H
e had to get inside the Fournier house.
A yellow sheen showed through a gap in draperies at a side window. Hunched over, Gray crept up the sloping lawn and peered in. The light came through an open door from somewhere deeper in the house. This was what he preferred. If possible he would always choose to go from dark to light areas to give his eyes time to adjust.
The windows were the sash kind that opened from top to bottom—and they were locked, dammit.
He grasped the top of a frame and pulled, and the entire window lifted away effortlessly.
Gray frowned. It shouldn’t have been that easy, but he put the window aside, hauled himself up and inside the room.
He’d been there before—on the occasion when he’d entered through the front door.
Quickly, he crossed the room, making sure no one passing outside would see him.
His spine tightened, not in the way it did when Marley was near, or a premonition started, but an old-fashioned sensation of being watched. He turned around slowly.
A bamboo screen behind one of the purple chairs wobbled ever so slightly.
Gray pulled his gun and dropped into a crouch. “Come on out,” he said quietly.
The screen wobbled again.
“Now!”
A wave of sniffles erupted. Gray took a second to realize his enemy wasn’t a big, bad guy and rushed the screen. He snatched up a small girl huddled there, put a hand over her mouth—as gently as possible—and lifted her out.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re fine. Safe, honey, you’re safe. Are you Erin Dupuis?”
Very carefully he took his hand an inch away from her face.
“Of course I am,” she whispered with a fierce frown. “Who do you think I am?”
Gray tried a little grin and shrugged. “Of course. I should have known.”
Her body shook. The sharp comeback had to be a reaction to fear. The kid would do well. “Who are you?” she said. “You’re big.”
“I’m Gray,” he said, seeing no reason to lie. “And big is good when you need to get some things done.”
She considered that. “I can’t find my mom,” she said very quietly. “I can’t find anyone. Guess how I got out of that room?”
“What room?”
She tutted. “The one way upstairs where they locked me up, silly.”
“Of course,” Gray said. “How’d you get out?”
“Picked the lock.” She smirked a little. “Licorice taught me. He’s in the band at the Cage, but he used to help people when they got locked out of their houses.”
Sure he did
. “Good for you, kid. I want you to do exactly what I tell you. You’re going to let me put you out through the window, then you go hide behind the bushes by the gate and you just wait there. Can you do that?”
“My mom’s here,” she said. “Somewhere.”
“And I’m going to find her,” he told her, hoping he was right. “Now, do what I’ve told you to do—fast—so I can get on with it.”
He lifted her, but when he went to put her through the window, she clung to his neck. Gray wasn’t used to children, but he didn’t dislike the feel of the trusting little arms. “What is it?”
“I think they’re down in that place. In the place under the floors. I saw the stairs in the pantry.”
He thought so, too, but reinforcement didn’t hurt. Gray hugged Erin, lifted her outside and leaned to set her on the ground. “The only people you come out of hiding for are me or the police. Got it?”
“Got it,” she said and immediately scurried off into the darkness.
“Gutsy kid,” he murmured and wasted no more time finding his way into the hall, behind the left staircase and along a corridor toward where he figured the kitchen must be. He didn’t hear a sound or see any evidence of another soul.
Finally he paused and pulled out his cell phone. He couldn’t risk talking but he could text. The message he sent was to Nat Archer and it was specific enough that he knew his old friend would grind his teeth to nubs with rage. And later he, Gray, would suffer. But he had to do this his way.
He kept moving all the way to the bottom of the steps into a concrete reinforced area camouflaged beneath the house and lawns. The silence gave him the creeps.
Now where?
“Go. Don’t wait. She needs you now.”
He spun around, but didn’t see any ghostly face. What he heard was one of the whispery voices that had spoken to him in Marley’s workroom.
“Go where?” he muttered.
Whispers seeped in on all sides and rose to an ear-battering crescendo.
“Speak one at a time,” he said, wincing.
He saw the locker and ran to wrench open the door. Bright light hurt his eyes and he flinched at the sight of two bodies
hanging from hooks. He stared, and saw living eyes looking back at him. As fast as he could, he cut harnesses suspending each of two women, lifted them down and tore off gags. He released them from plastic bags tied at their necks.
“Thank you,” one of them croaked. An African-American with scratch marks on her lovely face, he recognized her as Pearl Brite.
