Chapter Eight

A heavy knock rattled the front door at barely half past nine the next morning.

In the kitchen, Martin gave a sharp squeak and jumped so hard, he sloshed a full cup of tea out over his hand. Then he squeaked again at the pain of the scalding liquid. Ivy turned to glance at Baen, also surprised but hardly ready to panic.

“No one should know we’re here,” she said even as she pushed out of her chair and set down her half-eaten slice of toast. “Hopefully, it’s just kids working for some fund-raiser or other.”

“At this time of morning? On a school day?” Martin shook his head and darted a glance at the back door. “We should run.”

“We should keep calm,” Baen said, and followed Ivy into the hall.

Another knock sounded, even louder than the last.

“That does not sound like kids,” Martin hissed from behind them. “For God’s sake, don’t open it!”

Ivy ignored him. Not that she yanked the panel wide and invited in every stranger and demon passing in the street, but she stood on her toes to peek out the judas hole. The distorted image of two people, a man and a woman, looked calmly back at her.

She settled back on her heels and turned to look at Baen.

It was an action she had so far avoided this morning. Waking up alone in a strange bed, in a strange house, had been one thing, but then the memories of her failed attempt to get Martin to France had flooded back, followed by the attack by the demons, followed by the appearance of the Guardian.

Followed by that Kiss.

It earned that capital letter.

Not because it was the best kiss she had ever received, or the hottest, or even the most unexpected. It got the big K because it had shaken her down to her pink-polished toenails, even though she couldn’t be entirely sure she hadn’t imagined it.

She couldn’t have, right? Ivy wasn’t the sort of girl who went around imagining that men had kissed her when they really hadn’t, not even when she found them ridiculously attractive and they carried her to bed when she nearly passed out from exhaustion. She didn’t. Honest.

Which could only mean that Baen had kissed her.

Why?

A third knock made her jump, which made her cheeks turn the approximate color of ripe pomegranate. She knew from experience that the shade was oh so becoming on her, especially now, since she had removed her wig and makeup as soon as she had woken up that morning. If past experience was any indicator, she probably looked like the illegitimate offspring of Bozo the Clown and the Great Pumpkin.

“Two people,” she managed to spit out, shifting her gaze to somewhere over Baen’s left ear. “I don’t recognize them, but they look pretty normal.”

He maintained the same stony expression he’d worn all morning. The one that had made her start questioning the reality of the Kiss. “I detect no energy of the Darkness, but you will step back while I ascertain their identities.”

Her red cheeks and embarrassment left Ivy incapable of offering up a protest at the overprotective order. At least, that’s what she told herself. It sounded better than admitting to herself that she leaped to obey his commands like some meek little miss.

Baen slid back the bolt from its latch, then opened the main lock to pull the door ajar a bare few inches. He didn’t bother to offer a greeting, just gazed out at the figures on the stoop like a bouncer at the door to a club.

From her vantage point behind him, Ivy couldn’t see anything more than she had spied out the peephole. She recalled a woman of average height with an athletic figure and dark hair, as well as a tall, wiry man with a swimmer’s build and hair that fell in tousled waves. Like she had told Baen, they had looked normal to her.

Then she heard the woman speak and “normal” morphed into a relative thing.

“Thank the Light, it is you. We had feared the message was a mistake, or even a trap. Welcome back, brother. It is very good to see you.”

Brother?

Startled, Ivy stepped to the side and tried to scoot around Baen’s imposing form to get a better look at their visitors. His arm shot out to block her path and keep her from moving past his side. She looked up at him, back to the dark-haired woman, then back to Baen.

“What’s going on?” she demanded. “I thought ‘brother’ was what you guys called each other. What gives?”

The woman turned her gaze to Ivy and her brow furrowed. “Are you his Warden, female?”

“Female?” Ivy repeated with a snort. “Well, I suppose that’s more original than plain ol’ ‘bitch.’ Who the hell are you? And what do you mean, am I his Warden?”

The man on the steps inched forward and placed his hand on his companion’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Sorry. Ash didn’t mean to sound insulting. She hasn’t quite gotten the hang of the local vernacular, if you take my meaning.”

He had a lyrical Irish accent, nothing too thick, just enough to complement his relaxed air. An air that was completely lacking in his female friend.

