Authors: Christine Warren
“So you fight the demons and banish them. The Wardens keep watch and call you when they slip away from wherever they go in the meantime. You wake up and banish them again, and it’s some kind of never-ending cycle?”
“Put simply, yes.”
“So how do they keep finding their way back here? Can’t you banish them permanently?”
“They are powerful. And cunning. And there are those who would seek to aid in their return.”
Ella felt her eyes widen. “Humans?”
Kees nodded.
She shook her head and tried to wrap her mind around that concept. Were there really human beings out there who would want the ultimate evil to be unleashed into the world?
Okay,
she told herself,
dumb question.
Of course there were. But why on earth would anyone want to do that?
Who
would want to do that?
“Just like the Guardians are served by the Guild of Wardens, the Darkness draws to it servants of its own. They are known as the Order of Eternal Darkness. We call them the
nocturnis
.”
“And these are humans who … what? Aid and abet the Seven demons?”
“They serve the Darkness in any way they can. They attempt to summon the Seven forth from their prisons, and if they succeed, they work to feed the demons and make them stronger. Ultimately, they hope to free all Seven at once and see them unite once more into the Darkness.”
“I don’t understand. Why try to help something that has no purpose other than to wipe out life as we know it? I mean, eventually it’s going to run out of innocent people to kill and turn on its own allies, right? Isn’t that the definition of pure evil?”
Kees shrugged, his expression stony. In more ways than one. “They seek power, and they naïvely believe that the Darkness will give it to them. For a time, they may be correct, but ultimately, even they will be consumed.”
“Well, duh.”
The gargoyle’s mouth quirked.
Ella took a moment to think. When they first took their seats, she had expected Kees to explain what the energy they both sensed in the gallery of his Warden’s house had meant. She hadn’t been expecting a more in-depth lecture on what he and his Warden had been created to protect against.
But she was coming to understand that the gargoyle was a supremely logical creature. If he believed this was what she needed to know first, he had a very good reason for drawing that conclusion.
“Are you trying to tell me that that stuff, the icky stuff I sensed in the gallery earlier … Did that stuff mean this Order of Eternal Darkness had been inside Gregory’s house?”
Kees fixed his black gaze on her, his expression grave. “That ‘stuff’ was magic, but Dark magic, the kind used by the
nocturnis
and their masters.”
Ella shuddered. And here she’d been afraid of her own magic all these years. Compared to that nasty, black ooze, her own uncontrolled surges of blue-white energy seemed like fresh water in contrast to sewer sludge.
“Do you think the Order—the
nocturnis
.” She corrected herself. “Do you think they killed your Warden?”
“I am certain of it.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and bit her lip. The expression on the gargoyle’s face had barely shifted since he resumed this form, but Ella could see tension and anger in the banked flames in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry he’s dead, and not just because he can’t help answer all those questions you wanted to ask him. Were you … close?”
His huge head shook side to side. “We met and spoke only once, at the ritual where he took up the mantle of his father’s position as Warden. Since then, there has been no grave threat. I slept uninterrupted until now. But that I knew him only slightly is of no consequence. He was mine.”
Ella heard steel behind the words, or maybe it was stone. Either way, she knew Kees would find justice for his fallen comrade. She found herself wanting that for Kees. Maybe if she concentrated on what she wanted for him, she could stop thinking about what she wanted from him.
She had breathed a sigh of relief when he shifted back to his monstrous form once they returned to her apartment. Surely, she had told herself, seeing the true shape of the distractingly gorgeous man she’d spent the last night and day lusting over would cure her of that little obsession.
No such luck.
In reality, Ella couldn’t make herself think of Kees as a monster. Somehow, her eyes just wanted to skim over the small ram’s horns that curled back above his temples and the fangs that flashed whenever he spoke. His long claws made for a bit of an extreme manicure, but she’d dated men who wore nail polish, so who was to say what was normal?
Okay, so his feet made her a little uncomfortable, looking like a cross between the feet of a man and a giant raptor, but she wasn’t into feet anyway. She figured her own stubby toes and pale skin and bony ankles couldn’t exactly be called alluring, so she shouldn’t judge.
The tail was easy enough to ignore, and honestly, the wings … well, those she found oddly comforting.
Maybe she was losing her mind, but the wings soothed her. They made her want to climb into his lap and curl up against his chest. She could almost feel the warm embrace of them fold around her, shielding her from the outside world, creating a perfect cocoon of peace and tranquility. It would be like a giant hug surrounding them both, sealing them off in their own private nest.
She shivered and hugged herself tighter.
God, she had to drag her mind off his body and force it back to the matter at hand. Especially since he hadn’t so much as indicated he remembered her gender since they got out of the car at Gregory’s house.
Ella cleared her throat. “So, um, since Gregory’s gone and he can’t answer any of your questions, what are you going to do now?”
What she wanted to ask was what were
they
going to do, but she tamped down the impulse. She could fight that battle later if he actually tried to exclude her from their next move. She could always remind him of the magical training he had told her she needed. After hearing of the Warden’s death and sensing the nasty stuff left behind by whoever had killed him, she was inclined to agree that the idea of learning enough magic to protect herself had merit.
“I am starting to believe that the questions I had intended to ask have ceased to be important,” he told her. “I think I know why I have woken, even if the way in which it happened remains unclear. I think it is more important now to contact the Guild directly. If Gregory has been dead for three years as Greta indicated, a replacement should have been named long ago. I need to find out why this was not done, and see how much they know about the threat that killed him. If the
nocturnis
are active again, the Guild must know about it. They will be able to tell us if matters have become serious enough to warrant waking another of my brothers to defend against it.”
Able to tell “us,”
he had said. Ella tried to ignore the warm glow his words caused. Seriously, she was becoming a sap.
