The Wondrous and the Wicked (20 page)

“What are you doing?” She slammed the door behind her, her eyes on the needle. “And what is that?”

They both straightened at the sight of her, Grayson swearing loudly as Vander fumbled with the needle and syringe. Grayson swore again, regaining Vander’s attention. He pushed the plunger and the contents of the glass barrel disappeared into Grayson’s vein. He extracted the needle and set it aside on the desk roughly before turning toward Ingrid, hands up in surrender.

“Let me explain.”

“What did you just inject into my brother?”

Grayson stood up. “Mersian blood. Ingrid, it’s okay. You don’t have to look like that.”

She frowned. “Like what?”

“Like you want to electrocute the good reverend,” her brother answered.

“She wouldn’t electrocute me.” Vander peered at Ingrid. “I hope.”

“Why would you inject Grayson with your blood?” she asked, not in the mood for humor. “And, Grayson, how do you know where Vander lives?”

The two men looked at one another and, with a few raised eyebrows and hand gestures, silently discussed who would be the one to explain things. Grayson bowed to the pressure first.

He stepped toward Ingrid. “I’ve been coming to Vander for a little while. Don’t be angry, Ingrid. I asked him to keep it a secret,” he said quickly, as if knowing how she would react. “He’s been taking some of my dust, making things easier for me. And this experiment, mixing his blood with mine, is actually working.”

“My mersian blood seems to have cancelled out his hellhound symptoms,” Vander explained.

She remembered what Grayson had said behind the closed door. That he hadn’t itched to shift in days.

“I didn’t want to be around you or Mama until I could trust myself,” Grayson added. He stood in front of Ingrid, slightly taller than she was. He cocked his head to meet her eyes.

“I can do it now. With Vander’s help,” Grayson said, and then, running both hands through his hair, went on, “I think his blood is our answer, Ingrid. Not just us, but all Dusters.”

She peered over Grayson’s shoulder to where Vander stood at his desk, taking apart the needle and syringe, one ear on their conversation but clearly trying to stay out of it. He’d been helping her brother this whole time? Ingrid had been desperate to know where Grayson was, and Vander had known. He’d known and kept quiet.

Her brother pinched her arm, jerking her attention back to him. She swatted his shoulder.

“Would you give me a minute?” she asked. “I’m trying to catch up.”

Grayson laughed and took his jacket from where he’d tossed it on Vander’s bed.

“All right, I’ll give you more than a minute, okay? I have to go. But, Ingrid, get the injection. See for yourself.”

He started for the door but doubled back, as if he’d forgotten something. He took her by the shoulders. “We can be us again. We can be a normal family doing normal things. Normal, boring, mundane things.”

He lifted her off the floor and twirled her once before she kicked and demanded he put her down. He did, but by then she was laughing.

“I should say that sounds awful,” she said.

“But it doesn’t, does it?” Grayson asked. He nodded his thanks to Vander and left.

Ingrid’s head still spun, her laughter fading. Vander closed the needle kit and stood at his desk. After a long pause, he leaped in with an explanation.

“I know how worried you were about him, and I wanted to tell you, Ingrid, I did. But if I had and you had come here, forcing him to see you when he wasn’t ready, he might not have come back.”

She stood in the center of his room, her hands feeling warm. No current now. She wasn’t upset. And yet tears were pricking at her eyes.

“I thought if I could help him, even a little, that it would be at least something.”

It was more than just something. It was good and selfless and earnest. So very Vander.

“Did he find you?” she asked.

Vander hesitated. “I found him.”

“How?”

“I tracked him.”

He’d found her brother. He’d helped him. Given him hope. And because of that, Grayson had just picked her up and spun her around the way he’d always done before, whenever he’d been too happy to hold still. Her brother hadn’t been happy like that in ages.

Ingrid crossed the room to the desk where Vander still stood and, without a word, threw her arms around his shoulders and clung to him. He stiffened briefly before his arms encircled her in return.

“This doesn’t feel like you’re angry,” he said.

She laughed, her cheeks wet with tears. “How could I be angry? You went out of your way to track down my brother, and you helped him. He needed someone to care for him, and I couldn’t, but you did,” she said, her voice muffled by Vander’s shoulder.