He extended his free hand and offered it to them with a smile. “My name is Michael Drummond, and this is my partner, Ash. We saw the ad you posted on Craigslist last night and came over on the first plane. May we come in?”

Baen ignored Michael’s outstretched hand, but Ivy shook it reflexively.

“The ad?” she repeated, casting the Guardian beside her a sideways glance full of questions. He didn’t so much as twitch. “What ad are you referring to? Specifically.”

“The one that said a Guardian had woken here in London and was seeking others of his kind,” Ash said bluntly. “Others like me.”

“Like you?” She couldn’t help it. Ivy glanced from the brunette woman in front of her to the hulking male mountain by her side and back again. Several times. She somehow failed to see the resemblance. “Are you trying to tell us that you’re a Guardian?”

Her incredulous tone might not have been all that polite, but she just couldn’t help it. There was no such thing as a female Guardian.

Was there?

“What do you know of Guardians, female?” Baen finally asked, his voice emerging as a low, menacing growl. “Clearly it cannot be much if you do not understand that they are warriors, not nursemaids.”

“Oh, feck,” Michael hissed, visibly wincing as he took two large steps to the side, until he nearly fell off the steps. He shot Ivy a wry glance. “You might want to back up there a bit. He’s going to be sorry he said that.”

It didn’t take Ivy long to understand what he meant.

The woman called Ash didn’t even bother to reply to Baen’s insulting words or his sneering expression. Instead, she simply stepped forward into the shadows of the threshold and reached out with an arm that was suddenly gray and muscular and tipped with lethally sharp claws. She snapped her fingers closed around the Guardian’s throat—the other Guardian’s throat, Ivy suddenly understood—and bared a set of long, intimidating fangs.

“Would you care to rephrase that, brother?” Ash spit out, her own growl more than a match for Baen’s. “Or should I rip out your throat and let the Guardian who takes your place offer his apology in your stead?”

Baen remained silent, and Ivy shot frantic glances around the assembly, waiting for someone to do something sensible. When her gaze lit on Michael, he just shrugged as if to indicate he had tried to warn them.

Wondering where she had left her sanity, Ivy stepped forward, insinuating her much smaller frame between the two snarling Guardians. “Wow, way to get the family reunion off to an exciting start.” She tried to offer Ash a smile, but she had the feeling it looked more like a pained grimace. “I apologize for Baen. He’s been a little grumpy this morning. We had kind of a rough night. Do you think you could let him go now? I mean, yes, that was a lousy thing for him to say, but you kind of took us by surprise. We weren’t even sure anyone would see that Craigslist ad, let alone respond this quickly. Please?” she added when Ash didn’t move. “I think we should all sit down inside and talk. Okay?”

It took another several heartbeats—admittedly, racing ones—before Ash released her grip and swept past Baen into the front hall. “Fine, but we must talk quickly. It is important that we all begin our journey as soon as possible.”

“Journey? What journey?” Baen demanded, grudgingly responding to Ivy’s nudge and moving to allow their visitors inside.

“To Paris,” Michael said. “My sister said that we all need to get to Paris as soon as possible.”

“Your sister said.”

Ivy could hear the skepticism and frustration vibrating through Baen’s flat tone and instinctively reached out to lay a hand on his arm. “No offense, but I think we’re going to need a little more information than that before we pack up and take your word for it, Michael.”

“Drum. Only my mother calls me Michael.”

“As I said, we must talk quickly.” Ash glared at her partner. “The basic information you require is this. Five of the Guardians have woken before you. The other four are in North America. We have all made contact and have been working together to battle the worst of the threats from the Darkness, but in the past weeks, the situation has escalated to the point that we can no longer be everywhere that our presence is required. Among us, we have been able to confirm the escape of at least five of the Seven into the human realm.”

Ivy felt the muscle under her hand jump and saw Baen stiffen until he should have been shaking with the tension.

“Five?” he repeated, sounding incredulous. “By the Light, how has such a thing been allowed to happen?”

“The Guild has been compromised. The Order launched a covert war against them some time ago, and they have managed to murder more than half of the existing Wardens over the past two to three years.”

Ivy nodded to Ash. “I already explained about the Guild, about the headquarters being destroyed, and about the survivors going into hiding. Baen is aware of all that.”

