“Vincent!” Luc strained to be heard above the pandemonium.
The Chimera had to be here. This was his army, his orders. Vincent would want to see his bidding done.
Something thudded against Luc’s back and knocked him off balance. He swung out of his fall and hurdled into the air, barely evading the swipe of the hellhound Duster’s fangs. He resisted the urge to sink his talons into the greasy ginger fur. The Duster was just a spellbound girl, the stretched and ripped amethyst silk gown speckled by dried blood.
A silver gleam parted the air and the hellhound girl went down, howling, a dagger embedded in her flank. A throng of well-armed and red-capped Roman Alliance wearing crisp black suits had entered the orangery. Interspersed among them were nonuniformed and more familiar Alliance members, including Vander Burke.
The Seer saw the injured Duster and jammed his hand crossbow into the chest of one red-capped soldier. “Only the Chimeras, you idiot!”
“We came here for the Dusters!” the red-capped fighter bellowed, and then with a flash of silver, raked a dagger along Vander’s shirtfront. The blade flayed the fabric and sprang blood.
Luc flew over the mewling hellhound Duster with every intention of bowling into the Roman fighter, talons out. Constantine’s short gray form sidled up next to the fighter first, however, and Luc threw out his wings to avoid colliding with the old man. Constantine twisted the round knob of his cane and pulled a thin rapier from within. He raised it to the fighter’s throat and said something lost to Luc’s ears. With a quick nod to Constantine, Vander set his spectacled eyes on Luc and started toward him.
“Where is Ingrid?” Vander shouted, his hand testing the shallow wounds on his chest. What did the fool think? That Luc was going to change back into human form so he could hold a conversation?
Gaston flew between Vander and Luc, his black pennant wings completely blocking the Seer from view.
“Yann isn’t here,” Gaston announced, his vocal cords grinding through three shrill keys.
“I haven’t seen Vincent, either, but he’ll be close,” Luc replied. “I’m leaving to find him.”
Luc surged into the air, his wings brushing against the heavy limbs of a lemon tree and rustling up a bright citrus scent. He’d thought to use one of the gargoyle-sized holes in the glass and iron roof as an exit but met with an impenetrable barrier of gargoyles above the bower of Constantine’s jungle. Neither side seemed to be dealing deadly blows, and Luc felt a twinge of relief. They needed to end Vincent, not his followers.
The orangery’s ground-level door would have to serve. Luc dove back through the maze of shrubbery and trees, which was thinning out now as wings bent and snapped limbs and stalks and as swords hacked into the greenery. The sweet odor of crushed berries, citrus, and tropical blooms being mashed under boots and shredded by talons hit him as he dipped under the dome of a pink flowering tree and then plowed through to the other side. Luc reeled to a stop. The Seer had made his way deeper into the orangery, and now, less than ten yards from Luc, he staggered away from a Chimera—part pelican, part panther. Vincent.
Luc’s mind went blank. His body seized with indecision. He knew what he had to do. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t killed another gargoyle before. But this gargoyle wouldn’t stand still and allow death to come, as Dimitrie had.
Vander clutched his stomach with one hand while holding a short silver sword in the other. The blade dripped with an oily black substance—gargoyle blood—and Vincent’s pickax of a beak wore a thin wash of crimson. It took another vicious stroke toward Vander’s body. The Seer deflected the strike with his sword, but the beak’s rugged cartilage barely received a nick. Vincent’s long, fleshy orange bill came back and slammed into Vander’s sword hand. The blade disappeared into a white-berried shrub. The Seer grappled with his hand crossbow, attempting to load a bolt, while Vincent’s front paw drew back, his black claws extended and hooked for the kill.