to kill me had seen Ghrem rise, and he escaped to report this back to his masters. They came after us immediately.”
Her voice trembled as if she were reliving that experience, and based on her own recent trials Ivy felt inclined to sympathy. She understood fear and panic and the chaos of being chased and attacked by people who wanted you dead.
Boy, did she understand it.
“We barely escaped.” Rose shuddered, though she made an obvious attempt to control the visceral response. “Ghrem killed several of our attackers, but I had no magical skills, so I was nothing more than a liability for him. In the end, he had to turn and run in order to keep me alive. I do not think he has forgiven himself to this day for what he considers an act of cowardice. He will not listen no matter how many times I remind him that I would be dead had he made a different choice.”
Ivy could feel the impatience beginning to build in the room. Rose’s story might be heartfelt and affecting, but she still hadn’t told them what they really wanted to know—why had they stayed hidden so long, and where was Ghrem now?
Ash voiced their concerns. “And perhaps if you had made a different choice, we would have come to you sooner and helped you to put down the Order before their cause advanced this far. Did you think of that?”
To Ivy’s shock, Rose reacted to the accusation by smiling.
“Believe me, Guardian, I have thought of little else.” She bowed her head for a moment, then gathered herself to continue. “I will spare you the details of the time we spent constantly running from the Order and their minions. Eventually, frustration with our elusiveness made the nocturnis turn their attention back to their strategy to wipe out the Guild. If they neutralized the Wardens, they believed the rest of the Guardians would remain asleep and the greatest force for the opposition would no longer be a threat. That was bad enough, but we quickly learned that they had an even more dangerous plan. They began to work on freeing the Seven.”
“We know that,” Fil said. “They succeeded, too. At least four times.”
Rose turned her head and met the blonde’s gaze. “Six. All but one walk free even as we speak. Only Belgrethnakkar remains imprisoned.”
The Guardians erupted, knocking over chairs and shouting expletives, demanding explanations and details so that they could go after the Demons immediately. No one could accuse them of not being passionate about their work, Ivy conceded, but as she exchanged glances with the other Wardens, she thought the women might all be thinking the same thing—that the big, bad warriors needed to take a deep breath and realize that sound tactics always emerged victorious over blind rage.
If the galumphs didn’t chill out and start thinking instead of simply reacting, they were going to get themselves—and every other being on the face of the planet—killed. Personally, Ivy had other plans for her future.
Unfortunately, the Guardians were on a roll. They stomped around, shouting and gesticulating, several of them spontaneously shifting hands into claws or starting to sprout wings before they got themselves back under control. It was crazy, and it was so loud that they couldn’t hear any of their Wardens’ urgings to calm down and plant their asses back in their chairs.
Finally, Drum made a sour face, climbed up onto the table, put his fingers to his lips, and gave a whistle so loud and shrill that silence immediately descended. Except for the distant howling of a dog coming from outside the manor.
Seriously, it had been that loud.
When Ivy shot Drum a look that conveyed how impressed she was, he shrugged and slid back into his chair. “My pub gets a wee bit rowdy now and then. Sometimes, I need to get the customers’ attention.”
“Thank you, Warden.” Rose nodded to him and made shooing motions to urge the Guardians back to their seats. They ignored her, of course, but at least they kept quiet. “No one is more disturbed by this situation than Ghrem and I—”
“Then where the bloody hell is he?” Baen demanded. “No more secrets or evasions. Where is our brother?”
“He is in the between, personally guarding the entrance to the Seed of Darkness’s prison.”
Baen sucked in a breath and actually backed up a step. Several of the other Guardians looked as if they’d just been clocked upside the head with cricket bats, and Wynn the witch looked as if she wanted to throw up. She pressed her fingers against her lips and opened her eyes so wide that Ivy wanted to find her a bucket, stat. Whatever Rose had just said had knocked most of the room for a loop, but Ivy had no idea what it meant.
She supposed the only way to find out was to ask. “Um, would someone care to explain what the hell that means? You know, for us slow kids. I thought the prisons holding the Seven Demons were supposed to be on some other plane, and I’m not a physicist or anything, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of other dimensions having doors. Unless it’s like the scare factory in Monsters, Inc., and that movie was just way ahead of its time.”
“The door isn’t literal,” Rose said. “And you are correct that the prisons do not exist on this plane. The power of the Seven is too much to be contained by any force that operates in our reality. In order to imprison it, they must be banished to other realms entirely. The between is…” The woman paused and made a face, as if confused as to how to define it. “It is what is between our realm and all the others,” she finished.
Lamely.
“Wow, that’s so helpful. Really clears things up.”
“It’s a pretty abstract concept, Ivy. It’s not exactly easy to explain,” Wynn said, moving her fingers away from her mouth to reach out for her Guardian. He returned immediately to her side and grasped her hands in his. “The between isn’t tangible. From a lot of perspectives, it doesn’t really exist. It’s like standing in a doorway between two rooms. For that moment you’re not in one room or the other, you’re on the threshold, which is another space entirely.”
Ivy tried to picture that and felt a headache coming on. “You’re right. It’s not easy to explain, because I still don’t get it.”
“You don’t really have to. All you have to understand is that things aren’t meant to linger in the between, just like they aren’t meant to linger in doorways. To do either has the potential to cause all sorts of trouble. It’s incredibly, unbelievably dangerous, and if Ghrem is really there, then he’s taking a major risk.”
Rose nodded. “Believe me, he knows. As do I. We have searched again and again for another way to ensure the Order cannot free the last of their Masters, but this has been the only thing that has kept the Seed of Darkness contained. You all know what will happen if all of the Seven make it into our realm at once. They will be united, and the Darkness will descend upon our world.”
“Which I think we can all agree would be totally ferkakta,” Kylie piped up from the other end of the table. She had dragged Dag back to his chair, and he in turn had tugged his tiny mate into his lap. She addressed them all from her perch there like a queen from her throne (a deranged queen from a throne prone to glaring at anyone who looked at her cross-eyed, but still). “The thing is, Rosie-posy, that I think the reason you did finally get us all together in one place is not because of how dire the situation is now; it’s because you and your pals Baldy and Hunky over there have a plan.”
Kylie waved a hand in the direction of Aldous and Thiago, who had sat through the entire morning silent and watchful. Thiago smiled at the hacker, and Dag didn’t just glare, he bared his fangs and snarled a warning at the handsome Spaniard. Apparently he wasn’t thrilled that his mate referred to the other man as “hunky.”
“So.” Kylie ignored her mate and raised an eyebrow in Rose’s direction. “Care to share with the rest of the class?”
A grin split Rose’s face, transforming her features from cool and elegant to vibrant and gorgeous. “I’d love to,” she purred, and Ivy actually leaned forward in her seat.
She had to hear this.