“I have to get out. I have to get to my family.”
She nodded. “I know.”
“Show me the nearest passageway.”
“This way.” She led me to the other side of the water and shimmied down a rope, swinging onto another ledge behind the curtain of white water. When the thick rope swung back, I grabbed it and followed her. The ledge was slippery and the thunder of the waterfall shook through my bones. Isabeau fumbled for a flashlight and switched it on, sending the beam bouncing down a tunnel that was really no more than a crack in the rock.
“Parts of it are so dark not even we can see,” she explained, handing me another flashlight with a strap to fit it over my head. She was fitting her own, like a headband. The light blinded me from seeing her expression. “You shouldn’t go alone,” she said. The clash of swords floated down, barely audible.
I stared at her briefly. “You’re coming with me?” I hadn’t expected that, wouldn’t have imagined for a single moment that she’d leave the Hounds to help me. She turned away to face the passageway, light swinging.
“I expect I’ll do more good with you than I would here. Kala didn’t ask me to join her, which means she wants me to safeguard the alliance. Why else would she have insisted on your initiation so soon after meeting you?”
I didn’t really have time to talk her out of it. “Thank you,” I murmured as we wedged ourselves into the damp tunnel, rock scraping each of my shoulders. I turned sideways. There was still barely room to maneuver. I really hoped this crevice led in the right direction. They all looked the same from the outside. I really didn’t relish the thought of getting stuck and starving to death inside a mountain. Hardly an effective way to stop Montmartre.
We crept along slowly, too slowly for both our tastes but there wasn’t anything we could do about it. There was no way to move faster since the tunnel seemed to be getting even more narrow instead of widening up to the sky.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” I muttered as I scraped another layer of skin off the side of my neck and the back of my hand. The flashlight speared Isabeau’s back, the fall of her dark hair, pale glimpses of skin. She turned her head slightly, reached up to flick the light off.
“We’re nearly there. If we keep these on we’ll give ourselves away.”
I shut mine off as well. After a moment of blinking away the sudden change in light I could differentiate all the shades of black and gray. If I’d still been human, it would have been unrelieved pitch-black. I could smell a change in the air too. It was still cold and damp but every so often a warm breath of leaves and mud snuck its way in. It wasn’t long before I could hear the wind.
We stumbled out into a very small cave that opened up to the glimmer of stars and the shifting of branches from a stunted tree near the opening. The outcrop was relatively narrow, we’d have to climb our way down. I reached for my cell phone.
“I should call my parents. Can I get reception here?”
Isabeau nodded. “You should be able to. It’s not reliable but at least it shouldn’t be blocked by magic this far away from the main cavern.”
The faceplate of my phone was cracked and it wouldn’t turn on at all. “That just figures,” I said, frustrated. “I wasn’t sure I believed in magic before, but I totally believe in curses now.” I stuffed it back into my pocket, disgusted. “I must have landed on it when Morgan was kicking my ass. It’s useless.” Kind of like I was starting to be. It was doing nothing for my mood.
Isabeau handed me her phone. “Here, try mine.”
“Thanks.” I dialed quickly, listening with growing agitation as it rang and rang. I tried my mother’s number, my dad’s, Sebastian’s. No one answered. That was virtually unheard of unless they were hunting or fighting. Someone always answered. “This is not good,” I said, dialing the farmhouse.
Solange answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Sol? What’s going on? Why isn’t anyone answering their phones?”
There was a long pause and when she spoke again her voice squeaked. “Logan?”
“Yeah, who else?” I answered, irritated.
“Logan!” she shouted so loudly and suddenly I nearly dropped the phone.
“What are you yelling for? And, ouch.” Isabeau looked at me questioningly and I shrugged. I couldn’t explain my family at the best of times.
“You’re alive! Oh my God.”
“Of course I’m—”
“Nicholas! It’s Logan. He’s okay. I don’t kn—hey, you’re such a pain in my—stop it!”
