Luc pulled the trigger in his core and unloosed his true form. He shed his clothing in practiced harmony with the pull and coil of new muscle and lengthened bone, of sliding tendons and ridging vertebrae. His jet scales shimmered from crown to ankle like a form-fitting cloak, and then, with his clothing bundled under one arm, he was racing after Marco’s tail as it whipped through the open loft door and up into the sun-streaked clouds. The two of them were dark shadows racing through the sky, so fast, Luc knew, that in a blink of a human’s eye they would be there, then gone.
But they would still be seen. Too large and fast to be birds. Too real to be figments of the imagination.
Luc focused on Marco a short distance ahead. They were over Saint-Germain and closing in on the crowded, narrow streets just past the Esplanade des Invalides. Marco had to be berating himself for letting his guard down. For thinking, after a thwarted attack that morning, that the odds of a second were slim.
Marco lost altitude and folded in his wings as he careened through a narrow gap between two buildings. Luc pulled in his wings, and a moment later his talons touched down in the dim, dank alley. He and Marco weren’t alone.
Luc shed his scales in a matter of seconds and faced Vander Burke, whose blessed sword hung in his hand. “Where is she, Seer?”
Vander turned in a circle, his eyes everywhere but on Luc. He didn’t answer. Luc forced his way into Vander’s line of sight.
“Where is she?” Luc repeated.
Vander finally met his glare. “I don’t know. We found Dusters, dead in the apartment building across the street, and dust. Gargoyle dust.” He glanced over Luc’s shoulder, where Marco was still standing in his scales.
“I went after it and sent Ingrid to catch a hansom back to H?tel Bastian.”
“Alone,” Luc inserted, his fury on a fast boil.
Vander ignored him. “Her dust trail led here. And it’s not the only dust I see.”
Dust lingered. Vander could see traces of the colorful particles hours after a demon or Duster had left a certain spot.
“Another gargoyle?” Luc asked, but Vander was already shaking his head and swallowing hard.
Marco’s human voice entered the conversation, his body having shifted. “She’s gone.”
The break in his voice, the sound of utter defeat, left Luc cold. Vander sank into a crouch, propping himself up with his sword. He pressed his head against the handle. “Her dust trail ends here.”
A fissure.
Luc went utterly still. He wanted to kick the blade out from under Vander’s balancing weight and plunge it through his neck. He wanted to scream and rage and destroy. But right then, he couldn’t even breathe.
“I can’t scent her,” Marco said.
“Don’t,” Luc said. If either of them spoke another word, he might actually attack them both: the useless, pathetic excuse for a demon hunter and the neglectful gargoyle who’d gotten cocky and careless.
“Stand up,” Luc growled. Vander pulled his forehead back and raised his eyes to Luc’s. Slowly, rising inch by inch, he stood, locked in Luc’s fiery stare.
“Axia needs her seedlings. I don’t think she’ll kill Ingrid.” Luc hated that the Seer hadn’t said this with begging desperation. Vander remained calm, his tone placating. “She’ll reclaim her angel blood and then most likely return her. As soon as she’s back, Marco will scent her and find her.”
“Not before I suffer an angel’s burn,” Marco grunted.
“Forget your burn!” Luc shouted, releasing the bundle of clothing still tucked under his arm. Unlike Marco, he didn’t enjoy walking around in his birthday suit and had long since learned to carry his discarded clothes whenever he went in true form. He tugged on his trousers. “And forget your excuses, Seer. I know you keep demon poison at H?tel Bastian. Bring it to me.”
He would ingest it just as he had the last time Ingrid had been taken into the Underneath. With the poison in his system he would go to the familiar Métro stop, now nearly constructed, find the fissure that he knew to be closest to Axia’s hive, and descend into it.
Marco’s heavy hand moored Luc’s shoulder. “Take that poison to go after her and every gargoyle in Paris will know that what Vincent says is true.”
Luc shrugged off his hand. Desecrating his body with demon poison the first time had been acceptable, but only because Ingrid had been his human charge. Now he had no excuse. No excuse that wouldn’t get him mauled to death by gargoyles.
“Know what is true?” Vander asked, rounding on Luc this time.
“You’re not really so thick, are you, good reverend?” Marco replied.
Vander stepped back and sheathed his sword. “Those Dusters back there,” he began. “They were murdered by a gargoyle.”
“And you think this concerns me when my human is most likely being drained by an evil angel hag?” Marco returned.