The female Guardian switched her focus to Ivy. “Then you are his Warden.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

Baen spoke over her denial, fixing her with a glare.

She sighed and tried to explain. “I’m not a member of the Guild. Baen seems to think that I must be his Warden. Although I have Wardens in my family—had them,” she clarified, “—I was never recruited. I never took the Guild’s entrance exam, never had any contact from them, and have absolutely no training. I wouldn’t know how to cast a spell if you tattooed it on the back of my hand.”

“Welcome to the club.” Michael’s dry tone caught her attention and she looked to see him sporting a crooked smile. “You’ll get your membership pin and personalized jacket in your welcome packet by post.”

“I can’t be a Warden.”

“You may protest all you like, but I will warn you that it changed nothing for the five new Wardens before you,” Ash told her bluntly. Ivy was beginning to think Ash did everything bluntly. “Each Guardian who has woken in the past months has claimed a Warden with no previous training or connection to the Guild. I believe the human expression would say they had ‘on-the-job training.’”

Ivy glanced at Baen, then back to their two visitors. Neither of them appeared to be joking about any of this. Hello, brain overload.

“So, you’re really serious? You really think I’m some kind of latent Warden, even though I’ve been working with surviving Wardens in hiding for the past eight months or more and not one of them has ever said anything to indicate I might be one of them? How is it that more than a dozen Guild members spent all that time with me, and that idea was never even tossed onto the front step, let alone had the cat wander anywhere near it?”

Ash raised an eyebrow. “How many of those Wardens you worked with were male?”

“All of them.” Duh. Ivy left the “duh” to be implied. What sort of question was that, anyway? Wardens were always male. She had never even heard of a female Guild member.

When Ash said nothing more, Ivy started to get irritated. She was about to snap something quite rude when Michael—when Drum—stepped in.

“You’d get a much longer and more passionate explanation on this subject from Wynn,” he said with another of those crooked smiles. “She’s in America. Chicago, to be precise, with her Guardian, Knox. By now she’s probably formed the International Wardens’ Committee to Combat Gender Discrimination. It’s a bit of a pet subject of hers, and she’d be happy to tell you I’m the only new Warden who turned out to be male, just like Ash is the only Guardian—ever, as it happens—who turned out to be female. All the other new recruits are ladies, just like yourself.”

“Which means that the Guild will be faced with some very harsh truths about its practice of excluding females, once it re-forms,” Ash said. “But in the meantime, all the previously existing members remain male, and they remain oblivious to the idea that females could possibly number among their kind.”

“Sexism?” Ivy’s mind reeled and she felt like laughing. “You’re telling me the explanation is good old-fashioned male chauvinism? Seriously?”

Ash shrugged. “If the pig foot fits…”

“Then I’m really a Warden? Baen’s Warden?”

“I informed you thusly.”

Ivy spun on Baen and stared at him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Literally. For the first time in her life, she truly got that expression. “You did not just tell me you told me so.”

Drum almost tripped over himself stepping into the fray. “Ah, my friends, that’s really not the issue of the moment, now is it? The important point to remember is that the Guild as such doesn’t really exist anymore, so we can’t rely on getting assistance from a large force of Wardens against the Order, let alone the Seven. That makes it even more important than ever that we all work together on this, all six of the Guardians who’ve woken, along with their Wardens. If we don’t, we might as well start dabbing vinegar behind our ears so we’re ready when the Demons come to gobble us down like hot chips.”

“Then your sister has also proven to be a Warden to one of my brothers.” Baen glanced at Ash, frowned, then grudgingly corrected himself. “Siblings.”

Ash bared her teeth at him. Wow, they really did act just like family.

“No,” Drum said. “But she has the Sight. Maeve can see events before they happen, and she’s had a vision that says we all need to be in Paris for whatever’s coming at us. If we’re not…” He shook his head. “She wouldn’t even tell me what she saw happening if we’re not there, but when she first came out of the vision she spent twenty minutes bent over the toilet, heaving up her guts. I figure that’s a pretty fair indication we might want to avoid that alternative.”

“We have already discussed this with the others, and they agree that a major strike by the Order in Paris would be logical,” Ash said. “It is the traditional stronghold of the Guild, and we speculate that any who survived the destruction of the headquarters might not have scattered far from the city. There is also a strong possibility that Wardens who received news of the attack there might have been drawn back in hopes of lending assistance, or even on the slim chance of finding that the news had been false and the Guild still stood.”

