The Beautiful and the Cursed: Marco's Story

by Page Morgan

  # # #

  It had been centuries since Hôtel Dugray had been illuminated by torchlight.

  The foundation, built more than five hundred years earlier, had originally supported a tavern. That place, constructed of wood, had burned less than a decade after completion, and a second structure of limestone block had been erected to replace it. That was when the gargoyle waterspouts had been carved into the roofline.

  Marco still pondered the question of whether divine intervention had led the architects to include such fanciful drainage spouts on the home. Or was the Angelic Order simply having fun with their gargoyle slaves, assigning them to whatever buildings or structures happened to sport les grotesques?

  One never knew with the Order. They were as inscrutable as they were harsh.

  Marco climbed the dim, cramped servants’ stairwell that led to the fifth and final floor of the town house. The electric bulbs in the stairwell were sparse, but Marco didn’t need them. His night vision showed the darkness in gray, white, and black.

  The top floor belonged to the female domestic staff, which was overseen by the formidable housekeeper, Signora Bianchi. Marco’s rule officially ended once he ascended past the main floor; he, his footmen, the baron’s valet, and the grooms were lodged in basement rooms. Mrs. Bianchi had banned the male sex from the top floor, no exceptions. But considering this was his territory, Marco would go where he damn well pleased.

  Besides, he needed to see Grace.

  Marco’s feet whispered along the carpeted corridor. He called up a number of cataloged scents, matching the girls with the rooms he passed. All asleep, or very close to it. He came to the last door on the right and listened with his whole body. Beyond the door, Grace’s roommate, Patrice, breathed in a restful rhythm, her heartbeat slow and relaxed.

  Grace, on the other hand, was not in bed. She wasn’t in her room at all.

  Marco didn’t need to draw up the hot-buttered-rum scent that always made him thirsty. He knew exactly where to find her: the roof.

  At the head of the corridor a casement window led to a small balcony. Marco saw a slim hair comb wedged between the two panes of glass, propping the window open. He climbed out and returned the hair comb before ascending the short stack of metal steps that led to the flat roof.

  She was sitting on a rattan chaise. Marco had dug the tattered seat out of the carriage house and flown it up here one night last summer after he’d discovered that Grace liked to stargaze on the roof. She’d inquired once if Marco had been the one to bring it there, but he’d feigned ignorance. Grace hadn’t believed him, of course, though she’d accepted the gift without another mention. She sat in the chair now, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her long hair in a thick braid tied off with a ribbon. In her lap was a small sketchbook, and in her hand, a pencil. Though Grace saw him, she said nothing as he walked toward the chair. She continued to draw, eyes peering up for a moment before looking back at her paper. The full, pearly moon provided all the light she needed.

  Yet again Marco attempted to reason out his behavior when it came to Grace. He had heard tell of gargoyles that favored one human charge over their others. They were usually infant gargoyles, though, newly Dispossessed and still adjusting to the cruel reality that they would never—could never—be with a woman again.

  Marco was no infant. He could appreciate women’s beauty, but his fire for them had been snuffed out long ago. Why desire what one cannot have? He had tortured himself long enough. No, he wasn’t attracted to Grace.

  “The Pegasus constellation is my favorite,” she whispered, her pencil connecting lines between the stars she had been busy charting. “What is yours?”

  Marco stood beside the rattan chaise, his arms crossed. He didn’t bother to look at the sky. “There is nothing up there that interests me.”

  Grace laid her pencil flat and leaned her head back. “Not even God?”

  A laugh rumbled deep in Marco’s chest. “We aren’t on the best of terms.”

  She straightened in her seat and tucked in her legs to make room at the foot of the chaise for Marco.

  “And is there anything down here that interests you, Mr. Angelis?”

  Her whisper stopped Marco from taking a seat. She would sometimes do this. Flirt with him. Marco had found that if he ignored it, she stopped. He disliked the idea of disappointing Grace, but she always recovered quickly.

  Besides, he knew too well that stars were not the only objects in the night sky. Any number of gargoyles might circle overhead at any given moment.