They were clearly fighting over the phone. Solange won. I could hear Nicholas shouting: “You kicked me!”
“Oh, Logan, I am so happy to hear your voice.” Her own voice wobbled a little, as if she were crying.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m okay. Don’t cry, Sol. I’m fine.”
“Okay.” She sniffled once. “Where the hell have you been?”
I had to angle the phone away from my ear again when she got shrill. “I’m at the caves with Isabeau. I told one of the guards to let you know. Jen came with me …” I paused. “She didn’t make it.”
“What happened?”
“We got attacked by Hel-Blar. Kind of like we are right now, so I can’t exactly chat.”
“Logan, everyone thinks you’re dead. That guard never told us anything except that he found a death charm with your scent on it and Isabeau’s mark. Dad’s been trying to stop Mom from attacking the Hounds. Finn’s been calming her down.”
“Shit. Listen, I really can’t talk. Montmartre has been setting the Hel-Blar on all of us. It’s misdirection. He wants us to fight among ourselves so we can’t fight him. He’s probably at the courts right now. Can you get hold of Kieran? If neither Mom or Dad are answering their phones we’re going to need help. And fast.”
“I’ll call him now.”
“Good. Tell him I’ll meet him there.”
“You’ll meet us all there.”
“Stay home, Solange. I mean it.”
“I’m glad you’re alive but bite me, Logan. I mean it.”
“Montmartre wants you.”
“Duh. But if misdirection has worked so well for him, we can make it work for us too.”
“I’m not using my baby sister as bait. Not after what happened on your birthday. He almost had you, Sol. If it hadn’t been for Isabeau and the Hounds …”
“See you soon. Bye, Logan.”
“Wait, you can’t—argh! She hung up on me. Brat.”
“You can’t expect her to sit at home when her family is being threatened.”
I glanced at Isabeau thoughtfully. “Maybe you could go sit with her. Protect her.”
She snorted. “You’re very transparent, Logan.”
“Please?”
“Non. Absolument pas.”
I would have argued a great deal longer if something heavy hadn’t struck the side of my head, sending me teetering on the edge of the outcrop. I stumbled back, blood dripping into my eyes. Pain lanced through my skull. Isabeau whirled, sword in hand, but we were too late. Hel-Blar dropped down from the cliffside above us and others climbed up from below. Their skin was an odd shade of blue in the darkness, their teeth like bone needles. The stench of rot was suddenly overpowering. Isabeau gagged, swore in French.
We fought like cats suddenly dunked in cold water. There was virtually no thought, it was instinct and a feral need to survive. I wasn’t moving as quickly as I should have been. The head wound was tripping me up, making my arms feel uncoordinated and heavy. I kicked out, threw a stake with poor aim but enough anger to catapult the Hel-Blar off the side of the mountain. Isabeau pressed her back to mine, cutting off a blue arm, a blue hand.
“We’re outnumbered,” I slurred. “And I’m wounded. Run.”
“You’re not a white knight and I’m not a damsel in distress.”
She was so stubborn I hissed. “Look around, Isabeau. This definitely qualifies as distress. Now, run, damn it. I’m only holding
you back.”
“Shut up and fight, Logan.”
Every girl I knew was entirely insane.
Unfortunately, Isabeau probably couldn’t have run even if she’d agreed to it. The only escape was launching ourselves right off the cliff and we’d need to get past three salivating Hel-Blar to do even that. My head felt like a rotten pumpkin, oozing and not entirely containable in its casing. We managed to take out one of the Hel-Blar and he puffed into mushroom-colored ash, but his demise only served to enrage his already unstable companions.
I stumbled, dizzy, and when I fell to one knee, another rock came down on my head. There was a burst of fire and shooting stars and then nothing.
•
I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious.
It couldn’t have been a full day, since my head still throbbed, though at least it didn’t feel torn open. The scratches and gouges and bruises had all faded. My hands and feet tingled, mostly because they were locked in place with chains. I pulled and yanked. They rattled alarmingly but didn’t budge.
