Vander shook his head once before reaching into his coat. He removed his sword, a thin rapier, and ascended the steps slowly, purposefully. He hadn’t instructed Ingrid to stay put, so she climbed after him. Vander reached the landing, whirled past the open door at his right, and pressed his back against the wall. He then peered around the doorframe.
His clenched jaw loosened and horror brightened his eyes. She scooted past the open door the same way he had, planning to place herself right behind him. The blood stopped her. It colored the inside of the apartment, splattered over a threadbare carpet and the plaster-and-beam walls. She clapped her hand over her mouth when she saw the bodies on the floor. All four of them. They lay prostrate, their limbs tangled as if they’d all fallen together in a heap. Their clothes were soaked with blood, a glistening crimson pool forming around them.
“Van—” Ingrid’s voice broke off when she saw another body across the small room. He was seated on the floor, his back to the wall and slumped to the side. The gore from his torn-apart stomach and chest had splashed his face, but Ingrid still recognized him.
“Oh my God,” she whimpered.
It was Léon.
A thump from up the next set of steps drew Vander’s attention. The steps led to a door half the size of a normal apartment door.
“He’s on the roof,” Vander whispered.
Ingrid averted her eyes from the bloodbath. “Who is?”
“The gargoyle that did this,” he answered.
Ingrid finally understood. He’d seen gargoyle dust.
“Go,” he said, already taking the steps up to the roof door. “Hail a hansom and get back to H?tel Bastian. Tell Nolan what’s happened.”
“Vander, stop! You can’t—”
“Go!” he shouted again, and then was gone, through the door and onto the roof in pursuit of the gargoyle.
Ingrid wavered on the landing. She couldn’t help Vander with this. He was the hunter, not her. He was right. She had to go, had to alert the others. Taking one last glance around the shabby apartment from the open doorway, making sure there was no other body she had overlooked—one with blond hair and a face she knew better than her own—she ran back down the curving stairwell.
A door opened as she passed by the last landing, but she didn’t stop. She barreled down the final flight of steps and straight out onto the sidewalk beside the fromagerie, her chest heaving, her legs weak. She had thrown herself into the path of two older women, who peered at her wild display with narrowed, disapproving gazes.
“Pardon,” Ingrid said, barely above a whisper. She pushed back the blond tresses that had fallen out from under her pinned hat and searched for a cab. She saw wheeled carts and rickshaws and a private carriage, but nothing she could flag down.
Ingrid peered up at the apartment building. The alley between this building and the next was so slim Vander could have easily jumped from roof to roof. She needed to move. Needed to find a cab. She hurried toward the cross street up ahead.
“Ingrid!”
She reeled to a stop, causing the man behind her to stumble to the side in order to avoid colliding with her. She ignored his mumbled curse and stared across rue Amélie. That voice.
“Ingrid, over here. Quick,” it came again, and this time she saw a shadow dipping into the slim break between two buildings across the street.
Grayson?
She crossed the street, jumping over the thin stream of wastewater and sludge running down the center gulch in the road.
She’d known her brother would be with Léon! But, oh … what had happened? Had he been meeting the rest of the Dusters here? She entered the gap between the two buildings, and it immediately forced her to take a diagonal route to the right.
“Grayson?” she called, one of her gloves running along the limestone of the building she followed.
Ahead, the alley cut to the left. Just before Ingrid turned the corner, she pulled to a stop. She closed her eyes and cursed herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid! It wasn’t Grayson. He wouldn’t be running from her, leading her away from the safety of the street.
It was a delusion demon, just like the one that had once used Grayson’s voice to attempt to lure her into the catacombs beneath the abbey.
Ingrid took a step back, but as she did, something hooked her ankle and tugged hard. She yelped as her foot flew forward, out from underneath her. She hit the ground on her side, her elbow jamming into the packed dirt. The thing that had wrapped around her ankle pulled again, hauling her around the corner and ruching up her skirt as she slid along the wet ground.