Vander sheathed the blessed weapons and held up his hands, palms out. “Don’t worry, big brother. We’ll be in full public view. I won’t be able to do more than hold her hand.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Probably.”
Grayson feigned a scowl but quickly let it dissolve. He liked Vander Burke. He was going to be a bloody reverend. What older brother—even one who was only six minutes older—wouldn’t want his sister to fall in love with a reverend?
“Before you leave,” Vander said, adjusting his spectacles, “I have some potentially good news.”
He nodded toward the table at the foot of the bed, and the needle and syringe kit Grayson had become acquainted with during his last de-dusting. Vander had been wondering, even before hunting Grayson down in Montmartre: If his dust could absorb another person’s dust, what then could his blood do? Could it absorb the potency of a Duster’s blood? At their last meeting, he had tied a rubber tourniquet around Grayson’s bicep, and, using the needle and syringe from his kit, drawn a vial of his blood. He’d planned to draw a vial of his own blood, mix the two samples, and then watch and wait.
“You warned me not to expect much,” Grayson said, though he’d let his hope run wild anyway.
Vander hunched over the microscope and used the thick steel knobs to focus the lens. “My warning still applies. However”—he stepped aside and gestured for Grayson to have a look through the eyepiece—“the samples aren’t clotting.”
Grayson held his breath. That was promising, at least. Vander had explained how blood from one person did not always mix well with blood from another. Transfusions were risky, according to the phlebotomy text he had been reading, because there was a high likelihood that the joining bloods might clot, spread through the recipient’s body, and stop the heart altogether.
“We’re a match,” Grayson said, bending over the microscope and adjusting the focus until the multiplication lenses showed the blood cells pressed between each slide. They were perfect little pillowy cells.
“We can try a small injection.” Vander failed to mask the thrill his new experiment gave him. “Come to H?tel Bastian tonight, after most of the patrols have gone out.”
Grayson clapped Vander on the shoulder and refrained from thanking him yet again. The demon hunter raised his finger.
“But like I said—”
“Don’t get my hopes up,” Grayson finished for him. He grabbed his hat from the cane-back chair and tipped it toward Vander before slipping into the corridor.
The smell of musty carpet and rotting wooden crossbeams set in the plaster walls didn’t bother him as much on the way out as they had on the way in. His dust had been reduced, and for the time being, he felt comfortably distant from his curse.
The stairwell took him to the street-side door and deposited him on the sidewalk.
“Better?”
His friend Léon leaned against the limestone exterior, ankles and arms crossed. Léon had walked with him to rue de Berri but, as usual, declined to go up to Vander’s room. He wanted nothing to do with dust reduction. Not too long ago, Léon had nearly allowed the Daicrypta to drain his blood in order to be rid of it. Like Grayson, Léon had lost control of his demon half once. Grayson had taken the life a prostitute in London, and Léon had killed his own parents and younger brother.
But now, after having spent more time with Constantine and a handful of other Dusters, Léon felt at ease with his demon side. His arachnae blood gave him fangs, deadly venom, and the surprisingly useful ability to create silken web at his fingertips. All controllable, apparently.
“I can’t smell your blood,” Grayson answered. “And considering your blood smells like a pair of dirty socks, yes—much better.” He ducked as Léon made a swipe for his hat.
“I do not understand,” Léon said, his French accent heavy. They spoke to one another in English mostly, since Grayson’s French wasn’t much better than Ingrid’s. “Without your dust, how are you to protect yourself?”
They started toward the wide boulevard of the Champs-élysées. Grayson knew Dusters had been going missing the last week or two. He’d eventually gone back to Clos du Vie for another lesson with Constantine, and it had gone more smoothly than the first. Grayson had returned many times now, and at his last session, the old man had warned him to be vigilant.
“Still no word from Marianne?” Grayson asked to avoid Léon’s question. The girl had hellhound blood, like Grayson, though she hadn’t fully shifted yet.
Constantine had started combining his students into small groups, allowing them to form acquaintances. The old man had thought the approach might be better than having his students learn how to control their base instincts and desires individually, feeling isolated and freakish.
Léon shook his head. That made four Dusters in just the past week.