“I want you up those stairs and outside,” he said, taking his knife to the bonds at their wrists. “Pearl and…” He didn’t recognize the other woman.
“Amber,” she said. “They went down there.” She pointed to a flagstone that had been removed from the floor at the far end of the room.
“Okay,” he said. “Outside now. The police are on their way. Do
not
show them how to get down here. I can’t risk any slips.”
He didn’t wait to watch them go or give more than a cursory glance at a precise row of what looked like white, top-loading ice boxes.
The hole in the floor led to a tunnel where gravel had been spread underfoot. The tunnel only went in one direction and he ran, ignoring the sound his feet made—until Eric Fournier and Sidney came around a corner, their eyes staring. Eric dragged Pipes Dupuis behind him.
“Get out of here,” Eric screamed. He looked wildly about and yelled, “No, no. Get down on your face and don’t move.”
Gray looked at him steadily and broadened his stance.
“On your face, punk,” Eric howled. “Get down.”
Sidney flattened herself against a bricked-in wall. She breathed loudly through her open mouth.
“You’re wasting my time,” Gray said.
Eric released Pipes and fumbled with his jacket. He didn’t seem the type to have a gun but Gray wasn’t trusting that instinct.
“Right,” he said. He gave Eric an openhanded blow to the
face and caught him by the back of the collar as he went down, whimpering. “Pipes, get going. Erin’s safe.”
“Oh, oh, no,” was the best Sidney could do as Pipes stumbled past Gray on her way out.
Holding Eric a foot off the floor and at arm’s length, Gray spun Sidney around and picked her up the same way. He brought their heads together with a
thwack
and felt their bodies go limp.
His own amazement seeped in. That kind of strength was nothing he’d ever thought of having. Dropping the unconscious brother and sister, he ran on with a vague thought for the way the window had shot from its tracks on the way in.
Strength wasn’t something he’d ever questioned—he had it—but not like this.
An image flashed, quickly, and was gone. The children in the foster home laughed when they were feeling bad because he, Gray, could make them laugh. The people supposedly caring for them hated it. They hurt the kids and Gray made them laugh.
He did it by…telling them what they were thinking and being right. All these years and he hadn’t recalled that.
And he was so strong for a little kid that the adults fought to get him on that kitchen table and tie him down before they took their knives, or whatever weapons they chose for the occasion, to a part of his body they could hide under his clothes.
He’d reached the end of the tunnel and there were several steps up. He could see the sky far above, but at the top of the steps a white building picked up a sheen, even though he could see moss staining its walls.
Without pausing, he reached the door and pushed gently. It swung inward slowly and he recoiled from a bestial, inhuman howling that burst over him.
Moving as carefully as he could force himself to do, he
hugged a wall and edged around until he saw the whole place. In truth he only saw Marley bent forward with an unspeakable creature attached to her back and shrieking at her.
Long, covered with a spined yellow-gray hide that had torn free of underlying flesh in many places, the beast had its claws around Marley’s neck. The side of its belly had burst open and parts bulged through the hide.
Its tail thrashed, but thick legs shook as if they would collapse.
“Take me there now,” the creature yelled at Marley. “Now. I can’t wait anymore. I have to go.”
The thing had a long, broad head and when it opened its mouth, a double row of thin teeth, like long, backward-curving needles, dripped slime.
Gray smelled the foul odor again. Now it was overwhelming.
He worked his way carefully up two steps and started around the room, behind divans, making for the rear of the monster.
Marley yelled. She didn’t cry or scream, she gave a great, full-throated yell, reached back to push her fingers into the thorny hanging folds beneath the thing’s jaw and forced her hand up with enough effort to shake her whole body.
The creature staggered backward, pulling her with it, and she attacked the other side of its neck, pushing in, grinding her fingers back and forth.
Gray rushed and grabbed hold of the talons at Marley’s neck. He yanked, and the legs flew wide, letting Marley spin away. But the weight of the lizardlike animal slumped. Its head fell forward and Gray let it go.
He glanced at Marley in amazement. She had immobilized a sort of immense dragon. It lay twisted on the floor of an unreal-looking white stone and silk-draped chamber.
“Come here,” he told Marley. “Please.”
She came, her face serious, and stood at his side. They
put an arm around each other. “Who is going to believe that?” Marley said.
“Do we believe it?”
