They had come here for Axia. Grayson had come here for Axia.
Time in the Champs de Mars slowed, and though the demons were nearing, Ingrid didn’t see them. She saw Grayson, the two of them as children. They were sitting in the grass, comparing their birthmarks; together in Hyde Park, Grayson playfully nudging her closer to the Serpentine River; in their father’s library, building a domino line out of books; at Victoria Station before he left for Paris last fall, twirling her in a circle, trying to make her dizzy so she wouldn’t see his anxiety; Grayson, in the Underneath, bite marks riddling his skin.
Grayson. Dead.
And there it was again. The sob that poured through her chest and into her throat, eddied through her head, going everywhere but out of her mouth. She dragged in air, gulping it, trying to release the scream. To release the pain.
The demons bearing down on her were obliterated by blessed silver before they could touch her, but there were more on their way. Ingrid paid them no attention. What she saw were the bulbs along the Eiffel Tower, brightening, straining, and then bursting. The lights within the exhibition halls flickered and went out. Behind her, the screeching wheels of the generators revved to a deafening whine before clanking and crashing to a halt.
Ingrid raised her arms and finally, finally screamed as fire raced over her palms. An orb of lightning slammed into Axia, throwing her back. Her body seized in the air, the ropes of electricity wrapping her, holding her in place while Ingrid continued to scream, continued to drain the current from every last corner of her body.
Released from the fallen angel’s hold, Luc and Marco rose and collided with the hellhound and appendius that were seconds away from tearing into Ingrid. She watched everything unfolding as if she were merely an observer, untouchable. Lightning shivered from Axia to the iron tower and then back to the angel, who hurtled toward the ground as a net twined around her convulsing body. The spikes along the rim of the angelic diffuser net shot into the grass. The mesh netting sealed to Axia, who was still shivering in blue and white spits of electricity. Vander had hit his target. They’d captured her.
Ingrid’s arms went limp, her ears rang, and a dark tunnel closed around her vision. She didn’t feel anything as she hit the ground. The last thing she saw was the top of the tower, a gargoyle perched on its spire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Paris was supposed to be beautiful in April. The city’s greening had started to paint over the destruction left behind by Axia’s Harvest. It had been one week. One week since the world had exploded with news of the madness in Paris, a near-apocalyptic event. The citizens who had fled had since returned, and tourists for the exposition had come early and in droves. Surviving an invasion of bloodthirsty demons had seemed to inspire a need to celebrate, and everyone wanted to join in, hear stories, relive the horror.
Some enterprising artist had started hawking papier-maché hellhounds and gargoyles near the Champs de Mars, churches hadn’t seen higher attendances in years, and there were even guided tours cropping up, highlighting the places where the most savage deaths had taken place. People weren’t repulsed by the demon invasion at all. They were absolutely giddy.
It made Gabby ill. She’d purchased a hellhound from one such street vendor, dropped it on the pavement, and crushed it under her boot heel. She’d gotten stares and a cry of disappointment from the vendor, but she had kicked the paper hellhound into the gutter and stormed off.
The Harvest was over, but it had taken everything.
And no, as it turned out, Paris wasn’t beautiful in April. The ground was just thawed enough for them to bury Grayson, however, and that was what they were doing that morning.
Clouds, platinum-lined with the hint of another spring rain, hung low above the rectory cemetery. Gabby stood on the soft grass, still damp from the rains that were melting the snow and exposing new, pale green grasses underneath. She and Ingrid had wound their arms together and laced their fingers tightly. A bracing wind buffeted their black silk mourning dresses and black velvet capes. Before coming out to the graveside burial, Gabby had put on one of her hats with a slanted veil. She’d tugged out the pins and chucked the thing across her bedroom before breaking down into gasping sobs.
Her brother wasn’t supposed to be dead. He wasn’t supposed to have left them, not now, not yet. Not like this.