Ivy nodded. “You’re right on both counts. Both those things did happen. Survivors did remain in Paris, and more returned right after the fire. They were the ones who established the network to gather up the Wardens who went into hiding and get them to safety. I’ve been working with them since I got to England.” She briefly related the story of her uncle’s death and how it had drawn her to England and spurred her mission to save any surviving Guild members. “We try to remain anonymous, even to each other, though, so I can’t tell you exactly how to find Asile. I can let him know about you, though, next time I hear from him. I sent a message last night, about Baen, so he should contact me soon.”

“That’s fantastic news.” Drum glanced at Ash and squeezed her hand. “Better than we had hoped for, in fact. We were starting to fear that we weren’t going to find any surviving members of the Guild. The others have been searching for a while now, with no luck.”

“They’re kind of a wary bunch at this point,” Ivy said. “We’ve worked out ways to get through to them, but mostly we’ve had to let them come to us. Anyone who’s actively seeking them out is looked at with a lot of suspicion in case they turn out to be nocturni. The Order hasn’t given up on finding and killing all the Wardens they missed in their earlier strikes.”

“We never believed they had.”

“Knowing the survivors have gathered in the city makes it that much more important that we make our way to Paris as well,” Ash said. “We will contact the others and confirm that a sixth Guardian has woken and urge them all to make their way to us immediately. If what Maeve has seen is correct—and she is never wrong—our most important battle will be fought in that place. We must gather all of our numbers and prepare ourselves for war against the Darkness.”

Oh, goodie. Didn’t that sound like fun times?

“You should return with us to Dublin,” the female Guardian continued. “This dwelling is not warded. It cannot remain safe from the nocturnis for long. Our home is much more secure and several of the others have been there before. They will have no trouble locating us so that we may organize our approach to Paris.”

“Whoa, hold on a minute.” Ivy threw on the brakes with a palms-out gesture. “Why should we go to Dublin? Last time I checked, that was in the opposite direction from Paris. Besides, I still have stuff to do here. I need to contact Asile, I need to deal with the guy in the kitchen, and most importantly, I need a while to digest what’s going on here. You can’t just pour this stuff down my throat and expect me to swallow it, no problem. I am not nineteen years old, and this is no beer funnel. It’s going to take a little getting used to.”

“You can think and pack at the same time,” Baen growled at her. “I also dislike plans made by others on my behalf, but if these two are correct, then it is a sensible course of action.”

“Wait a second,” Drum interrupted. “What guy in the kitchen? What are you talking about?”

Ivy wished she had a CliffsNotes summary of the past eighteen hours so she could just hand the newcomers a copy and not have to keep filling in the blanks for them. “Martin. He’s the Warden I was trying to get to France last night when demons attacked us and Baen woke up to rescue us. It’s kind of a long story. Can we talk about it later and settle this trip to Dublin thing first?”

No one answered her, probably because the question hadn’t been directed at Baen, and he was the only one left standing in the hallway after their visitors both spun on their heels and sprinted toward the back of the house. Confused, Ivy sent her Guardian a questioning glance and then hurried after them.

“Hey, what’s going on?” she called out before she even reached the door to the kitchen. When she pushed it open, she found Drum leaning against the counter and cursing as she gazed out the window. Ash stood on the open threshold of the back entrance with her skin turning stony gray. Fangs already flashed behind lips curled into a snarl.

Martin was nowhere to be seen.

“What happened?” Ivy demanded. “Where’s Martin? Did you scare him off? He’s kind of jumpy at the best of times.”

Ash growled something in a language Ivy didn’t recognize. Presumably a dead one. If it hadn’t been dead before, it might very well have keeled over the second it got a glimpse of the fury on the female Guardian’s face.

Drum shoved away from the window. He didn’t look much happier than his partner, but at least he didn’t appear ready to disembowel whoever happened to be standing closest to him.

“You’re seeing what we saw,” he said, shaking his head. “We ran in to find the room empty and the back door hanging wide.”

“Did he run away? That’s just stupid. He saw what happened when those demons attacked last night. He wouldn’t last three seconds alone if another one found him.”

