In the center of the lawn was Axia’s pet crypsis, the tip of its near translucent body knotted around a hospital gurney. Ingrid lay tipped over, strapped into place with wide leather buckles. She thrashed beneath them, struggling wildly. Alive.
Vander, still a good ten strides ahead of Luc, stopped and leveled his crossbow at the demon snake. The snake’s tail lifted the gurney from the grass and shielded itself by wagging it back and forth in front its body like a pendulum.
“Don’t, Vander!” Gabby shouted, holding her own daggers indecisively.
Vander cursed under his breath, lowered the crossbow, and charged the serpent instead. He tore across the grass like a madman, a battle cry rending the air. With a flick of her tail, Axia’s serpent swung the bobbing gurney, catching Vander in its path, and swept him away. He cartwheeled through the air before landing flat on his back, his weapon lost on impact. Ingrid, hanging upside down, her hair a waterfall of corn silk, screamed Vander’s name.
The serpent’s tail swished again when its pearly diamond-shaped eyes locked on Luc. It tossed the gurney aside and started to slither toward the gargoyle.
Gabby didn’t waste a moment.
She streaked toward the gurney, which had tumbled to a rest, again on its side, next to the fountain. Her desperation overwhelmed Luc, fermenting in the back of his throat until it was all he could sense. The snake changed its course, flicking its tapered tail toward Gabby and coiling her waist in one thick loop. Luc raced toward the serpent, driven by the immediate burn of Gabby’s panic.
“Gabby, no!” Ingrid screamed.
Before Luc could reach her, Gabby plunged the dagger she’d been holding through the milky scales squeezing her. The serpent hissed and spit, arching and undulating until it had uncoiled Gabby and bucked her off. Luc forced his wings to open despite the agony of it, and pushed off the grass. He’d barely caught her before his wings crinkled shut yet again, sending them both crashing to the ground.
“Move back,” Luc ordered Gabby, who lay stunned behind him, as the serpent targeted him once more.
He considered his pathetic wings and poisoned muscles. They had made him weak. Nearly as weak as a human. He realized then that Vander hadn’t charged the snake thinking he could best it. He’d done it because there was nothing else to do.
Luc made his decision. He would leave this place with Ingrid, or he wouldn’t leave at all.
Ingrid screamed as the serpent glided over the lawn toward Luc.
As always, Luc’s wings were two sheets of night, his scaled armor reflecting facets of onyx. But there was something seriously wrong with his true form. As he rushed to meet the serpent’s attack, his right leg seemed to buckle with every stride. He should have been flying, not running.
Luc threw his legs forward at the last moment and went into a slide, narrowly avoiding the strike of venomous fangs.
Ingrid caught a flutter of something out of the corner of her eye and, when she looked, saw Vander coming for her. She shook her head fiercely. “No! Help Luc! Your crossbow, Vander, help him!”
He ignored her plea and fell to his knees at her side, attacking the leather straps.
“Forget the buckles. He’s hurt, Vander!” she cried, twisting wildly under his hands.
“Stop moving!” he shouted right back.
Her wrists fell forward as he loosed the straps around them; then he started on the ones binding her ankles. Luc dodged another strike, but he was limping and faltering, looking more like a fly with one wing than the massive, powerful gargoyle Ingrid knew him to be.
Her ankles dropped to the grass just as the tip of the serpent’s tail swept Luc’s feet out from under him. The snake rolled and undulated, its regal head and tapered fangs stabbing toward Luc.
“No!” Ingrid screamed.
A piercing shriek and a blast of air fanned down over their heads. Marco’s russet wings cut toward the serpent with hummingbird speed. He sank his talons into the demon and swiped it off the ground. The snake wriggled and bucked, but Marco held it skillfully as Yann dove toward the serpent. The edge of one feathered eagle wing sheared through scale and flesh, and Marco let the serpent fall in a hailstorm of green sparks. Final sparks.
Vander released the chest buckle and caught Ingrid as she fell. She’d done far too much falling lately. She eased back so she wasn’t sprawled in Vander’s lap and pushed her hair out of her eyes.
“Are you hurt?” he asked, and immediately found the fang bites on her arm. The searing burn was still there, but the pain had leveled off. Her angel blood would destroy the poison soon enough and she’d be fine, but Luc … There was something wrong with him.
She stood, her legs feeling quivery and her head cotton-stuffed.
“Ingrid!” Gabby bypassed Luc and threw her arms around her sister as if they had been parted for months instead of a single evening.