“Isabeau,” I hissed. “Isabeau!”
“I’m here,” she said. “Behind you.”
Her voice had relief flooding my system like champagne. I could’ve gotten drunk on the feeling.
“Thank God. Are you hurt?” I tried to turn, couldn’t quite manage it from where I was lashed to the chair. Fury and pain replaced the relief and had me tensing every muscle until my jaw threatened to pop. I tested the chains again.
“It’s no use, Logan,” she said softly. “I’ve tried.”
If I turned slightly I could see the side of her face and neck in a heavy mirror hanging on the wall beside us. There were bruises on her throat and over her cheekbone. We were in a small room with chains on the wall and several heavy wooden chairs. A window was hung with a thick curtain but I had no doubt it was regular glass, not enough to keep sunlight from weakening us. I was young enough that if they left me in the sun for a few hours, I’d pass out and let them stake me without a single twitch of a fight. I kicked at the floor with my boot, disgusted. Then I frowned.
“Since when do Hel-Blar have Persian rugs? Or leave their victims unbitten?”
“They don’t.”
I stared at her reflection in horror. “Are you telling me one of them bit you?” Adrenaline jerked through me. A Hel-Blar kiss could turn even an ancient vampire. Their blood infected our own and made us as mad and vicious as they were.
“No,” Isabeau assured me before I lost my cool completely. “I’m only saying that Montmartre has better control of them then we’d thought.”
“Hypnos,” I muttered. “Bet you anything it’s because of that damned drug.”
She shivered.
“I won’t let them take you.” Big words from a guy covered in his own dried blood. I must be ridiculous to her. I’d failed her, damn it. I should’ve been able to protect her.
“Montmartre never leaves a Hound unmarked. We’re proof that he’s not infallible, that he can’t control everything. He fears us and tells himself that fear is hate.”
“We’ve stopped him before. We’ll stop him again. For good this time.” Hell if I was going to let him run around threatening the people I loved for the next hundred years.
“Noble words,” an amused voice interrupted us from the doorway. I didn’t recognize him but I saw all the blood drain from Isabeau’s face, saw an almost animal-like pain twist her features. For a moment she looked like the young girl I’d seen struggling to survive in the alleys of the Great Terror. That fear was brief, quickly covered by a burning thirst for vengeance.
Which could only mean one thing.
It wasn’t Montmartre after all.
It was Greyhaven.
CHAPTER 20
London, 1794
It took Isabeau nearly a year to save, steal, and weasel enough money to buy passage to England. Even then, she hardly knew what she was going to do when she set foot in London. She had her uncle’s name, her father’s assurance that he was selfish and arrogant, and two pennies left to her name. Cerise had refused to accompany her on the grounds that England was full of the English.
And the London docks were unlike anything she’d ever seen before. London was unlike anything she’d ever seen before, far removed from the familiar alleys of Paris. It was gray and blue and black, soot-stained and sitting under a fog of indeterminate color that made her cough.
“You’ll get used to it soon enough, lad,” the old man she’d sat beside for most of the journey cackled at her, jabbing his bony elbow into her ribs. Even though she’d kept her disguise as a boy, she’d thought it prudent not to appear to be traveling alone, even if she hardly expected an old man with rotting teeth to protect her. Sometimes, it was the illusion that counted.
But now that she stood on the wharf, being jostled by surly merchants and sailors eager for the nearest pub and prostitute, she felt more uncertain than she thought. She’d been saving up for this moment for so long, had held it up as torchlight in the dark nights to see her through.
The reality was somewhat daunting.
Wagons trundled by, children in dirty, torn clothes waded into the mud of the Thames for abandoned goods that might fetch a pretty price streetside. Voices and horse hooves and smoke from countless chimneys made a soup of sound and smell that had her holding her nose.
“Do you know where society lives?” she asked her elderly companion.
“Lookin’ for the fancy, are you? They don’t take kindly to urchins and pickpockets, my lad.”