“Oh, he has been found.” Ash finally managed to speak. Her voice was tight and hoarse with rage, but intelligible. Mostly. “He has been found by the nocturnis.”

“As if that is any better.” Baen’s temper appeared to be fraying even as Ash struggled to get a grip on hers.

“What? How can you know that? Who’s to say he didn’t just lose his mind and decide to strike off on his own? He was pretty freaked out when you guys rang the bell. He immediately decided you were the Order and you were after him.”

Baen’s nostrils flared as he drew in a deep breath. “No, it was nocturnis. You can smell them.”

“Um, actually, no I can’t.”

“I can,” Ash agreed. “Like the inside of a slaughterhouse. Blood and offal and Darkness. They were here, and your friend left with them.”

“They took him? I let him get kidnapped right under my damned nose? Great. Like the plan exploding last night wasn’t bad enough. I have never lost a Warden before.”

“I doubt you lost this one, either. I believe he wandered off all on his own.”

“What?”

Drum swept his hand around the room in an encompassing gesture. “Look around. There are no signs of struggle. Nothing broken, no blood. Not so much as a spilled cup or an overturned chair. If someone did take the Warden out of here against his will, he didn’t put up much of a fight.”

“Or any fight at all,” Baen agreed. He moved to where Ash stood in the doorway they had all come in through the night before. He crouched and peered at the floor and the cobbles in the drive behind the building. “No drag marks, no scuffs. No indications anyone carried something as heavy as a body. It appears that anyone who entered the kitchen left again under their own power, walking calmly.”

“So what are you saying?” Ivy demanded. “Are you trying to tell me that Martin wasn’t a Warden after all? That he was some kind of imposter?”

“Not necessarily an imposter, but perhaps one with divided loyalties. Some of us have suspected that the Guild headquarters could not have been destroyed unless a member or members had aided in the planning and execution,” Ash said. “Some of the most powerful wards and magical protections in the world guarded that place, and yet it burned to the ground, killing dozens of high-level Wardens with formidable powers of defense at their disposal. Infiltration by those under the influence of the Order seems the only logical explanation.”

Ivy snorted. “I don’t see it’s logical to assume that anyone could possibly turn to the Darkness after having seen and learned what it’s capable of, let alone what it wants to achieve. What kind of person learns that there’s something out there that wants to destroy the world and enslave and consume humanity and says, ‘Hey, sign me up’? It’s ridiculous.”

“It is about power,” Baen said. “It is something that has corrupted more than one devout human throughout the ages. From wise men to fools, your race seems to be vulnerable to the temptation posed by promises of power over others.”

“Gee, thanks. Nice to know you think so highly of us.”

Ash shrugged. “You did ask.”

When would Ivy finally learn not to go looking for answers she knew she wouldn’t like? Not today, apparently.

“So what do we do now?” Even if she didn’t like the answer to that question either, it was still important to know, and she damned sure had no idea of her own. “Do we go after him? Even if he doesn’t want to be rescued, which we don’t know for certain.”

“It seems most likely he left willingly.” Drum at least tried to sound apologetic about it. He appeared to possess the only ounce of diplomacy left in the room. “When whoever came here to fetch him, he didn’t cry out for help, and he didn’t struggle. That sort of points toward him leaving voluntarily. But either way, we have no way of knowing where he’s gone, and I’m afraid we don’t have the time to mount a large-scale search. Maeve’s vision was urgent. We need to get all the Guardians we have to Paris as soon as possible.”

“We had hoped to have all seven of us together before we reached this point,” Ash said, her stern expression drawing into a frown, “but finding our sixth is better than having only five.”

“I am overwhelmed by your effusive welcome, sister,” Baen said, and Ivy found herself holding her breath waiting for Ash to fly at him again. This time, she felt pretty confident blood would be shed.

Instead, the female Guardian must have caught the teasing note in Baen’s voice because she merely kicked him in the thigh with a desultory motion. “I have no doubt I could overwhelm you with both wings pinned to my back,” she said, “but as my Warden has already indicated, we all have better things to do.”

