“Eyes down,” Hugh whispered as he came up beside her.
Ingrid dragged her gaze back toward the ground and immediately took an unintentional step in reverse. Demons occupied nearly every patch of grass, every melting mound of snow. Hellhounds circled humans, who huddled together for what she assumed was both warmth and comfort. Corvites perched upon the crocodile-and goddess-shaped fountainheads of the Chateau d’Eau, and tiny, monkey-shaped creatures with curling horns swung from the swaths of red-and-white striped fabric shading each arcade directly across the esplanade.
A lectrux demon scuttled down the gravel walk toward them, its antennae sizzling with electric light. A wolf-shaped demon, half the size of a hellhound but with equally vicious fangs, slammed into the lectrux, knocking it off course. The lectrux spit more electricity and shocked the wolf but hung back. Nothing else approached, though Ingrid was certain every demon and Duster within the Champs de Mars was watching them stand underneath the domed colonnade entrance.
“Hugh,” Rory said, his hands already holding the double swords he’d freed from his back sheath. “Ye canna stay.”
Despite Rory’s discontent, the London Daicrypta doyen had insisted upon entering the Champs de Mars with them. He was neither tall nor brawny, but he had training, he’d assured them, and he knew more about demons and their weaknesses than the Alliance did.
“It appears I cannot leave, either,” Hugh replied.
Ingrid turned around and saw a giant black spider crawling along the ceiling of the entrance arcade. Its legs were easily the length of Ingrid’s entire body, its hairy belly and head the size of a hansom cab. The arachnae demon ceased moving and clung, upside down, to the ceiling, blocking their escape.
“Do you see him?” Ingrid whispered, trying to keep her eyes lowered instead of up, searching along the roofline for Vander’s creeping form.
“We won’t see him,” Nolan answered just as softly. She supposed that meant the demons and Axia wouldn’t, either. If they did, all would be lost.
“I suppose we should wander out like the sacrificial lambs we are,” Nolan said next, attempting nonchalance. Ingrid could still hear his underlying uncertainty.
Ingrid let her gaze bounce up toward the smokestack again. Marco was gone, but a half-dozen or more shadowy figures hunched on the cars of the giant Ferris wheel. Anyone seated within one of those passenger cars would have just as good a view of Paris as someone standing on the Eiffel Tower, though she was certain the winged creatures now atop them, with their night vision, had a far superior view than even that.
Ingrid stepped from the domed colonnade and matched Nolan’s cautious pace. There were no lights along the esplanade, electric or gas, but within minutes they would be required. Ingrid and Nolan marched along the gravel walk toward the looming Iron Lady. The path cleared for them as they went, hellhounds slinking to the periphery, a bench-shaped appendius loping out of the way, though it kept its spiked teeth on menacing display.
Axia was the only being capable of ordering these beasts to refrain from attacking. She was here. And Ingrid had reached the point in her rather hastily thought-out plan where she officially became bait.
“Axia!” Ingrid’s voice reverberated off the surrounding buildings. The utter stillness of the esplanade, and of Paris beyond the square of halls, made her voice sound as though it belonged to a giant. She cringed but called the angel’s name again anyway.
“Axia, come out!” Nerves squeezed her vocal cords and made her words tremble. “You were right! I still have your blood in my veins, and you can have it back—on one condition!”
She took the clear glass vial from her skirt pocket and held it above her head.
“This is my blood! Take it and see for yourself!”
The esplanade remained dark and quiet. A chill worked its way up Ingrid’s spine as the sun sank quickly behind the fire-kissed brume.
“She isn’t coming,” she murmured, lips barely moving, her arm still high in the air.
“Give her a moment,” Hugh replied.
For the first time, Ingrid allowed herself to imagine what might happen should Axia call her bluff. Two demon hunters, one Daicrypta, and one human girl against an arena filled with demons and spellbound Dusters did not an even fight make. And Ingrid would be useless. At least Hugh had a sword and some training. If only she still had a fraction of her lectrux power. It had been two full days since her first mersian blood injection.… Shouldn’t it have been wearing off by now? Shouldn’t she have been feeling something?