He was lost for words, from her touch, from her closeness. From her blood. He knew, without having to ask, that Chelle would leave with those mercurite weapons, with or without him. She was determined, and there was nothing he could say to dissuade her.
Perhaps she was right. If the Chimeras were the ones doing this, they did need to be stopped. The next Duster target could very well be Ingrid. His sister wasn’t some nameless Duster walking along a street somewhere. She was well known. If the Chimera vying for elder wanted to prove his strength and authority, killing her would be a fine demonstration for all the Dispossessed.
“All right,” Grayson said, pushing back the weight of indecision. “I’m in.”
CHAPTER TEN
The voices grew louder the closer she got to the entrance. Ingrid stopped a good twenty paces from the vine-swathed stone arcades that led into the courtyard at gargoyle common grounds. She’d approached them through the Luxembourg Gardens at an angle, shielding her arrival from any Dispossessed who might be lurking about Luc’s new territory. It was late afternoon, but the sun still had another hour or so before it slid beneath the western horizon completely. Ingrid had hoped no other gargoyles would be about during the daylight hours. In vain, it seemed.
The voices drifting from the courtyard were harsh and insistent, just shy of shouting. The words weren’t clear, however, and she wasn’t sure she should move any closer to make them out.
An arm wrapped around her from behind, bracing her chest, and a hand clapped over her mouth to stifle her scream. A hot mouth pressed against her ear.
“You shouldn’t walk into a lion’s den without a pair of claws, Lady Ingrid.”
Marco released her, and she threw an elbow back to jab him in the stomach. It was like elbowing a brick wall.
“You didn’t have to creep up behind me,” she hissed.
“And you didn’t have to be so predictable,” he replied, grasping her arm and dragging her toward the arcades.
She stumbled through the patchy snow and kept her voice a grating whisper. “But we can’t go in—there are others inside the courtyard!”
“They have already felt my arrival, though not yours.” Marco jerked her to a halt at the first of several stone columns forming the arcades. “I’ll show myself and then make some excuse to leave.”
He pushed her backward until her spine was against the column. “If you move from this spot before then, I will be forced to take you back to the rectory and chain you to your bed for the rest of your life.”
Ingrid would have rolled her eyes had Marco not looked completely serious.
He stepped away and through the arcades, into the courtyard. A moment later, he was greeted by someone with a slick, sarcastic tone. She knew the owner of the voice at once: Vincent, the Notre Dame gargoyle who had threatened to attack her the last time she had been in H?tel du Maurier’s ramshackle courtyard.
“Ah, the protector of an abomination graces us with his presence at last,” Vincent said.
Ingrid turned her shoulder into the column and pressed a palm against the cold stone.
“You should really improve the company you’ve been keeping lately, Luc,” Marco replied, ignoring Vincent entirely.
Ingrid’s heart beat faster. Luc was right there, on the other side of the arcades. Her fingers dug into the stone and she closed her eyes, forcing herself to remember Marco’s black glare. Remembering Vincent’s unveiled hatred the last time he had looked at her helped as well.
“Because of your demonic human, the fallen angel Axia has what she needs to come here, to our city.” Ingrid opened her eyes. This voice didn’t belong to Vincent. It belonged to Yann, the Chimera that guarded a bridge over the Seine.
“She will reap her abominations, using them to gain control of our territories,” Vincent chimed in. “Unless we act together to put an end to them.”
Arguments burst out, though none of the voices was familiar to Ingrid.
“Dusters are still human.”
“We cannot touch them.”
“Human? They are diseased with demon blood.”
“The Order would wish them destroyed.”
“And if a Duster belongs to one of us? What then?”
This last comment raised a valid point. Marco couldn’t be the only gargoyle protecting a human Duster.
“We’ve already started.” Yann’s words came through the din. “They’ve been simple to kill. We could wipe out Axia’s army within days if we had the Seer or Constantine on our side.”
As if Vander or Constantine would ever give these monsters aid. At least it seemed as if Yann and the majority of the other gargoyles were still in the dark about Vander. That he was a Duster as well as a Seer appeared to be something only Luc, Marco, and Gaston, Constantine’s guardian, knew.
“You will stay away from my human.” Gaston’s command and the unspoken threat attached to it lifted the hairs on Ingrid’s arms. She wondered how many gargoyles were actually inside the courtyard. All of them?