“Aaaannnnd now the world has stopped making sense,” Ivy muttered to herself. “But never let it be said I can’t play along.” She raised her voice and glared at the room at large, unsure who was irritating her the most at the moment. “You all want to go to Dublin, we’ll go to Dublin, but I need a few minutes to pack my passport and my toothbrush. The oncoming apocalypse is no reason to neglect dental hygiene. Or spend seventeen hours getting searched and interrogated by airport and national security forces.”

No one responded to her sarcastic tone, but she saw Drum’s lips twitch before he covered them and coughed into his palm. Baen simply nodded.

“You should also check for a message from your French contact. Perhaps he can offer more information about the situation into which we will be arriving.”

Ivy felt a twitch at the corner of her eye. “Thanks.”

She spun on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen. If she didn’t get thirty seconds to herself right then, she felt positive a brain aneurysm would feature prominently in her immediate future.

Luckily, none of the others followed. She assumed they remained in the room to bond over the best way to behead a nocturni, or maybe which spells best simulated gallows hangings. How the hell should she know? She only cared that they stayed where they were and gave her some breathing room.

What the hell was happening?

The question rattled around in her brain like a pinball while she sank onto the desk chair in the little front room and waited for the computer to boot up. She had thought the change in her life from being a carefree New York technical writer—whose biggest problem was how to translate High Geek into a form of English understandable to the average person with an eighth-grade education—to becoming an undercover vigilante working to smuggle Wardens between nations had felt surreal. Ha! The last eighteen hours had taken her from the foundational concepts of Freud’s psychology to the middle of a Max Ernst painting without passing go, let alone collecting two hundred bloody dollars. Her mind wasn’t just reeling; she had to wonder if her grip on reality was slipping.

After all, here she was with the Warden she had been trying to save apparently run off to join the enemy, while in the other room, two creatures of legend and an Irishman who supposedly had magical powers were probably sipping tea and chatting like old friends. And she was about to leave with them to visit foreign countries and save the universe from the ultimate evil.

Put that way, she should stop wondering about her sanity. Clearly, that cat was already out of the bag and galloping away on the back of the horse who’d gotten out through the barn door she hadn’t closed. And any other animalian metaphors she could possible come up with.

Well, if she were to look on the bright side, maybe she could use her obvious descent into mental illness to explain away her nagging attraction to Baen. Only a lunatic developed the hots for a shapeshifting gargoyle she’d only met a few hours ago, right?

It had to be the hots—basic chemistry, elemental sexual attraction. The product of going too long without a date, let alone sex or anything even remotely resembling a romantic relationship. If she could just dismiss it as that, Ivy could almost forgive herself for those pesky little feelings. After all, when he wasn’t seven feet tall and made of stone, Baen was gorgeous. Like drop-dead-sexy, male-model, movie-star gorgeous. He had that rugged, masculine face that kept him from looking prettier than she did, and his body could make her grandmother sit up and fan herself. And granny had been dead for twenty years. It was no wonder Ivy found him physically attractive. No one could blame her for that.

But could they blame her for the something else she felt when he got close to her?

She tried to shove the thought away, but it kept creeping back and poking at her, like a fingertip to the rib cage. Jamie used to do that to try and rile her at the dinner table during family visits. It had always worked when she was a kid, and damn it, but it was working now.

The problem was that she didn’t know precisely what that something was that she felt whenever Baen was near her. Sure, the zip of attraction was there, but it felt like something else simmered in the background along with it, she just couldn’t figure out what to call it.

Affinity, maybe?

No, that was a weak word. Hell, she had affinity for cheese and onion crisps and a nice glass of milk. It didn’t describe her reaction to the Guardian. She just always seemed aware of him when he was close, like she could reach out with her eyes closed and point out exactly where he stood and what expression he wore and how he was carrying himself in that moment. Like she knew him on a level she didn’t think she had ever known anyone, not friends, not lovers, not even family. And she couldn’t figure out how that could happen.

Ivy hated not being able to figure things out. She explained things for a living, for God’s sake; she had to be pretty good at understanding concepts and breaking them down into easy-to-comprehend language. If she couldn’t she didn’t get paid. Yet here she was, entirely baffled by one man—sort of—with a strange effect on her. If she could, she would have fired herself over this.

“Well? Do you have news from France?”

Baen’s voice made her jump half out of her chair and land back on her butt with a jolt. She felt her face flushing lobster red and tried to hide it by keeping her head turned toward the computer. Stupid fair skin.

