“Put a bow on that, and I’ll call it Christmas.” Ella nodded, her eyes gleaming with anticipation.
The housekeeper laughed. “Right this way, then.”
She led them out of the foyer and down a short hall at the front of the house to a long, open room with a second-level balcony and gleaming expanses of dark, polished floors. Art hung from every wall and decorated the tops of podiums and pedestals scattered about the room. Even the pieces of furniture positioned here and there qualified as historically significant works of art. It certainly was as much of a museum as the one where Ella worked.
“Oh, wow. This is amazing,” Ella breathed, looking around her with wide eyes and an open mouth. She twirled on her heel just like a little girl on Christmas morning. “Take your time finding those papers. I could spend months looking at all this.”
Greta laughed. “It won’t take me that long, but enjoy yourselves.”
Kees watched the woman leave with a frown. “She’s very trusting to leave two strangers alone with such valuable treasures.”
Ella rolled her eyes. “We might be strangers, but we told her our names, and she knows I work at the museum. If something went missing, it’s not like I’d be hard to track down. Plus, your Warden friend wasn’t stupid. If you look closely, you can see the security cameras pointing in strategic directions, and some of the wires for a pretty hefty alarm system. Museum standard.”
“You are right. Gregory would have left wards. Spells, too. Three years is not so long without maintenance that they should not still be active.”
“You mean there’s magic in here?”
Kees lifted a brow at her surprised tone. “Of course there is. Can’t you feel it?”
“I don’t know. I’m used to blocking that stuff out, not trying to pick up on it.”
“Try now.”
He watched as uncertainty flickered over her features, chased away by budding curiosity. After taking a second to focus, she closed her eyes and her brow furrowed in concentration. An instant later her eyes popped open and her gaze flew to him.
“There’s not just magic in here,” she said quietly, as if she didn’t want to be overheard. Which was silly. They were the only two beings in the room. “There’s something else.”
Alarmed, Kees stiffened and opened his senses. It took only seconds to understand what she was talking about. He cursed his own lack of attention. He should have noticed before she did, and she was the only thing he could blame. The human distracted him, and that was not something he could allow to happen.
In addition to the solid silvery blue glow of Gregory’s remaining protection spells and wards guarding the artwork, Kees now saw the splinters of broken wards surrounding the windows at the front of the house. Mixed in with the scattered pieces of Warden magic, something thick and black and pulsing tainted the air around it.
Kees recognized that vile residue. It trailed behind wherever the agents of the Darkness had passed. He cursed quietly, but long and with great originality.
Ella eyes him warily. “You felt it, too, didn’t you?”
“I saw it. It is not good.”
“Yeah, that much I figured out for myself.”
The sound of footsteps on wooden floorboards warned them of Greta’s approach. Kees and Ella had been sensitized to any person drawing near. Any thing drawing near.
“Found it,” the housekeeper said with a smile. She carried a large manila envelope in her hands. When she looked up as she drew near, her expression turned quizzical. “Is everything okay? You look … unsettled.”
Ella’s laugh sounded forced to Kees’s ear, but he wasn’t certain the other human would pick up on it. “No, no. I’m fine. I was just imagining how much time and devotion went into assembling a collection like this. It’s so sad to think that the man who went to so much effort over such a long time is no longer here to enjoy it.”
Greta’s face softened. “It is sad. I was very fond of Mr. Gregory. I worked for him for more than fifteen years, and I don’t think I ever met a kinder, more generous man. A little eccentric, certainly, but so sweet. Everyone who knew him mourned his passing.”
Kees took advantage of the opening. “How did your employer die, Ms. Mikaelsen? I don’t think you mentioned.”
“The coroner said it was his heart, but none of us had any idea he might have problems with it. He was an older man, but he seemed quite vigorous, right up until the end. I came in one morning and found him. Here in the gallery, actually. He must have had a heart attack sometime during the night. So tragic. And so sudden, really. None of us saw it coming.”