She pulled away, wanting to say thank you. Vander’s mouth
caught hers, stunning her long enough for him to ease her forward, against his chest. Ingrid’s lips had already been parted to speak and Vander had deftly stolen inside. The touch of his tongue and the way his fingers worked underneath her coiled braid, rubbing against her scalp, stunned her for a second time. But when he wrapped one arm around her waist and whirled her around, lifting her to sit upon the desktop, Ingrid laid her palms flat against Vander’s chest and pushed. Hard.

“No. Stop,” she gasped as she slid off the desk and stumbled away from him.

Vander stared after her, heaving for air. She covered her mouth with a trembling hand, unable to meet Vander’s gaze.

“Ingrid—”

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, I can’t.”

She hadn’t expected him to kiss her. And she hadn’t expected to have to remember how good kissing him felt.

“Because of Luc,” he said.

She dropped her hand and dared to meet Vander’s eyes. He narrowed them at her. “What has he done?”

Ingrid hesitated. “Nothing.”

Vander raised his voice and came toward her. “Do you know how much danger he’s put you in if the other Dispossessed find out?”

“I’m already in danger,” she said, though she immediately knew it was a poor retort. It only made Vander more furious.

“That’s right, Ingrid. Gargoyles are
already
hungry to destroy you, and now Luc would give them one more reason.”

It was tempting to be a coward and allow Vander to heap all his anger on Luc. She couldn’t do it, though. She was British. Cowardice simply wasn’t acceptable.

“You’re acting as if I didn’t have a say in any of this. I did, Vander. I
do.
”

He shook his head and, since there was not enough room to pace, turned in a tight circle. “He’s manipulating you. Making you
confuse gratitude with affection. I can guarantee you wouldn’t feel anything for him if he hadn’t saved your life so many times, or been bound to you the way he was.”

Did Vander truly think her so susceptible? Or shallow? Ingrid stopped shrinking from him and stood her ground.

“They are my feelings, Vander Burke, not yours to pick apart and evaluate. And if you believe Luc would manipulate me, then you don’t know him at all.”

Vander took two strides across the room and stood directly before her, using every inch of his height to bear down on her.

“You’re right, I don’t know him. I know you, though, and I know what we have is real.” He took her hand in his and pressed it against his chest. “I know you feel the same things I do when we kiss. When we touch. And it’s not just our dust. It goes deeper than that.”

He’d inclined his head as he’d been speaking, his voice growing fainter though his lips had come closer. Ingrid didn’t know what to do. She
did
feel something when they kissed. She
did
like it. But she didn’t long for Vander’s kisses when they were apart the same way she did Luc’s. She longed for Vander’s company. His friendship. The comfort that came from being with him.

Ingrid wrenched her hand from his and stepped away. She couldn’t bear to look at him. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. But she had to.

“Vander …,” she said, her next words still undecided.

They remained that way. For right then, the floor gave a violent shake. Or perhaps her legs had curiously lost their strength. Either way, Ingrid tumbled forward. The lights started to wink, and a voice rose from somewhere within the apartment building. The voice was getting louder, and even as blackness swirled thick and stole away Ingrid’s sight, the words became distinguishable:
“Come, my seedlings. It is time.”

G
rayson had hailed a hackney as soon as he’d left Vander’s flat. Just past the Arc de Triomphe, however, he’d pounded on the roof and asked to be let out. The air was crisp, there wasn’t a single cloud over Paris, and he wanted to keep his body moving instead of cooped up in the back of a stale cab.

The coil of tension along his shoulders and spine had returned that morning after two days of being absent, along with a riptide beneath his skin, swirling and sucking at him. His nose had become more sensitive as well. His mother had crossed the street to his new flat to see if he’d like to join them for breakfast, and he’d traced the barest scent of her blood as she’d knocked at his door. He’d accepted, though reluctantly, and he hadn’t had much more than a croissant and coffee before excusing himself. Being inside the rectory when the mersian blood wore off completely would not have been wise.

Grayson crossed the Pont des Invalides with his hands deep in his pockets, the collar of his coat up to block the wind. The
elevated body temperature was the only thing he missed about having hellhound blood.

