The Wondrous and the Wicked

by Page Morgan

  Marco’s battle screech echoed off the quay wall as the stranger tossed his spent crossbow aside, drew a sword, and slashed it toward Marco’s enormous form. With one swipe of his talons, Marco sent the sword clattering to the ground. He raked his claws toward the man again with unrelenting ferocity. Ingrid swiveled around and squeezed her eyes shut, but she still heard it: the rip of flesh, a short squeal of agony. And then silence. An awful silence, slowly being pushed back by the pounding of her pulse and the burble of the swollen Seine.

  Ingrid turned toward the quay steps, certain of what she would see. Marco’s wings drooped slightly as he twisted at the waist and wrenched out the embedded dart. The stranger lay on his side next to Marco’s long, spiked tail.

  “Is he … is he dead?” Ingrid whispered. Marco couldn’t answer her while in gargoyle form, and he wouldn’t be shifting back into human form here, not with his clothes in tatters.

  Instead, he threw the bloody dart and the man’s discarded sword and crossbow into the river. The current swallowed them. Marco scooped up the limp body with one arm. He then stalked toward Ingrid, fury powering every step. She pulled in a breath and held it as the eight-foot gargoyle, his wolfish face crumpled into a scowl, surged toward her. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her, but she’d never been more terrified of him.

  Marco broke into a run. His wings snapped open and caught a gust of wind a mere second before he hooked her around the waist with his free arm. Ingrid slammed against his chest, and she clung to him as he lifted off the quay and into the low blue light of dawn.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The man wasn’t dead.

  He’d groaned during the flight to Hôtel Bastian, the rising sun nipping at Marco’s tail the whole way to rue de Sèvres. Marco had landed on the roof of the town house with such force that the Alliance member standing sentry had actually cried out. He’d recovered quickly and run inside to alert the others, leaving the door open, the invitation explicit: gargoyles were not often permitted inside Hôtel Bastian, but this was obviously an exception.

  The injured man hacked a wet cough as Marco shrugged him off his plated and scaled shoulder, dropping him carelessly on a steel table inside Hôtel Bastian’s medical room. More blood leaked through his teeth and over his lips.

  The gashes across his chest were fatal; of that Ingrid was certain. Marco’s talons had ripped a path from the man’s right collarbone to his left ribs, and with every heartbeat, blood rushed from the carved trenches, drenching his overcoat and shirt and—

  Ingrid stared at the sash, wide as a cummerbund, wound around the man’s torso. Even soaked nearly black with blood, she could see what color it had originally been: bright crimson. The color of the Alliance.

  Marco had brought them here, to Paris Alliance faction headquarters, for a reason.

  Ingrid heard the thud of feet approaching the room and expected Marco to shift back to his human form. But he remained true and turned to face the door. The first person to rush in would meet with the sight of a gargoyle’s intimidating height, brawn, and fury.

  This wasn’t the first time the Alliance had tried to kill her.

  Nolan Quinn charged through the door of the medical room. He was occupied with tucking in the rumpled tails of his linen shirt and strode right by Marco without more than a swift glance of acknowledgment. The gargoyle emitted a snort of disappointment through his long, wolfish snout.

  The man on the table gurgled on more blood, and Nolan swore under his breath. “What happened?”

  “We were on the quay beneath the Pont de l’Alma—” Ingrid began.

  “What demon did this?” Nolan barked as he threw open a cabinet door and pulled down a familiar black glass bottle.

  “Mercurite won’t help. He doesn’t have demon poison in him,” Ingrid said. Nolan slammed the cabinet door and spun toward her.

  Gabby had once told Ingrid how much she adored Nolan’s eyes, as bright as a morning glory and as sharp as one of the Alliance’s blessed silver blades. Ingrid, however, squirmed beneath them now. He shifted his glare toward the gargoyle standing behind her.

  “Marco had no choice. This man tried to kill us.”

  Nolan lifted his chin and the anger drained from his face. He set down the bottle of mercurite and approached the table. Nolan inspected the wounds but didn’t attempt to staunch the bleeding. Ingrid figured he knew a dead man when he saw one.

  “What is your name?” Nolan asked him. “Who sent you?”

  Another Alliance member rushed into the medical room, giving Marco his desired reaction. Hans, the new faction leader in Paris, pulled up short and stumbled past the pair of half-open wings. Finally satisfied, Marco crumbled from his true form. His wings pleated and sank into his back, his barrel chest and hulking thighs slimmed, and his slate scales disappeared beneath dark olive skin.

  Ingrid turned aside. It was startling how accustomed she’d become to naked men waltzing about. She’d long lost any desire to peek.

  “Why does his name matter? He’ll be dead in less than a minute,” Marco said, joining the conversation now that his vocal cords allowed him to speak instead of screech. “He attempted to kill Lady Ingrid and he is Alliance. What your father told us was true, and this proves it.”

  The man jerked and arched his back. He hissed a long, reedy death rattle, and then his spine hit the table.

  Marco grunted. “He shouldn’t have lasted this long. It’s not good for my ego.”

  Hans moved to Nolan’s side and frowned, causing two deep creases to bracket the space between his eyebrows.

  “Are you certain he tried to kill you, Miss Waverly?” Hans asked.

  After Carrick Quinn, Nolan’s father, had died in the jaws of a hellhound, Hans had come up from Rome and taken command of the faction. So far, he’d been quiet and unsmiling the few times he and Ingrid had met.

  “Does the wound in my back look like a paper cut from when he shot an invitation to tea from his crossbow?” Marco growled.

  Ingrid squeezed her eyes shut. Marco’s quick temper would not help things. A lot had changed within the last month. Nolan and the others had put up with Luc’s presence from time to time, but ever since Ingrid’s sister had accidentally killed the Dispossessed elder there had been a complete breakdown between the gargoyles and the Alliance. The tenuous accord Lennier had nurtured between the two groups for centuries had all but shattered.

  “Enough,” Hans said in his soft yet authoritative voice. He had his eyes on the crimson sash. “Were there any witnesses?”

  Ingrid hadn’t yet decided whether she liked Hans. She hadn’t liked Carrick, and for good reason—the man had released a mimic demon and given it orders to attach itself to her, torment her, and ultimately, kill her. He and the rest of the Directorate had agreed that the sacrifice of one human was acceptable if it meant that Axia could never reclaim her angel blood and set her Harvest in motion. They had no more of a clue about what Axia’s exact plans were than Ingrid or anyone else, but they had decided that the safest route would be to spill Ingrid’s blood and never find out.

  Nolan’s father had tried to redeem himself in the end by going against Directorate orders and attempting to save Ingrid’s life. Clearly it had worked. Here she stood, still alive. However, Carrick had told her flat out not to trust anyone from the Directorate. Hans wasn’t a part of the Directorate, though he did have their ear.

  “No,” Ingrid answered. She hadn’t seen anyone else on the quay, and she hoped no passersby had witnessed Marco’s transformation or the brutal killing. If they had, the poor wretches would likely have nightmares for the rest of their lives.

  The door to the medical room winged open once more, and the only female Alliance hunter in Paris strode in, her cropped black hair wildly mussed and flattened on one side, presumably from a bed pillow. Chelle stood at least a head shorter than Ingrid, her petite frame drowning in a baggy shirtwaist and wide-legged canvas trousers. As if her eccentric clothing required one last detail to top it off, she
was also barefoot.

  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 Ing
rid 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.