A second net caught Vander in the side and took him down as well. Gabby heard a shrill ping as spikes shot out of the net’s border ring and bolted into the earth. She crouched, trying to pry up the spikes.
“Gabby!” Vander rolled beneath the strange net and aimed the silver bow straight at her. She screamed and ducked and a dart whirred past her. It struck an oncoming disciple in the shoulder.
As the disciple fell, Gabby saw Marco’s wings above the courtyard. His bestial talons snatched a disciple by the collar of his monkish smock. Marco spun him through the air and sent him crashing through one of the latticed windows.
Gabby’s father pulled her to her feet and started to drag her to Ingrid’s netted figure. Luc had struggled over to her and was prying up one side of the silver net while roaring in pain. Whatever the net was made of, it wasn’t gargoyle friendly. Ingrid crawled free and Luc collapsed. Brickton abruptly dug his heel in the ground and came to a halt, Gabby treading on his ankles.
Two red lantern eyes peered out from the dark of the arcades. Another hellhound.
This one hung back, however, watching the chaos unfurl in the courtyard.
“Stay away.” Her father’s order trembled on his lips.
The hellhound emerged slowly. Hesitantly. Not at all like the others.
“Lord Brickton, lower your sword,” Vander commanded.
“I will not!” he shouted.
“Papa, stop!” Ingrid cried. “It’s not a hellhound!”
It wasn’t. Even Gabby could see that. This one was smaller than the others. It was furred, but it wasn’t the same. It was wearing clothes.
“What in God’s name is it, then?” their father spluttered, the point of the sword still aligned with the beast.
Gabby slapped his wrist and yanked the sword down hard. “It’s your son. It’s Grayson.”
*
Grayson knew he should shift. His father stared at him, pure revulsion brimming in his eyes. This was his son. A monster. An aberration, and he most certainly wanted to kill it.
Grayson couldn’t shift, though, not with the remaining hellhound on a tear around the courtyard. He couldn’t understand. He’d had the hounds under his sway. He’d brought them to heel. What had happened?
We serve Mistress first.
The answer trickled into his mind with crystalline lucidity compared to the muffled, underwater voices of his sisters and father. Their arguing burbled around him while the hound’s thoughts continued clearly.
You serve her now as well. Bring the one Mistress wants.
Ingrid. They’d come for Ingrid. And Grayson had led them straight to her. The hounds had played him for a fool. They’d never been under his control at all.
He caught sight of the beast across the courtyard. It clambered onto the exterior limestone like a thorny vine, defying gravity as it ran along the stone fa?ade, perpendicular to the ground. A disciple shot one of the Daicrypta’s gleaming nets, but the hound evaded it and the net shattered a window instead. The hellhound streaked along the exterior stone, clawing over windows and shutters and balcony railings, red eyes focused on its prey: Ingrid.
Silver flashes slashed the air over Grayson’s shoulders, announcing Chelle’s presence. One of her hira-shuriken gouged the limestone, but the other sheared through the hound’s flank. The beast stumbled and Grayson charged toward his twin. Axia’s pet would not succeed—she would not have Ingrid’s blood, and she would never be his mistress.
Chelle hadn’t hindered the beast. It arced off the wall, scoring the frozen ground with its claws upon landing. Someone was shouting, a new voice burbling up in a muffled pocket of air. And then someone else dove into the path of the oncoming hound.
Nolan’s father held no weapon, but he ran toward the demon with crazed determination. Grayson slid into position, blocking Ingrid, and watched in awe as Carrick Quinn ran full tilt into the hellhound’s enormous maw.
The beast clamped its jaws around the man’s torso and ripped him from the ground. Carrick’s war cry went silent as the hellhound darted past Grayson and Ingrid and disappeared through the dark arcades.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Nolan’s scream drowned out Gabby’s. She watched his broadsword cleaving the air as he chased after the demon and his father. There was nothing to be done for him. Gabby knew it, and if she did, so did Nolan.
Pangs of shock and sadness drummed her in the stomach. She would have gone after Nolan had it not been for her brother, covered in swaths of greasy yellow fur and crouched on all fours in front of Ingrid.
“Stay away from her!” Lord Brickton screamed, jabbing Gabby’s sword toward Grayson. Her brother yelped and growled as he avoided the point of the blade. Why didn’t he shift back?