“Oh, yeah. I believe it. It kills with its teeth. The only reason I’m not dead is because it wanted me to take it to that red dollhouse I’m working on. He said it’s his only way to go home to somewhere called Embran—deep in the earth.”
“Uh-huh,” Gray said. “Why am I glad Nat Archer’s not here? He’d be trying to say we invented the damn dragon.”
“Look,” Marley said. “He’s…rotting.”
“He was already rotting when he was trying to use you like a witch’s broom.”
Marley found and held his hand tightly.
More and more rapidly, hide shriveled. What must have been internal organs dried up and crumbled. Within minutes all that remained was a heap of crusted tissue, and the teeth and talons and dust.
Except for the figure revealed by the destroyed form.
“What the hell do you think you’re up to, Fisher?”
Gray registered Nat’s voice behind him, but couldn’t look away from what he was seeing.
“It’s him,” Marley said, moving even closer to Gray.
“Bucky’s outside with two unconscious people,” Nat said.
“Detain them,” Gray told him. “And shut up. I sent you a message. You weren’t supposed to try to find me.”
“The latest recruit to your fan club is worried about you,” Nat said. “She sent me looking for you. These fans of yours are getting younger, pal.”
“Erin Dupuis,” Gray told Marley.
Staggering to his feet and reaching out to take up and use an ebony cane, Bolivar Fournier rose from the destroyed carcass of something Gray could only think of as a dragon. While they watched, the remains completely disappeared.
“My God,” Nat muttered.
Bolivar turned slowly toward them, his face serenely
arranged. “I don’t recall inviting you in here,” he said, planting his cane with shaking hands and a resounding crack. “You can leave now.”
Marley pointed at the cane. “Remember the rubber piece from the warehouse,” she said. “It was from his cane.” The bottom of the stick was pale, pointed, and missing its protective cap.
“Nat,” Gray said. “You can take this one in, too—if he doesn’t die on you first. We’ve got witnesses to some of his crimes.”
Bolivar laughed. He focused on Marley. “Give Antoine my best, but make sure someone gets a message to Judas that the Embran will be back—eventually. Enjoy your little triumph—for as long as it lasts.”
“W
ill this ever really be over?” Marley said. They had finally been allowed to leave Nat and his henchmen.
They had Gray’s Volvo and headed for Faubourg Marigny.
“In time,” Gray said. “But I think I’ve had it with Embran for one night.”
Marley grumbled to herself and finally said, “Yeah. Right.”
“Did you notice how Nat and company all avoided the big question?” Gray said. “How do you put nonhumans on trial?”
“Two of them are part human. Supposedly.” She had difficulty finding any humanity in Eric and Sidney. “What are they going to do when that comes out?”
“Not our problem,” Gray said.
Marley sighed. “For how long, I wonder? Bolivar said another like him would take his place. I wonder if Pascal knows who Judas is.”
“You don’t know?” Gray cleared his throat. “Judas was what they called him after he married the first one who came from Embran and the trouble started. His real name was Jude and he was the first dark-haired one. He’s the Mentor.”
Marley caught her breath. “You should have explained all this.”
“We haven’t had time for long chats,” he pointed out.
“No,” she muttered. “Where is he?”
“You’re asking me? Sykes talked about that book, too.
But I don’t think I’m going to be the one to sort it all out, not that your Mentor is likely to come racing back now you Millets are okay. That’s my take, anyway. How many dark-haired Millets have there been?”
Marley’s throat dried out. “Sykes is the second one. That’s why he can’t take over as head of the family when the time comes. That’s why my parents are off looking for an answer to the curse.”
“One dark-haired man makes a mistake so it’s a curse forever?” Gray said.
“We can’t be sure. The Mentor broke the tradition and the bottom fell out. You can’t blame the family for being suspicious,” Marley said. “I’m going to be in the doghouse tomorrow. There are going to be more questions than I want to think about.”
“You told your family to go to bed. You told them you’re safe and you told them you need to recover before you talk to them about everything. They’ll understand.”
“No, they won’t. They don’t. But I can’t face them now.”
Marley looked at Gray. Streetlights highlighted the shadows in his face as they passed. Rain fell again and the windshield wipers squealed.
She turned toward him. “All I want is to be with you.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “That can be arranged.”
She felt afraid, deep inside. Excited, aroused, but uncertain enough to struggle with tumbling thoughts.
“What is it?” Gray said, glancing at her.
