The Wondrous and the Wicked (3 page)

Chelle approached the body without hesitation. No one needed to tell her what had happened. It was all there for her to piece together: The red sash. The deep slashes delivered by a set of talons.

“Well, has anyone looked yet?” she asked.

Ingrid frowned. “Looked for what?”

When no one answered, Chelle sighed and boldly lifted the man’s limp arm. Her frankness and tenacity more than made up for her unintimidating stature.

She pushed the man’s coat and shirtsleeve down, revealing a tract of coarse black hair on the top of his forearm. On the pale flesh underneath, something had been inked into his skin. Ingrid craned her neck. It was an arrow, the head aiming toward the man’s blue-veined wrist and the fletching curved in half crescents toward the crease of his elbow.

Nolan moved away from the table, muttering a long string of curses. Chelle dropped the man’s arm.

“What does it mean?” Ingrid asked.

“Only one sort of Alliance member receives the Straight Arrow,” Chelle answered. “An assassin.”

Ingrid looked upon the dead man with new horror. Carrick Quinn had spoken of Alliance assassins. He’d said the Directorate would send one to end his life for betraying their orders. Ingrid had feared that they might send one for her as well once they discovered the mimic demon had failed. But after a month had passed with Marco practically adhered to her side and no trace of danger, she’d let herself breathe again. Too soon, apparently.

“Let’s not speculate,” Hans said, pinning Ingrid with his cool glare. She had relayed Carrick’s confession to Hans, but it had gone unaddressed.

Like many Alliance fighters, Nolan’s father had been exposed to mercurite, a tincture of mercury and silver used to destroy whatever poison a fighter became infected with after a bite or
gash from a demon. But mercurite was a poison of its own. After years of use, it started to eat away at the hunter’s internal organs, including his brain.

By the time Carrick had set the mimic demon on Ingrid, he’d been suffering badly. Even Nolan had noticed how different his father had been acting. They all believed he’d been half mad with mercurite poisoning, and of course, the Directorate had denied ever having voted to have Ingrid murdered.

Even she had started to question Carrick’s confession. The body on the table, and the tattoo on his arm, removed any lingering doubt.

Marco moved closer to Ingrid, mindful to keep his bared body out of her side vision.

“It’s hardly speculation,” he said. “The Alliance wants my human dead, and this proves what we’ve already tried to tell you.”

The knotted tangle in the pit of Ingrid’s stomach tightened a little more every time Marco called her that.
My human.
As if she belonged to him.

“Or this man could be connected with the Dusters that have been disappearing,” Hans murmured. “Miss Waverly is a Duster, after all.”

At Ingrid’s last session at Clos du Vie, where she practiced gathering and storing electric pulses in her fingertips, Monsieur Constantine had mentioned that a few of his students had not arrived for their scheduled lessons. They had not been seen at their homes, either.

“He isn’t connected,” Marco said. The finality in his voice brooked no argument.

Chelle tapped the sole of one bare foot against the tile floor and glared at Marco. “Of course he isn’t. We already know who is. Or I should say,
what
is.”

Ingrid risked a glance over her shoulder. Chelle’s hostility toward the Dispossessed wasn’t new, but she was accusing them of
harming Dusters. Oddly enough, Marco didn’t make a sarcastic retort. He cut his eyes away from her, toward the body on the table.

Nolan had taken up the unpleasant task of searching through the dead assassin’s coat and trouser pockets, most likely for any identifying information. “Marco is right. Assassins aren’t trained to hide the bodies of their targets, and none of the missing Dusters have been found,” he said. “Though a seasoned assassin would have known better than to approach his target
and
her gargoyle.”

Finding nothing, Nolan reached for a length of linen toweling. His hands were smeared with blood from his search.

“The ink on his arm does look fresh,” Chelle noted. “He could have been newly initiated.”

“I said we should not speculate,” Hans barked. “Now go wake the others. I want to know who this man is. Perhaps someone will recognize him.”

Chelle swallowed her retort and left the room.

Hans kept his gaze on the dead assassin. “I’ll contact the Directorate. Until I receive word, perhaps, Miss Waverly, you should remain in your home.”

He didn’t wait for Ingrid’s response. He stole out of the room and left her gawping. Stay in her home?