“Uh, I don’t know yet,” she said, fiddling with the mouse. “This is an old system, so it takes a while to boot up. Here we go. Now I can check.”

She felt him step up behind her and tried not to go all tense and idiotic, but when his hands rested on the back of her chair, knuckles accidentally brushing her shoulder blades, she had to fight to force her shoulders down from around her ears.

She also had to fight to remember what she’d been doing. The Guardian’s presence really did scramble her brain.

Her e-mail server’s Web page popped up in response to her earlier command, and thankfully pointed her in the correct direction. Message. France. Asile. Right. She could do this. Honest.

A couple of clicks, and the brief lines appeared in the e-mail window. There was no salutation, no idle questions about the weather or her health. There were less than two dozen words, brief, stark, and to the point.

If sincere, bring your new friend immediately. Meet tomorrow 6 P.M. Louvre pyramid, north side. Will wear blue, yellow flower. Secrecy vital.

It was signed “Asile.”

Ivy frowned at the screen, an uncertain feeling tightening in her belly. “That sounds … urgent. And kind of alarming.”

“How well do you know this person?”

Ivy swiveled her chair to see Ash and Drum enter from the hall, both looking serious. Not that Ash didn’t always look serious, but Drum usually appeared more relaxed. “We’ve been working together since I first got to England and got involved with moving the Wardens. Asile basically runs the network, and he set up the safe house in Paris and oversees that, too. Why?”

“But you have not actually met,” Ash prompted.

“No. He’s in Paris and I’m here. Why?” Her mind flashed to their conversation over Martin, and she scowled. “Don’t tell me you’re trying to imply that Asile is another traitor? For God’s sake, he’s gotten dozens and dozens of Wardens away from the Order; he doesn’t work for them!”

“How do you know? Have you maintained contact with the Wardens once they arrived in Paris?”

Ivy froze, her throat tightening. “Well, no. But that wouldn’t be safe. Too much chance of me being identified, or communication being intercepted and leading the Order to me or to them. But I get word when they get to the safe house to let me know everything went smoothly.”

“Word from Asile.”

“Who else?” Ivy snapped.

“Then you cannot be absolutely certain that the Wardens are safe,” Ash said, her expression hard. “You cannot be certain that this safe house even exists, let alone that it is where the Wardens go after you leave them in France. You have no proof that this contact of yours does not collect them from you and pass them straight into the hands of the nocturnis.”

Bile welled in Ivy’s throat. Reflexively, she pressed her fingers to her mouth and swallowed hard. It took a few deep breaths before she could manage to speak again. “You think I’ve actually been helping the Order all this time? That I’ve been handing survivors over to their deaths. Is that what you’re telling me? That I’m an accomplice to murder? Am I?”

Drum stepped forward then, laying a hand on Ash’s shoulder when she would have spoken again. “No one is accusing you of being on the side of the Darkness, Ivy. We all know you’ve been doing what you thought you needed to do to save the Wardens. Ash is just worried that you could have been lied to. These days, it’s hard to know who to trust.”

Ivy knew the man was only trying to make her feel better, but he wasn’t. She wanted to vomit. The very idea that she had been sending Wardens to their deaths when she had wanted so desperately to save them from the same fate that had taken her uncle and cousin felt like a punch to the heart. A Guardian’s punch, since it packed an inhuman amount of force. How was she supposed to live with it if that turned out to be the truth?

Her hands shook as she struggled to keep control. Spewing her breakfast all over the shoes of the assembled company wasn’t going to do anyone any good, and she had the definite feeling that it wasn’t going to make her feel any better, anyway. She wasn’t sure anything could make her feel better.

“So what do I do, then?” she asked, her throat so tight she had to force the words through it. “Do I not reply? Do we not go to France? What happens now? Asile has a whole network of people like me all over the world. We can’t just let him keep collecting Wardens for the Order. We can’t let those people keep dying.”

Baen crouched down beside her chair and took Ivy’s hands in his. “Calm yourself, little human. We have no proof that your contact is involved with the nocturnis. Ash merely speculates on one possibility out of many. Don’t you?” He turned his head to glare at the other Guardian.

Ash shrugged. “We have no proof that my speculation is incorrect, either.”

“Not helping, love,” Drum murmured.