  “Right now, I’m interested in why you were crying this morning. Why you’ve been upset all week.” She parted her lips to speak, but he cut her off. “And do not say you cannot tell me. Neither of us is leaving this roof until you do.”

  She sealed her mouth and closed her sketchbook.

  “I know it has to do with Lady Arabella,” Marco supplied, vaulting one of his brows.

  Grace sighed. “Do you want me to be fired, is that it? If she finds out I’ve told you, or anyone else, she will see to it.”

  He had never thought the baron’s daughter very cunning. She had beauty, money, and a title, but little more to offer. Marco would not have cared so much about Arabella’s secret if not for that demon dust.

  “Grace, I can protect you.” The words were more honest than he could ever explain. “But I need to know where you were this morning.”

  She threw her legs over the edge of the chaise and stood up. She began to pace, the blanket trailing behind her like a queen’s robes.

  “I don’t know who he is,” she finally said, her back to Marco. “I don’t know where she met him, but he is clearly unsuitable. My lady is … I can’t easily explain it.”

  So Lady Arabella had been meeting a man. How pedestrian.

  “Try,” Marco pressed, moving toward her.

  She saw him from the corner of her eye. “My lady is different since meeting him. I’ve never seen her so enamored with someone before.” Grace stopped pacing and faced him, looking relieved to be sharing this secret. “But I don’t understand why she is so obsessed. I usually watch from the carriage while they sit in a square or at a café. Their meetings are brief and chaste, but there is something wrong about him.”

  Of course there was. Marco could guess exactly what, too.

  He flexed his fingers to distract himself from the tension running up his spine. The mere image of a demon coming close to one of his humans made his gargoyle form yearn for release. For that was what this “man” had to be. And only the most powerful demons could take on a human guise.

  “She met with him again this morning?” he asked.

  The complaints about musty clothing made sense now. The demon stink must have seeped into whatever she was wearing during her visits.

  Grace nodded, one side of the blanket slipping low over her shoulder.

  “Yes. To deliver an invitation to the fête tomorrow evening. She has told no one that he is coming. I don’t know why it must be such a secret. There will be at least a hundred guests, if not more.”

  A demon was coming to the party. Well, that would liven things up a bit.

  At Grace’s drawn expression, Marco had the urge to reach out and tug the blanket back up around her shoulder. He wanted to tell her not to worry so much and to get some rest. His fingers twitched at his sides.

  A dull throb at the base of his skull stopped him.

  “Go inside, Grace,” he murmured. She frowned.

  There was another gargoyle watching them.

  Marco held out his arm and pointed toward the stairs. “Go to bed. Your lady’s secret trysts are hers to manage as she sees fit.”

  Grace blinked at him. “But, Marco, there is something wrong with—”

  “Grace,” he ground out. She jerked her head back and he lowered his voice. “Please.”

  He wanted her off the roof. Out of the watching gargoyle’s view.

  Grace complied, stalking toward the metal stairs. “A lot
of good telling you did me.”

  She cast off the blanket and draped it over her arm as she descended the steps. Her dressing gown covered nearly every inch of her body except her slender neck, pale as a column of alabaster. Marco decided it, too, could be considered pretty.

  He held his breath. The chime at the base of his skull faded. Whoever had been watching had grown bored.

  Exhaling, Marco followed in Grace’s footsteps, down the metal steps to the casement window. The panels were sealed shut; the comb that had been lodged between them earlier was gone.

  Grace had locked him out.

  He supposed he deserved it.

  With a creeping smile, Marco braced one foot on the balcony rail and heaved himself up. Standing on the rail, he peered down the five-story drop to the lawn.

  Marco jumped. He didn’t need his wings for this.

  There were far more than the one hundred guests Grace had expected in attendance at the Bartolis’ annual midsummer fête. More than two hundred invitations had gone out (not including Lady Arabella’s unsanctioned invitation extended to the mystery demon), and more than half of the recipients had replied in the positive.