There was a minor problem in all of this: he would be dependent upon Vander Burke from here on out. He didn’t like it, but he’d manage it, if it meant keeping his demon side at bay. And who knew, perhaps the old boy would be Grayson’s brother-in-law soon. He and his sisters had a weakness for the Alliance, it seemed.

But he didn’t want to think about Chelle just then, or about the night before on Yann’s bridge. He’d done everything wrong. The only things he consistently felt with regard to Chelle were admiration and frustration.

A woman’s scream made him look up. Ahead, a Bohemian-looking man tugged on the sleeve of his companion before breaking into a sprint toward the Right Bank. The other man followed, his long, artfully patched and frayed coattails rippling in the wind. Grayson searched for the woman who had screamed, his rational mind suggesting that those two men had done some nefarious thing to her. He pivoted to look behind him and saw two more people—a woman and a man—also running, these two toward the Left Bank. No one ran in Paris. They walked gracefully and slowly, carrying themselves as if time revolved around their needs, able to stretch or stop if required.

Grayson continued toward the Right Bank, his senses alert. He wasn’t sure what made him go to the bridge’s stone barrier and peer down. Instinct, perhaps. When he saw the giant, shaggy, black-furred hellhound stalking along the quay in broad daylight, he didn’t startle. The demon wasn’t the creature that caused his breath to turn to syrup in his throat.

It was the smaller furred creature behind it, the one wearing the remains of a purple skirt and white shirtwaist. A Duster. A hellhound Duster, transformed. And the fur around its maw was plastered with blood.

“Christ,” Grayson whispered as another scream broke from the direction of the Right Bank.

He followed the sound. A second scream joined in, then a third, and then a chorus sounded from the head of the bridge. When he reached the street, people were tumbling through the doors of a corner café. A man surged through, knocking over a coal-filled brazier. His hoarse cries drowned out the others, and for good reason—a demon serpent had its fangs jammed deep into his ankle, its pale yellow body trailing behind in the spill of sparking coals. The man kicked his leg and fell, and he disappeared underneath another surge of screaming patrons.

Grayson rushed forward, reaching for the sword he’d had at his waist the night before. His fingers slid along his hip, grasping fabric and air. He’d left it at the rectory. Time seemed to slow for the next few seconds under the roar of panic. He forced his eyes shut and exhaled.
Focus.
He wasn’t Alliance, but unlike the people scattering frantically in every direction, he knew how to fight demons.

He was closer to Hôtel Bastian than he was to home. He had to tell the others—had to tell Chelle. And he had to arm himself.

Time kicked back into motion, and with it came the piercing screams of women, the wild bleating of horses, and the grating wails of a baby from some open balcony door above him. Grayson ran as if his legs were a gargoyle’s wings, carrying him with effortless speed and power. He swerved into the road to avoid an awning that had collapsed over an outdoor market, and then jumped over the ravaged carcass of a poodle, its jewel-encrusted leash still attached. Windmilling his arms, he came to a halt as a carriage teetered onto two wheels just ahead of him. The horse was bucking and braying as something that looked like a gigantic fly straddled its neck, tearing the flesh to bloody ribbons. The fly was wearing trousers.

It was the Harvest. It had to be.

Grayson bounded out of the way of the crazed horse and started to run again. The Dusters had to be under Axia’s control, or perhaps demon control. He didn’t know. He just knew that he hadn’t been affected. Because of Vander’s blood?

Grayson flung himself to the pavement as a black bird sheared through the sky toward him.
Corvite.
It growled when it cut through the air overhead, missing its target by inches. Grayson ignored the flare of pain on his skinned palms and scrambled up, craning his neck to see where the demon bird had flown.

It had spun around, its wingspan easily the length of his own arms outstretched, and was making a dive for him yet again. Grayson’s legs hit a metal trash can and he bowled over it, striking the ground and working more grit into the raw skin on his palms. The lid of the trash can spun on the pavement beside him. Grayson grabbed the lid and swung it through the air, connecting with the corvite. The bird thumped to the ground in a shower of black feathers. It was only stunned, so Grayson found his feet and darted away.