Ingrid shifted her weight, her feet growing cold.
“Unprotected, these abominations are weak.” Vincent again. “They barely know how to use their powers. I’m calling on all of you here to join me and my brothers to end them. Let us take back this city.”
A round of quarrelling followed but was yet again silenced by a single voice.
“We are here to protect humans, Vincent. Not kill them.”
The sound of his silvery voice, smooth yet brutal, spread warmth through her legs and arms and coiled inside her chest.
“And we have agreed Dusters do not qualify as humans,” Vincent returned.
“We have not agreed on anything,” Luc growled.
Ingrid was tired of standing still, of not being able to see what was happening. Holding her breath, she shuffled as quietly as she could around the column. A sliver of the courtyard came into view. She saw the backs of a few Dispossessed, but none she recognized.
“My fellow Dispossessed,” Vincent bellowed, speaking to all who had gathered. “Is this the gargoyle you desire as your elder?”
Ingrid parted her lips in awe as she realized what was happening. Luc was Vincent’s opposition for the role of elder. The Alliance had been saying everything was chaos among the ranks of Dispossessed, and this was why.
“Make no mistake,” Vincent went on. “There are those among us who enjoy their precious humans too much.”
Ingrid eased over another step and finally saw Vincent. He wore the cumbersome, faded black cloak she remembered. He stood with his profile to her, his narrowed glare presumably set upon Luc, still unfortunately out of view.
“This Dog took his human charge and made her his own,” Vincent spit.
A murmur rumbled through the courtyard. Ingrid’s heart stuttered and her mind raced ahead to what might happen next. She’d seen at least ten gargoyles so far. A group large enough to attack Luc and overpower him.
An electrical shiver combed her arms.
“The girl is a Duster,” Vincent went on, blatantly shifting the fear and loathing he’d just nurtured for Axia’s seedlings toward Luc.
The electrical current fed on Ingrid’s anger, on her desperation. It rolled along the slender bones in her hands, and she lassoed it, envisioning a sparking whirlpool at each fingertip.
She would not allow this wretched gargoyle and his supporters to harm Luc. She would not allow anyone to harm him.
“Irindi was mocking the Dispossessed by giving a human-lover an elder’s territory,” Vincent said. “I have waited too long to take it from you.”
He threw off his heavy cloak and his body cleaved through his clothes, tearing out of his human skin. Vincent fell forward, transforming into a creature with the sleek black body of a panther topped by a pair of snow white-feathered wings, and with the head of a large, grotesque pelican. Its wickedly sharp beak was nearly as long and broad as its panther body.
Vincent raked his hooked beak to the side and bounded forward, out of Ingrid’s view. Senseless of any fear, she raced out from behind the column, into the arcades. She ripped off her gloves, her fingertips sizzling with contained energy. Ingrid spotted Luc on the other side of the water fountain. He was still in human form, Marco and Gaston at his sides, and they, along with a handful of other Dispossessed, were staring down Vincent’s advance—until they saw her and the lightning crackling from her fingertips.
Bold blue branches of electricity snaked across the courtyard and wrapped Vincent’s gargoyle form in a paralyzing embrace. His snowy white pelican wings shook and shivered as the electricity pulsed through his body, until Ingrid drew the current back in, closing her fists tightly as she had learned to do, and he collapsed.
She had made it to the fountain’s empty basin and, as she held her electricity in check, realized there were gargoyles on either side of her. Vincent’s gargoyles.
Vincent himself, lying on the gravel, had melted back into his human form. Ingrid turned away from his naked body and found herself face to face with Yann. The Chimera sneered down at her, his black hair, lightly streaked with white, forming half-drawn curtains around his eyes. He’d never been warm or kind, but he had helped her in the past. After spending a few seconds on the receiving end of his hateful glare, she knew he would not help her again.
Luc slid between her and Yann. “She is a human on my territory. You will not touch her.”
Marco appeared at her side and glared at her as murderously as Yann had. He tugged Ingrid behind him, shielding her from the restless group of gargoyles, every last one of them looking ravenous for revenge.