“He doesn’t know the Waverly women very well, does he?” Nolan said, raking a hand through his tousled black curls. Then his amused grin faded. “Have you heard from your sister?”

Ingrid shook her head, startled he’d mentioned Gabby. He hadn’t, not once, in the last month.

He rubbed his mouth, his palm scraping over the shadow of a beard. “I need to send a telegram to the London faction,” he said, his eyes glazed. Concern pulled his dark brows into a slant.

“You don’t think … 
Gabby
isn’t in danger, is she?” Panic flooded Ingrid’s body and suffused her with heat. “Do you think an assassin might go after her?”

Why did Gabby have to be so far away? Bloody London! Her
sister had been banished from Paris for her own safety against any retaliating gargoyles, but what could keep her safe from an assassin? And what about Grayson? The restless urge to find him, the notion that he was in trouble, made sense now. What if—

A hand clamped her shoulder. Marco. He’d felt her cold rush of fear. “Stop. She isn’t the one with angel blood, and I would bet my wings that is what this is about.”

Nolan paused at the door. “I didn’t mean to alarm you, Ingrid. I just have to make sure she’s all right.” Without another word of comfort to spare her, he disappeared into the corridor.

Ingrid stood beside the table, alone in the medical room except for the naked gargoyle at her back. Hans had advised them not to speculate, but it was indisputable to her what had happened that morning: an Alliance assassin had attempted to kill her on orders from the Directorate. They still wanted her dead. And here she was, standing in the lion’s den.

But she was safe. With Marco, she had a shield, someone who could read her primal instincts perhaps even faster and more effectively than she could. She had known the sound of a crossbow releasing its arrow, but she hadn’t been able to move or think quickly enough. Marco had, and without hesitation he’d taken the shot meant for her.

“You saved my life,” Ingrid whispered, still staring at the assassin’s body, at the deep gashes to his chest that had stolen
his
life. She didn’t feel as if she could say thank you to Marco. She wasn’t thankful that someone lay dead in front of her.

“It’s nothing,” Marco replied in that bored tone of his. She was most certain it
was
something to the gargoyle, though. When had he last killed a human?

Ingrid moved off to the side, toward a window, unable to stare at the body any longer.

Yes, she was safe with Marco, and perhaps she and Marco bantered more easily than she and Luc ever had, but there was still something missing between them. A warmth, a tenderness.
The ever-present want—
need
—that had been between her and Luc. They had tried not to notice it for a while, and then, when that hadn’t worked, they’d tried to overcome it. To actually touch and kiss and love one another. Because Ingrid did love him. And he loved her. He’d confessed it to her the morning the angels had taken him away to some other territory.

“Where is Luc?” Ingrid asked as she parted the black velvet drapes and looked out.

An older gentleman stood smoking a cigarette on a terrace directly across the street. The balcony doors opened, and his wife handed him a scarf and a hat. Just regular people doing regular things. Normal. Something Ingrid would never be again.

“I know you know where he is,” she went on.

She reached into her skirt pocket and rubbed her thumb along the curved fragment of stone she kept with her at all times. It was the irregular-shaped piece of Luc’s shattered stone shell that she’d picked up in the belfry, the place where his stone-crusted body had hibernated for over thirty years. The fragment was the only piece of him she had left, and she often found herself rubbing its smooth underside as if it were a talisman.

“Marco, can’t you understand? I need to know.”

He spoke through gritted teeth. “Why? He couldn’t have saved you this morning. He isn’t your protector any longer. I am.”

Ingrid closed her eyes, knowing she’d hurt him. He pretended not to have feelings, but she didn’t believe it for a second.

“You’d best get used to me, Lady Ingrid, unless you feel like joining your sister in London. Trust me, I wouldn’t attempt to stop you.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.” She sighed, letting go of the stone fragment. “I know how much you do for me—”

“What I am
forced
to do, may I remind you, Lady Ingrid.”

By the angels, yes, she knew. Marco was compelled to protect her. And perhaps that was her answer. Perhaps the moment Luc had been removed from the abbey and rectory he’d stopped
caring. Had he confused protection with love? It wasn’t a new thought for Ingrid. Every day that passed without a word from Luc drove that fear a little deeper into her heart.