“What will you do now?” she asked. “If you don’t think you can finish the article you started, you could write about the case—like Gus suggested.”
“No, I couldn’t. I’d have to lie or no one would believe it. Anyway, I’m part of it all now and I’m not into personal exposés.”
I’m part of it all now,
she thought, concentrating on the nuance of each word he’d said.
How could I be anything else?
Hearing him connect with her, she looked at him sharply.
Can you hear what I’m thinking?
Yes. Weird, huh. I tried when I was looking for you. I thought I heard you call out for me.
I did, Gray.
“I want to kiss you,” she told him aloud. “And I want us to be completely honest with each other.”
He groaned. “Always the serious one. Can’t we just kiss and all that stuff?”
“All that stuff?”
She got another mind-destroying grin. “
All
of that stuff,” he repeated.
“What will Gus think about us going back to your place?”
“He’s in bed and Gus is happier than he’s been in years. He thinks you’re too good for me, but he’s crazy glad you came along.”
They arrived in front of the cottage and Gray pulled in to park at the side.
Marley made a move to open her door, but Gray reached across to stop her. His hand landed over hers on the handle, and they both sucked in a breath.
“Do you think it will ever go away?” he said. “This private energy field of ours?”
“I don’t know.”
Gray laughed. “I hope not.”
She sat still, looked straight ahead in the darkness.
Gray put a hand on the back of her neck and she shivered. “Where do we go from here?” he asked. “Bonded. That’s what we are, right? So what will that mean?”
Her heart beat harder. “It means there can never be anyone else for me. I have no choice.”
“Do you wish you did?”
She gave a short laugh. “It doesn’t work like that. What I feel for you now I will always feel. Of course, you are different. You do have a choice.”
He reached across her again and released her seat belt so he could pull her into his arms. “I have no choice, Marley. I don’t want one. That’s not what I meant. What does your family expect from us—or from me? Will they make it difficult for us? I know how much they mean to you.”
She really laughed this time. “The main reason they’re probably chomping right now is because they want to get their hands on us. A Bonding doesn’t happen very often and it’s exciting for everyone. A new chance for life.” She blushed scarlet in the darkness and hid her face.
“Mmm,” Gray said. “I can understand them thinking about that. First I get you all to myself, though. Can we go away somewhere? Get married and go somewhere?”
Married?
Yes. I want that. It’s what people like me do.
I think you’re similar people to me. We Bond.
Any reason we can’t do both? If you won’t do it for me, will you do it for Gus?
“Listen to us,” she said and giggled.
“We should make sure it doesn’t become a habit, this nonverbal communication. We could make enemies.”
“I didn’t think men were very keen on getting married,” Marley said.
“Garbage. Propaganda.”
“Okay. But you get to arrange it. I wouldn’t know how.”
Gray snickered. “I think Gus will arrange it—with the help of Willow and her gang. What Willow doesn’t know, she’ll find someone who does for advice.”
They smiled, felt their smiles even though they couldn’t see them. And they fell silent.
Eventually Gray said, “You have to keep your word. You said you were going to kiss me.”
Marley bit her lip. She knelt on her seat, took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply.
When their lips finally parted, Gray said, “I love you so much.”
“Not as much as I love you.”
“A million times as much as you love me,” he said.
“Uh-uh, I love you—”
Gray kissed her again, shutting off the rest of what she was going to say.
They went into the house and upstairs to his bedroom as quietly as their breathing, kissing and muffled exclamations would allow.
“I want to undress you,” Marley said, surprising herself, but thrilling herself, too.
He held still, or he did most of the time, while she took off his clothes, lingering over each part she exposed. She found a few of the very pale, raggedly healed wounds he had suffered at the hands of strangers, kissed them and didn’t comment.
“My turn,” he told her when he was naked.
Gray had exquisite patience and stripped her so slowly her knees grew weak, and every place they touched shot an electric charge that clamped them together and eventually brought them into a tangled heap on the bed.
Under the covers, mouth to mouth, body to body, their hands roaming between gasps, they forgot about the past, didn’t think about the future, while they passed the night in sweet, hot lovemaking.
“Did you see that?” Gray asked once.
“Mmm, what?”
“Sparks,” Gray said, and they laughed while they came together again.
There were sharp bursts of color. “We make our own light show,” Marley said.
After that they didn’t talk much for a long time.