She dug her gloved fingers into the dirt for purchase, and kicked and thrashed her leg, but she wouldn’t come free. Lifting her head, she saw a pale brown tentacle curled around her ankle. The tentacle was attached to a gelatinous glob the same dirty-dishwater color. It moved with an undulating ripple, pulling itself along by more writhing tentacles.
Ingrid ripped off her gloves but then remembered Vander and how he’d absorbed so much of her dust during their stroll. She released what she had, aiming for the delusion demon, and the lines of electricity that spit out of her fingertips were enough to stun it. She wrested her ankle free and scrabbled to get up. She spun around, lunged forward—and came face to face with the red lantern eyes of a hellhound.
The beast was as tall as Ingrid, its giant maw open to showcase the wicked curve of its protruding fangs. The stench of its breath and its black, greasy fur hit her and she stumbled back, her foot treading upon one of the delusion demon’s squishy tentacles.
The hellhound raked its head to the side, and one of its bottom fangs opened her shoulder. Ingrid screamed and clutched at the wound, demon poison already burning its insatiable path through her neck and chest. It fired down into her arm, consuming the pathetic reserves of electricity.
The hellhound took hold of the fabric of her skirts and petticoats in its mouth, and then once again, Ingrid was jerked off her feet and dragged down the alley. A fissure. The beast was taking her to a fissure and all she could do was rasp a scream of pain. The rough alley ground suddenly gave way, as if the beast had dragged her off the edge of a cliff. And then she was falling, weightless, the demon poison coursing through her, filling her completely. Allowing her entrance into the Underneath. Straight into Axia’s waiting arms.
CHAPTER SIX
All this time, Luc had believed that the stone statues that topped the abbey’s twin bell towers and lined its pitched roofs were dog-headed gargoyles. He knew each one of them by heart. Every snarling mouth and extended tongue, every pair of wings, tucked, outstretched, cracked, or not present at all. There were missing talons and ears here and there. One gargoyle, jutting out above the courtyard’s transept door as if it were bursting through the stone fa?ade, had lost its head altogether.
Perhaps that had been the wolf-headed gargoyle, Luc considered as he approached the abbey and rectory. For Marco, a member of the Wolf caste, to have been assigned to this territory, there had to be a wolf-headed statue somewhere on the grounds. Every Dispossessed transformed into a certain caste of gargoyle, and every gargoyle’s territory had to have at least one matching granite statue.
The angels, all-knowing as they were, determined which gargoyle caste each newly damned soul would belong to. In their first lives, Wolves, like Marco, were the fiercest and most persuasive; Dogs, like Luc and Gaston, loyal and dauntless; Snakes, cunning and flexible. The lesser castes, such as Monkeys and Goats, were of not much significance in their first or second lives.
It was the Chimeras, the anomalous blend of two animals, that Luc was thinking about as he approached the tall iron gates surrounding the abbey. Vincent’s caste concerned him. Their numbers were equal to the Wolves, and among the Dispossessed, large numbers meant more power. If the Wolves and Chimeras had truly joined forces, Vincent should have already been elder. The fact that he’d again come begging for Luc’s support that morning made little sense. Luc needed to ask Marco for the truth.
Luc peered through the bars of the iron gates. The abbey hadn’t looked so fine or sturdy for at least a century. The stained-glass windows gleamed, and the arched front doors were new and painted glossy red. Even the gargoyle statues appeared to have been dusted and cleaned for Lady Brickton’s new gallery.
He walked on, to where the iron fence ended and a row of tall hedges began. The hedges enclosed the courtyard, rectory, and carriage house, protecting them from street view, but there was a gap in the hedges for the Waverlys’ landau. Luc walked through, officially entering another gargoyle’s territory.
Marco was here. Luc felt his presence, just as Marco was feeling his. Luc took a deep breath. Ingrid’s sweet grass and dark earth, and even that biting tang of demon dust, remained nothing more than a memory. If she was here, so be it. Luc knew he couldn’t hide from her forever. He’d thought time away would lessen the ache, but it had only served to sharpen it.
Luc stepped lively, eyes cast down, forcing himself not to think of her. Which only made him think of her more. He stormed into the carriage house and slammed the door behind him.
“Take out your aggression elsewhere, brother,” came Marco’s unruffled tenor from the loft above.
Luc climbed the bare board steps and found Marco reclining on the cot that had once been his. He held a book over his face, his nose stuck within the pages.
“Are you the voice of the Wolves or aren’t you?” Luc asked. He didn’t have the patience for preamble today.