Grayson Waverly swung the sword at the hellhound’s front paw as it swiped at his head. The blade bit into the hound, the wound spitting green sparks. It was a novice stroke of a blade that was clearly not his own—Grayson would have been better off hurling books at the beast.
Luc darted lower, tucking in his wings to gain speed, and rushed over Grayson’s head. The talons of his feet punctured the fibrous skin and dense muscle of the hound’s neck. He then grabbed hold of the two protruding slanted fangs and broke them off at the base. It was the first thing to do when fighting a hellhound; the wicked points were the hound’s most dangerous weapon. Luc kept the fangs in his hands and, with a shriek, plunged them into the hellhound’s fire-lit eyes.
He landed deftly on the pavement as the demon’s death sparks fizzled, then turned to face Ingrid’s brother, who still held the sword aloft. Luc released the trigger inside him and let his true form go. Within seconds, he stood on the cold pavement in human form.
“Where is Ingrid?” he immediately asked.
Grayson let the sword down. He kept his eyes level with Luc’s. “I don’t know. I was coming to find you.”
“Why haven’t you become a hellhound?” Luc asked. “The Dusters—”
“I know, they’ve joined the Underneath demons. I can’t explain it all right now. Luc, I need your help.”
If Grayson hadn’t become one of the crazed Dusters, perhaps Ingrid hadn’t, either. Luc realized Grayson was still talking to him.
“I brought her to H?tel Bastian. She’s burning up and needs gargoyle blood. I didn’t know who else to ask.”
Luc stared at him. “Who?”
“Chelle,” Grayson answered. “Mercurite is useless against Duster poison.”
Luc glanced behind them, toward Paris Alliance faction headquarters. He could see the building from where they stood.
“Ingrid isn’t there?”
“Damn it, Luc, no! I told you, I don’t know where she is. But Chelle needs your help!” Grayson took a steadying breath. “Please, Luc. I can’t let her die.”
Luc turned back to Grayson. He understood Grayson’s desperation; he himself felt the same intense need to find Ingrid and protect her.
He nodded, realizing that Grayson must be in love with this Alliance girl. “Fast. I have to find your sister.”
Grayson narrowed his eyes at Luc but said nothing. He kept the blessed blade out and began to jog back toward H?tel Bastian. Luc followed, thinking that a naked man walking down rue de Sèvres was but a slight disturbance compared to the bloodbath up ahead, where the appendius had mopped the ground with the bodies of the four police officers who had been attempting to kill it.
If Ingrid was out there, letting her electricity flow freely, possessed by whatever spell Axia had cast over the Dusters, she was in danger. Not just from uninformed humans, who would see her as a monster, but from other gargoyles. Without Marco to protect her, she would be at their mercy. And if she woke from this spell—if she woke from it at all—and saw what she’d done … if she’d hurt people … it would devastate her.
Itching to leave, Luc stormed up the flights of stairs to the third floor, where the normally closed and bolted door to faction headquarters had been left wide open. Grayson entered, and Luc hesitantly followed.
Grayson noticed his uncertainty. “The Roman troops aren’t here yet. They were due this morning and could be out there right now with the rest of the demon hunters. The place is deserted. Come on.”
Luc passed through the open loft, following Grayson to the row of curtained makeshift rooms. Grayson shoved one curtain back on the rods and revealed the Alliance girl lain out on a cot, and Vander Burke crouched beside her.
“Vander?” Grayson said, entering the room. “Where is Ingrid?”
The Seer stood up, his eyes landing on Luc, then looking away. “I don’t know. We got separated after she electrocuted me.”
He took off his glasses. “I don’t know if it’s my mersian blood, but I don’t seem to be affected by Axia. Neither do you,” he said to Grayson. He turned back to the cot. “But what happened to Chelle?”
The right leg on her trousers had been torn up and bloodied; her face was covered with a sheen of sweat. She rolled her head side to side, murmuring nonsense. Grayson knelt by her side, grasping her hand and lifting it to his lips.
“Duster poison,” he answered. “And mercurite is useless on it.”
He looked back at Luc expectantly.
“Hold out your sword,” Luc ordered, and Grayson did so. Luc clasped the tip and pulled hard, slicing open his palm. He let the blood well up before reaching inside the ragged rip in the girl’s trousers and pressing his hand against her wound.
“You’re going to be all right,” Grayson whispered into her ear, bending his head against hers.
Luc felt a pang of sympathy for him. The girl—Chelle—looked mostly dead already. Her lips were dry and the color of bleached bone. Her eyes were screwed up tight in agony. The skin beneath Luc’s hand was searing hot, and the wound … he still felt the gash in her leg. It wasn’t healing.