“That makes sense,” she said, careful to conceal her satisfaction. “How do we do that?”
“I told you, the Guild always remains in one place. It allows for continuity in spite of the long stretches of time during which the individual Guardians might sleep. Their base in Paris has been there for hundreds of years. They designed and built the structure specifically to be an eternal stronghold from which to fight the long war. We will go to them there.”
“Um, seriously? Don’t get me wrong, I think contacting the Guild is probably the right move, but Paris is a long way away, and plane tickets are expensive. You know, since I don’t have wings of my own.”
Kees shook his head. “Traveling to Paris would take too long. We will have to contact them. We can use a telephone, yes?”
“Sure, if you remember the number.” She paused. “Although, I don’t know if phone numbers work the same way now that they did the last time you woke up. Wait, if you last woke in 1703, they didn’t even have telephones.”
“The last time I battled one of the Seven was in 1703, not the last time I woke. I had to interrupt my slumber briefly each time a new Warden succeeded into my service. So the last time was approximately sixty-five years ago.”
Ella thought for a minute, and then shook her head. She just kept remembering old movies from the ’40s and ’50s when people would pick up the phone and ask the operator to connect them to Bumbleford 8173, or something.
“Still not sure anything you remember will work. I don’t suppose their number is in the book, is it?”
“What book?”
“You know, listed in a public directory. Like, can I call the phone company in Paris and ask for a number to connect me to the Guild of Wardens?”
“Ah.” Kees indicated his understanding with a small gesture. “I do not think so. The Guild has become much more private over the centuries since it was founded. Only those whom they wish to hear from know how to contact them.”
“Hm.”
Ella pursed her lips. An unlisted phone number did present an obstacle in the path, but not an insurmountable one. There was more than one way to skin a cat. Or a gargoyle. She thought about asking Kees if he knew the physical address of the Guild’s building, but even that wasn’t likely to prove helpful. Cities, especially major ones, had changed dramatically over the centuries, and streets got renamed all the time. An old address, whether it was three hundred years old or sixty-five years old could very well lead them down another dead end.
An idea occurred to Ella, and she began to smile. It was true that cities changed, but if the Guild had its base in a truly historical building, chances were, it had been the subject of architectural curiosity and historic preservation movements through the years. And that meant that it would be well known, probably featured in guide books and photographic studies of a city as famous and often visited as Paris.
Yes, Ella decided, pushing up from her chair and heading toward her desk in the corner of her unused dining room. It was definitely time to introduce a medieval gargoyle to the wonders of the modern world.
Look out, Google. Here we come.
* * *
Kees’s jaw had dropped when Ella first opened the wonders of the Internet. He had heard of such things during his slumber, of course, but to witness the enormous wealth of information so easily accessed so quickly and efficiently …
His mind, as Ella would put it later, was blown.
Not that finding a single ancient building in a city as old and crowded as Paris was easy, of course, but Ella had determination on her side. With the help of several maps, both modern and historical, she first had Kees point out which section of Paris the Guild has settled in. Then, armed with the number of the corresponding arrondissements, Ella began the laborious task of drawing up a list of historic buildings so she could find photos for Kees to look at. Once he identified the correct building, a little Internet sleuthing should tell her the current street address. With that, finding the owner and some contact information would be only a matter of time.
It took four hours to find the building. When she showed Kees the digital photograph of the classical stone façade with Gothic detailing and decorative sculpture recessed in niches along the walls, his eyes narrowed and he grunted in satisfaction.
“That is it. That is the headquarters of the Guild of Wardens.”
“Good,” Ella grunted in return. “Now, let me get back to work.”
She did, while Kees got back to the refrigerator.
They had eaten lunch together about two hours ago, Ella munching her sandwich while still hunched over her keyboard; Kees plowing through four times the food on the other side of the desk. The gargoyle, though, said he was hungry again. Apparently, it took a lot of fuel to keep those enormous muscles performing. Ella tried not to think about them. At least, not while she was working.
Another two hours passed and Ella squealed with triumph. “I got it!”
She leapt out of her chair, ignoring the protests of her stiff muscles, and did a little victory dance in the fading light from the dining room window. She loved solving puzzles, and this one had been a doozy.
Kees looked up from where he had been sitting on the sofa, studiously examining her remote control. “You have a number to call? What is it? Where is your telephone?”
“Whoa, hold on, big guy.”
Ella held up a hand, which Kees walked right into as he stalked around the sofa to the computer.
“What is the number? We must call immediately.”
“I said, hold your horses.”
He growled. Ella felt the sound rumbling under her palm, but instead of frightening her, the sensation fascinated her, as did the warm, rough-smooth feel of his skin beneath her hand. She had to force herself to pay attention.
“I found the listed owners of the building, not the phone number,” she explained, reluctantly dropping her hand and raising her gaze to his face. “It’s a trust, which I suppose makes sense if the Guild has been operating for centuries and intends to continue doing so. But more importantly, I found the names of the trust’s managers, a law firm in Paris.”
“Then why are we wasting time? We must call.”
“We’ll call once I dig up the number. It should only take a few minutes, but you do realize that’s it currently about two o’clock in the morning, Paris time, right?”
“The hour does not matter. Find the number. We will call the Guild immediately once you do. Trust me, someone will answer.”
“All right. Give me five minutes. Ten, tops.”
Ella settled back into her desk chair and tried to ignore the feel of Kees’s dark gaze boring into her while she typed and scrolled and clicked. The man proved a potent distraction just being in the same room. Having him actively watching while she worked wreaked havoc on her concentration.
She returned her focus to her Web search and reread the text of a news link. Her heart took a nosedive into her stomach, and she read the words a third time. She bit her lip as she clicked on the link.
“What is it? What is wrong?”