“I wasn’t—”
He harrumphed. “I was young once, my boy. No need to worry I’ll give you away.” He nodded to the west end of the sprawling city. “Mayfair is where polite society resides and best of luck to you.”
“Thank you.” She handed him one of her pennies. He bit into it to check its worth and then slipped it into his pocket with more nimble fingers than she might have given him credit for. They were gnarled and bent but fast all the same.
“Mind the watchmen, lad,” he said in parting before tottering away. He paused long enough to make eyes at a buxom fishwife with a stained apron. She laughed and went back to shouting about mackerel and eel.
Isabeau huddled into her jacket and lifted her chin determinedly. If you looked like prey, the world treated you as such. She walked easily and confidently, strolling westward as if she knew exactly where she was going, as if she’d lived here all her life. No one had to know that her heart was thundering so quickly she felt ill and the muscles in the back of her neck were so tight she’d have a splitting headache by nightfall. All they had to see was a young boy with a quick step and a clever eye who was able to take care of himself.
She walked for a couple of hours, trying to count right and left turns so she wouldn’t be hopelessly lost. There were girls with baskets of violets and oranges for sale, muffins and baked potatoes and shops with towers of candies decorated with powdered sugar, hats with plumes dyed yellow and pink and green, ribbons of every description, lemon ices, books, anything anyone could ever conceive of buying was available. There were no scorched stones or broken windows from riots, no smell of fires or radicals shouting on every corner. It was utterly alien, decadent, and soft. But she couldn’t afford to let her guard down just yet, if ever.
She began to notice the state of carriages improving; the streets were cleaner with boys waiting with brooms to clear a path through the horse droppings for a coin. The houses grew larger, the smells less pungent. Trees clustered in back gardens. When she came across the huge park, she stopped abruptly. She’d missed lawns of grass and thick oak trees and flowers everywhere. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed it until now. At least she knew where she would sleep tonight if she couldn’t find her uncle. The thought bolstered her.
“Here now, mind yourself,” a gentleman snapped, nearly walking into her immobile form. She snapped her jaw shut. She ducked her face into the shadows under the brim of her cap and stepped aside
to let him pass.
She tore her gaze away from the horses and their well-clad riders picking their way into the park and followed the ornate carriages that trundled past. A vast majority of them were headed in the same direction and she took that as a good sign. It was still early morning; they wouldn’t be off to balls and parties or shopping for new gowns. She didn’t think the English aristocracy was that different from the French; mornings were for long breakfasts, correspondence, and resting after the excesses of the night before. More than a few of the carriage occupants were probably on their way home and hadn’t even been to bed yet.
The houses became palatial, with gleaming brass door knockers and giant urns overflowing with every kind of flower. Maids walked small pet dogs on leashes and the occasional cat. Delivery boys, fish carts, and muffin sellers made their way to and from back doors. She stopped a rag man.
“St. Croix house?” she asked in halting English.
“Eh, Frenchie? Speak up?” He cupped his hand to his ear, barely stopping as he pulled his cart past. She helped him maneuver it over a protruding cobblestone.
“St. Croix?” she repeated.
“You mean St. Cross? House at the end of the street with the blue door.” He waved in its direction and continued on his way without a backward glance. Her heart started to race again. Part of her wanted to run toward it, another part briefly considered running in the opposite direction. She would never let that part win. She forced herself to pick up her pace, though she did pause at the end of the walkway to catch her breath.
The townhouse loomed over her, several stories high, with a freshly painted blue door and brocade curtains in every window. Carriages rumbled behind her. An oak sapling dropped acorns on the street and sidewalk. Roses bloomed in copper urns. A lane led along the house to the back, where the gardens and stables and servant entrances were located.
She climbed the steps, which were swept clean of even a single petal. The door knocker was in the shape of a lion with a cross in its mouth. Isabeau ran her fingers over her family crest before letting it fall with a thud against the door. It swung open and a man with thick gray hair looked down his nose at her. His black jacket was perfectly pressed, his cravat immaculate.
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