  Hôtel Dugray was an utter madhouse by eight o’clock that evening. The guests had started arriving a half an hour before, and with each addition, the weight of Marco’s responsibility increased.

  Lady Arabella’s demon could arrive at any moment, and every one of the guests was Marco’s to protect.

  When Marco came out of the butler’s pantry with a polished silver soup urn the cook had urgently requested to replace another marred by a deep scratch, he crossed paths with a liveried server.

  “Take this to the cook,” Marco said, thrusting the urn in the server’s direction.

  “Thanks, but I brought my own silver.”

  Marco’s ears itched at the American accent. He glanced up and saw the Seer holding the panels of his footman’s jacket open. He had outfitted the black silk interior with sheaths for two daggers and straps for a hand crossbow and darts.

  “I hope you don’t mind my alterations,” he said.

  “Altered or not, the moment you put that livery on, you commenced taking orders from me.” Marco jammed the urn into Vander Burke’s stomach. “Take it. To. The. Cook.”

  Coughing, Vander did as he was told. Unfortunately, he returned to Marco’s side less than a minute later.

  “When can I see them?” he asked. The din in the kitchen and surrounding corridors was loud enough to keep their conversation private.

  “What sort of demon would disguise itself as a human and meet secretly with a young lady in order to garner an invitation to a ball?” Marco’s question stopped the Seer cold. A kitchen maid rammed into Vander’s arm and nearly upset her balanced stack of china dishes.

  “You’ve spoken to your humans, I take it,” Vander said once she had passed.

  “Only one. The lady’s maid,” Marco replied, searching the bowels of the town house fruitlessly for Grace. “She told me Lady Arabella’s mystery companion would be attending the party tonight.”

  “Are you certain her companion is a demon?”

  Marco pulled the Seer out of the path of a footman holding a round tray of empty champagne flutes.

  “Why else would my humans have returned with dust clinging to them?”

  Vander averted his eyes. There was something he wasn’t telling Marco.

  “If I could see Lady Arabella for myself?” he asked.

  Pestilent human.

  Marco snapped his fingers at another passing footman, this one with a tray of fluted glasses sparkling with champagne. He took the tray and handed it to Vander. The Seer’s elbow wobbled.

  “Spill a single drop and you will be confined to the corridors,” Marco said, then jerked his head toward the stairs. Vander rushed up to the main floor. The guests swarmed the foyer, the sitting rooms, and the grand ballroom, where a string quartet played.

  Marco followed him to the foyer, where footmen had been welcoming guests and manning the coatroom. Marco would have usually been at the door to greet visitors, but during an event like this, he was needed elsewhere. During this particular event, he was determined not to let the Alliance Seer out of his sight.

  Vander’s hair wasn’t as neatly combed or oiled as the other footmen’s, and even in his spotless livery he came off as rumpled. None of the guests noticed him, however; they never noticed any of the servants. Marco walked the perimeter of the ballroom, one eye on the Seer and the other peeled for Lady Arabella.

  He stopped as he came to a six-panel Chinese screen positioned in front of the swinging doors to the kitchens. He clasped his hands behind his back.

  “I know you’re there,” he said.

  “Shh,” Grace hissed through the half-inch gap between two panels. She was hiding behind the screen, observing the party.

  “You aren’t supposed to be on the main floor, Grace.” Only footmen were to be seen during the baron’s parties.

  “I couldn’t stand not knowing whether that man had arrived,” she whispered. “And don’t tell me it is none of my business.”

  Marco grinned. “Don’t worry, I learned my lesson last night.”

  No doubt she had puzzled all day over how he’d gotten down from the roof.

  “If you’ll only look at him, you’ll see what I mean about—” Grace paused. “Oh! There. That’s him!”

  Marco’s shoulders snapped down into a flat plane as a musty scent trickled under his nose, climbed his nostrils, and stuck in the back of his throat. Beneath his formal white dress shirt, black tailed coat, and pressed black trousers, Marco’s skin shivered with the threat of scales.