Kees felt a rush of ice that solidified inside him at her words. He might not have spoken to Gregory in many, many years—not since the human had assumed the mantle of Warden in the middle of the last century, but an unexpected death combined with the broken wards and the traces of Dark magic in the room led to only one conclusion—it was a good thing Kees had awakened.
“That’s a shame,” Ella repeated, and beneath the sympathetic tone, Kees could hear the rising note of concern. “I’m sure everyone who knew him misses him.”
“We do.”
Ella accepted the envelope from the other woman with a smile. “Well, we’ll get out of your hair now. Thanks so much for handing this over to the museum. I’m sure Dr. Lefavreau can’t wait to go through it.”
“You’re very welcome. The gargoyle was one of Mr. Gregory’s favorite pieces, so I’m sure he’d want everyone to know as much of the story surrounding it as they can.”
Kees and Ella trailed after the housekeeper back to the front door of the sprawling old house. This time, Kees kept his senses open, searching for more traces of Dark magic. He found nothing. The wards here were intact, covering the bottom of the stairway, as well as each door leading off the front hall. Curiously, nothing warded the main entrance. Had that ward been entirely uncast, or had Gregory for some reason not laid one on the door to his mountain home?
Had he felt that secure here? Or had he been attempting to lay some sort of trap? Maybe his death hadn’t surprised him as much as it had his friends and employees.
They shook hands with Greta on the front porch and crossed the short distance to their vehicle.
Ella slid behind the steering wheel and pulled her door shut with a solid thunk. “So.”
The word encompassed an encyclopedia of meaning—puzzlement, uncertainty, questioning, exhaustion, wonder, frustration. Kees let it hang between them as he reviewed everything they had just learned. Gregory was dead, and Dark magic had likely killed him. He had all but invited it into his home, yet once inside, he had probably thought he would be safe. Not one of the Seven, then. Even an experienced Warden would not think to face a demon that powerful without a Guardian or two at his back. What, then?
A thought occurred, and Kees felt a creeping sensation of unease move across his skin. Could the Order be stirring to life once again?
Impatiently, Ella humphed and glared from the seat beside him. “Well? What’s going on in that head of yours, O ancient and mysterious Guardian man? Your friend is dead, so there goes having your Warden explain what’s going on. So what do we do now?”
“You drive.” Kees pulled the safety strap she had called a seat belt away from the car door and fastened it across his chest. “I need to think.”
Ella stared at him for a moment, her eyes narrowed and her mouth open in an expression of disbelief. Then her jaw snapped shut and she was turning the key in the ignition, bringing the engine of the huge SUV to life.
“I could tell you what you need,” she muttered under her breath as she turned the vehicle back up the drive toward the iron gates and the road beyond, “but I don’t think they stock rubber hoses and vise clamps in the backs of rentals these days.”
At another time, in another place, Kees would have laughed at the little human’s bloodthirsty imagination, but right now he didn’t feel like laughing. He still did not know what had awakened him, but he was beginning to
fear that whatever the cause, the purpose was about to come clear.
A battle approached. Now the question became, did Kees have the tools he needed to fight it and win?
He’d never faced the enemy without a Warden by his side and his brothers at his back. If he had to do it now, would he survive the challenge?
Would the world?
Chapter Six
The hour-and-some minutes’ drive back to Vancouver convinced Ella of two things: one, in spite of his human size and shape, Kees could still do a pretty damned fine impression of a mute, motionless statue; and two, curiosity probably hadn’t actually killed the cat, just driven it to suicide. Ella certainly intended to kill something if she didn’t get answers to at least a few of her questions pretty damned quick.
She unlocked the door to her apartment and led the way inside, tossing her keys onto a side table. Flipping the locks behind her, she turned to find the Guardian standing in the middle of the living room floor, stretching his long arms to the ceiling like a puppy that had just woken from a satisfying snooze.
She contemplated punching him right in the taut, washboard stomach.
Knowing her luck, she’d probably break her hand.
“Okay, you’ve had more than two hours to think or plan or process or whatever the hell you’ve been doing while you haven’t been talking to me,” she bit out, planting her feet wide apart and glaring at him. “I have been more than patient. So, spill. What the hell did we accomplish with that little trip, and where the hell are we supposed to go next?”