“I know it’s dangerous … what I feel,” she said after a stretch of silence. She spoke to the pane of glass, her fingers balled into the velvet drape.

“I know he can’t … perhaps doesn’t … feel it, too, but I’m not asking to see him. I just want to know where. I promise, I’ll stay away, but—” Ingrid stopped herself.
But I love him.

Marco was her gargoyle, but he was still a Dispossessed, and the Dispossessed had strict rules among their own kind. General relationships with humans were frowned upon. Romantic relationships were forbidden, and punishable by death. Gargoyles were not immortal. This was simply their second life, one that stretched on and on for an eternity, or until they were killed—something that was usually difficult to accomplish, with their steely scales and stony muscles. However, a horde of gargoyles could easily rip another gargoyle apart.

Marco said nothing, and after another stretch of silence, Ingrid turned around. The medical room was empty. Marco had left noiselessly, though she didn’t know if it had been before her bumbling half confession or after. Or during. All she knew was that she was alone in a room with a dead body.

Strangely, she didn’t feel any lonelier than usual.

LONDON

T
he moment the door to number 75 Eaton Square shut behind Gabby, she let out a breath and stormed toward her father’s waiting carriage. All she wanted was to climb inside, pull the shade, and forget the last thirty minutes of her life.

The driver, busy conversing with a passing maid, did not see her. Gabby was moments away from clearing her throat to gain his attention when the carriage door opened from within. The steps were already down, so Gabby ascended quickly, ignoring the driver’s spluttering apologies as he finally saw her and belatedly offered his hand.

“I just want to leave. Quickly,” she stressed, and ducked inside the carriage.

She sat down, leaned against the cushions, and released a pent-up groan.

Rory Quinn, seated on the opposite bench, took out his pocket watch and checked the hands.

“A full half-hour. Yer patience must be improvin’,” he said with a grin.

Gabby closed her eyes. It wasn’t Mirabelle’s fault. She’d been one of Gabby’s closest friends before the move to Paris. Perhaps that was why Gabby had finally felt compelled to accept her invitation, after ignoring scores of others that had arrived at Waverly House in the days following her return to London. Surely Mirabelle would be sweet enough to overlook the grotesque scarring on the left side of her face. She wouldn’t mention the puffy white tracks that ran in a hooked arc from Gabby’s eye to the corner of her mouth. The ones she tried to keep hidden beneath dark veils, all of which she’d slashed on a diagonal. No, Mirabelle hadn’t mentioned them.

But her two other, unexpected guests had felt no such reservations.

“No more teas. No more parties,” Gabby said, her gloved fingers smoothing the dark emerald tulle of the day’s veil.

Rory had seen her scars plenty of times, but she still didn’t wish to showcase them. He’d been with her all month, living in Waverly House, acting the part of bodyguard quite well. His presence went along nicely with the story of how Gabby had received such dreadful wounds—that some deranged murderer had attacked her with a three-pronged hook before making off with and killing her lady’s maid, Nora. Rory was simply an extra measure of protection Lord Brickton had put in place for his daughter, considering the murderer had never been found.

Of course, the murderer had never existed. A hellhound had killed Nora and torn up Gabby’s face, and even though Lord Brickton knew as much, he still refused to speak about anything remotely supernatural. That was, whenever he bothered to be at Waverly House. Which wasn’t often.

“Teas and parties don’t suit ye anyhow,” Rory replied as the driver rocked onto the bench and whistled to the grays.

“They did. Once,” Gabby said softly. She sat up and attempted to hold a proper posture.

After a full month of being back in London and one horrible outing to a ball, during which she had suffered relentless inspection and false sympathy, Gabby had retreated to Waverly House and taken to living as a hermit. All of London society knew she was there. They all knew she was avoiding them. And to her surprise, Gabby didn’t give a fig.

Rory sat with his knees wide and his coat undone, revealing the vest of blessed silver daggers he wore instead of a waistcoat. He was no gentleman. He was a demon hunter, and a fine one, at that. Nolan had assigned him as Gabby’s protective escort, and he took the job most seriously. Wherever Gabby went, Rory attended her. He had even claimed the bedroom two doors down from hers at Waverly House, much to her father’s displeasure. Lord Brickton had been far too intimidated by the demon hunter to refuse him the room, though.