Logic always calmed her. If she could have something to concentrate on, some specific focus, perhaps she could get through this. Because it was clear, now that she had followed them into this nightmare room, that if she didn’t give Dupuis her blood, her father and Luc would never leave this place alive.
“We’ve never drawn angel blood before, but we have drawn demon blood. It has a different cell structure. We’ve developed a way to magnetize and pull out those different cells,” Dupuis said, his cheeks flushed with either excitement or pride. Neither one suited the moment. “This separating system will draw out every cell that differs from your human cells, and will therefore only return those that are human,” he continued, lifting up a second tangle of tubing, which ended with a needle.
Ingrid held up her hand as his explanation settled. “Wait—all the cells that aren’t human?”
Carrick cleared his throat. He was leaning against a steel-topped table, one arm hooked around his stomach, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. She remembered that the mercurite poisoning was eating him from the inside.
“If you drain both her demon and angel blood, how much blood will she be left with?” Marco asked.
“She won’t survive,” Carrick said, his voice strained. “We agreed on the angel blood, Dupuis. You said you could remove it and leave the rest. The Alliance can still use her if she has her demon gift.”
Dupuis transformed his face into a carefully drawn mask of regret. “Yes, well, this is where the risk enters. I cannot guarantee she will survive.”
“But you can guarantee that you’ll have your angel blood,” Ingrid said. “You don’t care if I live or die.”
“Of course I do not care,” he replied, hardly concealing his amusement. “However, it would be better for our reputation should you live. So we shall try our hardest, yes?”
Carrick gritted his teeth as he tried to straighten. “What is this, Dupuis? The girl’s angel blood. That was the deal.”
Dupuis ignored him. He didn’t even glance his way as he reached for a white coat on a wall hook. “If you would remove your dress, mademoiselle. Your undergarments will be sufficient.”
Ingrid retreated a step. “No. Not until my father and Luc are released, and I want to see them leave.”
“Not at all,” Marco argued. His voice rose to where Ingrid knew it might cross over into a shriek. “I’ve heard enough. We’re leaving, Lady Ingrid. Should anyone attempt to stop us, brace yourself for the sight of blood.”
Dupuis began to turn switches and dials on the cylindrical vat, unmoved by Marco’s threat. “You sound quite protective, gargoyle. Take a moment to search yourself. What is the tie that binds you to this young woman?”
He flipped a lever and a humming sound shook the vat. The lightbulbs brightened.
“Lady Ingrid has come to me willingly,” Dupuis added, and with a glance toward Marco arched one of his brows. “She has accepted her room here. She is on my territory. By Daicrypta edict, she is now my ward, and the human charge of my Dispossessed.”
Marco came forward, stepping in front of Ingrid and staring hard at Dupuis. But he didn’t speak. Ingrid watched as the sinuous muscles along his ribs and torso stretched. He was breathing in. Scenting her. Marco exhaled and looked over his shoulder at her. “You are no longer my human.”
The room went cold around her. His bond to her had been severed. Marco was going to leave.
“Your dress, mademoiselle,” Dupuis repeated.
Ingrid kept her eyes locked on Marco’s, while in her unfocused side vision Dupuis slipped his arms into the sleeves of his white lab coat.
She couldn’t look away. The expression on Marco’s face was new; it didn’t seem to belong to him. Sadness melted into disappointment, and then changed again, this time into something much more familiar: anger.
He moved fast and mercilessly.
Marco had half shifted before he reached Dupuis and grabbed fistfuls of his white coat. He jerked him off the floor and, with a piercing shriek, threw Dupuis as he might a sack of potatoes straight into Carrick Quinn’s hunched frame. The two men landed on the stone floor in a heap of arms and legs, taking with them one of the steel tables and the instruments upon it.
Marco turned back to Ingrid as the scream of metal and breaking glass assaulted her ears. His wolfish snout crumpled back until his face was once again human. Marco surged toward her, his great wings folding into his body as his scales softened to skin.
“Lady Ingrid, come with—”
Marco stopped—and shattered out of his skin once again, transforming so quickly that Ingrid threw her arms up before her face. She heard a shriek, then two more, and when she lowered her arms, Marco was down flat on his back, a long knife handle protruding from his abdomen.
Dimitrie entered the room through the open door. He was in human form, and he held a crossbow, fitted with a dart.
“Marco!” Ingrid yelled as she rushed toward him.
Dimitrie caught her by the arm and pulled her back before she could reach the gargoyle. Marco screeched in pain, rolling onto his side as he grasped the knife and ripped it from his armored stomach.