“We’re hunters,” Vander answered before a moment’s deliberation had passed. “We use bait.”
It was purely logical, which made Gabby think of her sister again. She had to get to the rectory and find Mama and Ingrid, and hopefully Grayson.
“How, exactly, do we bait an angel?” Rory asked, keeping his threatening glare fixed on the two Roman Alliance boys as he sheathed his daggers.
Nolan drew alongside Gabby, and though he didn’t reach for her hand or grip her arm, the closeness of his body gave her an inexplicable sense of accomplishment. Let him be cross. She had freed him, poor bargaining skills or no.
“We bait her with her mistake,” Vander answered, reaching for his threadbare tweed overcoat on the arm of the sofa. “Me.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Luc hadn’t expected Ingrid to still be at H?tel Dugray. It was the last place he’d seen her, however, and considering rue de Vaugirard was closer to Constantine’s end of the Bois du Boulogne than St. Germain-des-Prés, he’d gone to Marco’s former territory first.
The front door to Marco’s old territory had been left open, a couple of windows along the third floor shattered. Luc felt no presence of another Dispossessed and quickly led Constantine’s horse northeast, toward the Luxembourg Gardens. The borrowed black gelding complained and shivered beneath Luc’s legs. Animals didn’t like him, and it had been a long time since he’d sat upon the back of a horse. Flying was faster and more efficient, and honestly, it smelled better. A deep, throbbing ache pulsed under his left shoulder blade, subduing his urge to shift and fly. His wing would regenerate. It had to regenerate. But thoughts of his wing would have to wait.
A hard push through the fifteenth and sixteenth arrondissements had lathered the horse’s flanks in sweat, and now its nostrils flared and snorted with exertion. As Luc approached an intersecting street, he caught a thready chime at the base of his skull. He followed its lead, turning up a narrow side street. The chime grew stronger as he neared the raised square in front of a yellow marble church. Luc drew the reins back and brought the horse to a stop when he saw two uniformed gendarmes and five citizens standing in a circle around an unclothed body.
“No,” Luc breathed, jumping from the saddle.
He tore his way through the small crowd, heaving one of the military policemen aside when the man tried to block Luc. The others had enough sense of self-preservation to step back a few paces.
“Marco.” Luc crouched beside the Wolf’s naked human form, which was facedown on the stone square. He fought back a swell of bile as he took in the state of Marco’s back.
From the nape of his neck to the base of his tailbone, angel’s burns had carved into his skin. There wasn’t a strip of spared flesh. It was just a canvas of raw meat, with ribbons of white sinew, pink muscle, and red flesh. Oily black blood trickled to the cracked stone underneath, pooling in viscous puddles.
“Do you know this man?” one of the gendarmes demanded.
“I know that you want to be gone when he wakes up,” Luc answered.
The two policemen were the first to back away. The citizens quickly followed, deserting the square with whispers about the black blood.
Luc touched Marco’s shoulder. “Marco.”
His eyes were closed, but he wasn’t dead. His ribs still expanded with shallow breaths every few seconds.
Luc shook Marco’s shoulder, not caring if it inflicted pain. “Goddamn it, Marco, wake up! Where is Ingrid?”
The Wolf’s eyes opened to slits. “Ouch.”
“Where is she?” Luc asked again.
Marco pushed himself to his hands and knees, and a rasp of pain whistled out of his throat. Luc had endured only one angel’s burn at a time. To receive dozens … he wasn’t surprised Marco had lost consciousness. Irindi wouldn’t have done this.
“You’re elder,” Marco groaned, and before Luc could ask how he knew this, he continued, “I feel it. Every gargoyle will feel it. Congratulations, brother.”
“I don’t want congratulations. I want to know where Ingrid is.”
“The rectory,” Marco answered. “In her room.”
Luc stood up, his eyes going to Marco’s back once again. “It was Axia, wasn’t it?”
The Wolf held out his hand for assistance. “And we thought Irindi was a bitch.”
Luc gripped his hand and pulled him to his feet. A shot rang out and a chunk of stone from the nearby fountain exploded in a rain of dust. Luc dropped into a crouch. He scanned the square until his eyes came to rest on one of the gendarmes who had retreated earlier. He was behind one of the church’s arcade columns now, his rifle aimed at them.
“No one likes it when you’re naked, Marco,” Luc said, positioning himself behind the shelter of the fountain. Marco remained upright, his hands on his hips.