Kees looked at her and dropped his arms to his sides. “I have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this confining shape I wear. Will it disturb you if I shift into my natural form?”
“I don’t care if you shift into fifth gear and become a half-dead wallaby, I want answers.”
Ignoring the growl in her voice, the Guardian stretched again and blurred, and in an instant, the space before her overflowed with fanged, winged, horned, gray-skinned gargoyle.
Ella stumbled an instinctive step back.
Kees frowned. “Surely you realize that if I intended to cause you harm, I would have done so by now.”
Pressing a hand to her stomach, Ella marshaled her courage and tried to quiet her animal instinct to run. Run and hide. And scream. This was Kees, she reminded herself. The same man she’d driven to Lions Bay with. The same man who had slept in her apartment the night before. The same man she’d kissed in the ballroom of the museum. He wasn’t a monster.
No matter how much he looked like one.
“No, I know. It’s fine,” she said, proud when her voice didn’t quiver the way her stomach was doing. “I just forgot, that’s all. I forgot how … big you are.”
And she had. She felt tiny next to his human shape. In this form, she wanted to break into a rousing rendition of “The Lollipop Guild.” Kees was lucky that her apartment was in a historic building with twelve-foot ceilings. As it was, if he stretched again, he’d easily touch them.
Kees rumbled something noncommittal and took a seat on the sofa. He made it look like dollhouse furniture. Ella watched in fascination as he settled his wings around him before turning his attention back to her.
“You should sit,” he instructed. “There are things I must explain to you.”
“It’s about time.”
He waited until she sat. With him taking up so much of her sofa, Ella dropped into the only other available seat, the battered armchair to his left, and tucked her legs up underneath her.
“I told you before about the Guild of Wardens and the other Guardians like myself. I explained that we were summoned to battle the Darkness, that the Guild of Wardens assists us and watches over our slumber, waking us when there is a threat to this world. I also told you that the Guardians defend against the Seven demons, while lesser threats are dealt with by other guards who do not sleep as we do.”
He waited until she nodded. Yeah, she remembered all that. It made her head spin, but she remembered it.
“What I did not tell you was the story of the Darkness, and why the Guardians stand ever vigilant against its servants.”
“Well, I kinda figured that ‘the Darkness’ was your way of talking about evil, and I figured that staying vigilant against evil was pretty much a given.”
“Matters are not quite so simple.”
“Why do I feel like that’s my new life story?”
He ignored her grumbled question.
“The Darkness is not just evil, it is the evil, the sum of all that is evil and all that evil is. It has existed since the dawn of time, and in all those ages, it has sought to devour all life that stands against it. It is eternal and relentless and indestructible.”
“Indestructible?” Ella swallowed hard. “If it’s the all-powerful embodiment of evil, how come the world isn’t dead and gone already?”
“Because the Universe abhors the Darkness.”
His clawed fingers tapped on his thigh as he spoke, reminding Ella that when resuming his natural shape, he’d also assumed his “natural” clothing, which basically amounted to a cross between a loincloth and an abbreviated kilt. And she really shouldn’t be staring at the thigh muscles of a guy from another species. No matter how much she wanted to lick them.
Down, girl!
What the hell was wrong with her?
“Now even the powers of the Universe cannot destroy the Darkness, but they could weaken it, and so they did, by dividing it into Seven pieces. Seven slices of pure and utter evil whose only desire is to reunite and destroy all life and light in existence.”
Ella forced herself to focus and remember what he had already told her. “Seven pieces, huh? That number seems like a pretty big coincidence.”
“It is no coincidence. The Seven demons my brothers and I guard against are those same Seven pieces of Darkness. We fight to keep them apart and to keep them off the mortal plane, because when they are here, they can feed off the chaos and destruction they cause and become stronger. Banishing them not only keeps humanity safe from their evil, but it also weakens them—however, they never stop looking for ways back into this realm.”
“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.
Heart of Stone Page 8