  He didn’t require Grace’s confirmation that Lady Arabella’s guest had arrived. He could smell him. Sense him. A demon had just slipped through the doors of the Bartolis’ grand ballroom.

  Grace had been correct. The disguise was better than most Marco had seen—a man in his twenties wearing a moderately fashionable suit. Pale skin. Slicked-back hair. Deep-set eyes that were nearly as black as the suit he wore. But there was still something wrong about him. Maybe it was the way he moved, as if his skin had been crafted out of stiff cardboard instead of malleable flesh. Or the way his black eyes darted from face to face with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings.

  Lady Arabella was at his side, a pleasant little smile fixed upon her lips, her eyes gazing at the demon with adoration.

  “We have a big problem.” Vander came up beside Marco’s shoulder. “It’s a drainer.”

  A leech. Marco clenched his fists. It made sense now.

  “It has to have hypnotized Lady Arabella,” Marco said.

  Some misinformed humans would have called this thing a vampire. Drainer demons had only a few things in common with their fictional versions: impressive speed, an appetite for blood, and the ability to entrance their prey.

  “My lady is hypnotized?” Grace asked from her place behind the screen.

  Vander peered through the gap. “Who is this?” he asked.

  “Nobody,” Marco answered tightly. He didn’t want Grace listening, but he also didn’t have time to escort her back to the kitchens. “What is it doing here?”

  Vander turned back to the ballroom. The bedazzled Lady Arabella had left the leech’s side. It was conversing now with a small crowd of guests.

  “It’s here to feast, what else?” the Seer replied.

  Grace stepped out from behind the screen, her brows pressed together. “What are the two of you talking about?”

  Marco kept his eyes on the leech. He had to destroy it before it could take its first victim. And yet the demon stood in the center of a ballroom with unsuspecting humans on all sides. How could Marco destroy this thing without exposing what he was to every person here?

  “Marco,” Grace pressed.

  “You need to leave,” he said quietly.

  “Fine. I’ll go back to the kitchens, but first tell me—”

  “No. You need to leave
Hôtel Dugray entirely,” Marco said. “Go out through the kitchens and to a corner café somewhere nearby. I’ll find you when it’s safe to return, but until then I need you to go.”

  He couldn’t allow the leech to get anywhere near Grace. And if Marco was going to coalesce—his bones ached for it—he didn’t want her anywhere near him. Over the centuries he had learned how to stave off a shift. But like a pain threshold, there was only so much Marco could endure before shattering into gargoyle form.

  “Leave?” Grace gaped. “I can’t! I don’t have permission.”

  Marco turned to her, his hold on his shift loosening. His vision had sharpened, and by the gasp lodged in Grace’s throat, he figured his pupils had slimmed to vertical slits.

  “You will leave or I will fire you right here, right now. Go.”

  Grace’s arm slammed into the Chinese screen as she backed up and disappeared behind it, fear and hurt slackening the tight press of her lips.

  “Not one to mince words, are you?” Vander murmured.

  “Shut up.” Marco held back from driving his fist into the Seer’s teeth. “Distract it.”

  Thankfully, the Seer didn’t ask for any ideas on how to do so. He turned from the crowd to face the Chinese screen and withdrew the silver dagger from inside his livery jacket. He hiked up his sleeve and swiftly scored the top of his forearm. Vander shook his sleeve back down before facing the crowd again.

  Although the leech was halfway across the ballroom, its head jerked to attention. Its eyes stilled their incessant motion. The demon smelled freshly drawn blood. It would be impossible to resist.

  “Shall we dispatch it on the rooftop?” Vander asked.

  During a party like this, there wouldn’t be a more perfect spot. No one would see them up there.

  “You know the way?” Marco asked.

  Vander laughed as a splatter of his blood darkened the white marble floor. “Give me a little credit.”

  He backed through the crowd, heading toward the foyer. Marco waited until the leech had trailed after Vander before he, too, departed.

  Marco reached the kitchen garden and, once cloaked in darkness, started to remove his clothing. Shifting while dressed only destroyed whatever he was wearing. He happened to like his clothes.