Ivy looked at Baen. Somehow his dark gaze made her feel steadier. Stronger. She drew in a shaking breath. “So what do we do?” she repeated, asking just him this time. He was the one she trusted, even as short of a time as she had known him.

“I think we must go to France,” he said, squeezing her hands. “We may discover that Ash suffers from paranoia where your contact is concerned. If that is true, he can take us to the other Wardens and we may begin to plan a way in which we may strike back against the Darkness.”

“But what if she’s right about Asile?”

Baen’s mouth firmed and his eyes bled back into the fiery darkness of his natural form. “If she is right, then I will kill him, and I will destroy any who have assisted him in strengthening the Order. The Wardens will be avenged.”

“We will destroy them, brother,” Ash corrected. “You should not go to Paris alone. If my worst fears are confirmed, there must be an entire sect of nocturnis in the city. They would need numbers in order to operate such a highly organized system.”

Drum reached into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. “If we’re not going back to Dublin first, I need to contact the others and tell them the new plan. Should they just head straight to Paris and meet us there?”

Ivy listened to the others debate strategy for a few seconds before a pinging sound from the computer drew her attention back to the monitor. A new window had opened on the screen. It looked like a news bulletin. Harris must have set up some sort of alert system to notify him whenever certain headlines appeared on designated Internet sites. This one came from a major international news outlet. As she scanned it, her eyes got wider and wider.

“Um, guys.”

They continued debating behind her back.

“Guys!”

This time, at least Baen turned to look at her. “What is it?”

“This.” She pointed at the news blurb. “There’s been a major bombing in Belfast. They’re calling it the biggest terrorist attack in more than twenty-five years.”

“That’s unexpected,” Drum said, frowning and moving closer to read the article for himself. “The Troubles have calmed down quite a lot. They still have incidents in the North, but nothing on this scale. They’re right about that. Not in years and years.”

Ivy moved her finger down to the bottom of the story. “The authorities are claiming the explosives were accompanied by some sort of nerve-gas release that caused hallucinations in many of the witnesses, who claimed to have seen hooded figures and demons in the chaos.”

Drum swore, creatively enough that Ivy actually learned a few things. “We need to get there fast and find out what’s happened. We know the nocturnis have been actively searching for an opportunity to release the last of the Seven, and we can’t let that happen.”

“What about Paris? And if anyone says we’ll always have it, I will hurt them.” Ivy glared at the others.

Drum snorted, but the Guardians just looked confused.

“We must not fail to meet your contact,” Ash said. “If I am wrong and he is honest, to do so might frighten him into hiding and lose us access to the surviving Guild members. And if he is corrupt, it might show him that we are aware of his betrayal, which would also send him running. We can afford neither outcome.”

“Then Ivy and I shall go to Paris as planned, while you and your Warden head for Belfast.” Baen outlined the plan in firm tones. “We shall investigate both situations.”

“You know, there’s a chance this thing in Belfast is only a distraction,” Drum said. “A few months ago, the Order did something similar. They staged an attack in Boston to distract from their true target in Dublin. That plan resulted in the escape of the fourth Demon.”

Ash nodded. “It could also be a trap, an attempt to lure us into a vulnerable position. The Order knows that a Guardian has been in Ireland after the incident in the cave, but can we afford to assume that either possibility is the truth? If this strike is indeed intended to bring another of the Seven to this plane, we have no choice but to prevent it.”

“Then we’re caught between a rock and a hard place.” Ivy grimaced.

“Not necessarily,” Ash said. “We have allies to call upon. Drum, you will contact the others. Have Ella, Kees, Fil, and Spar meet us in Belfast. Wynn, Knox, Dag, and Kylie can head straight for Paris. None of us will be without backup, as the humans say.”

Baen nodded. “A sound plan. We should all leave immediately.”

Ivy turned back to the keyboard and started typing. “I’ll confirm the meeting with Asile.” And cross my fingers that he’s not an evil fuck, she added to herself. “But I still need to go back to my flat to get my passport and a couple of other things. We can still be on the road within an hour or two.”

Well, that would have been true. You know, if a loud crash from the direction of the kitchen hadn’t preceded a flood of black-clad figures racing toward them with magic, weapons, and evil leading the way.

Bloody hell.