The Beautiful and the Cursed

by Page Morgan

  He wore an old-fashioned jacket and waistcoat, and his pin-striped trousers had been tailored at least a quarter century ago. He came to a stop directly in front of Chelle. So close that Chelle, squeezed as she was between the man’s chest and Gabby’s front, was forced to slip off to the side. The man stared at Gabby, his eyes two pools of ink.

  “You’re one of Luc’s humans,” he said.

  “Who are you?” she whispered. She hadn’t met another Dispossessed before.

  “Yann,” the man answered. She wondered how old he was. How many centuries he’d lived through, what he’d seen. He wasn’t human, that much Gabby knew.

  “And you, Alliance,” Yann said, sparing Chelle a pointed glare. “Are you luring demons to my bridge?”

  Chelle huffed. “It took you long enough to get here.”

  She had known? She had taken Gabby to a protected place on purpose? Chelle caught Gabby’s incredulous stare. “What? It’s called tactics, Gabby. Added protection is never a bad thing. Even if it is from one of them.”

  Chelle turned her back to Yann, who then resumed inspecting Gabby. “Where is Luc? If I felt humans in danger on my bridge, he should have felt your fear as well.”

  Gabby lifted her chin. “He didn’t feel my fear because I wasn’t afraid.”

  Except for that one blip, of course, and Luc had learned to ignore the blips. At least, Gabby hoped he had. He was intuitive but also reserved. If he didn’t have to go chasing after one of his humans, he wouldn’t. He’d wait for the real emergency instead.

  Yann’s smile surprised her. “You may be interesting, human, but you’re also troublesome.” He inclined his head, his smile drawing into something wicked. “I don’t like trouble. This bridge. Is. Closed.”

  Gabby refused to inch back. She wouldn’t be bullied by anyone, not even a gargoyle.

  “Don’t worry, gargoyle. We won’t be coming here again. From the looks of your bridge, you’ll be in hibernation soon,” Chelle said, adjusting her cap and strutting past Yann. “The best gargoyle is a sleeping gargoyle, after all.”

  He lowered his dark lashes, closing his eyes for a long moment. What Chelle had said was correct. Not about sleeping gargoyles being the best gargoyles—Gabby didn’t scorn the Dispossessed the way Chelle did. But with this bridge being shut down for as long as it had been, the Dispossessed guarding it should have slipped into the stony sleep the gargoyles called hibernation. Without humans to protect, there was nothing to keep a gargoyle awake. From what Gabby had learned so far, though, it sometimes took months for a gargoyle to go into hibernation. Perhaps Yann was already beginning his sleep. Maybe that was why it had taken him so long to sense a human in danger on his bridge.

  Chelle half turned to see if Gabby had followed her, but Yann had opened his eyes and was spearing her with them again, a new edge to his stare.

  “You should return to the abbey. Demons are out in droves lately,” he said. “Luc has a hard enough time as it is keeping tabs on you.”

  “I don’t require anyone to keep tabs,” Gabby replied. That was the reason she’d started training her fear reflex in the first place. Besides, if she was going to be fighting demons, Luc couldn’t be coming to her rescue every time.

  “Regardless,” Yann said, suddenly smug. “You and your family seem to need more than one pair of watchful eyes. Luc will soon be joined by another Dispossessed, isn’t that so?”

  Gabby let out her breath. Yann was right. Luc had told them that another Dispossessed would be coming to live at the abbey, but so far, the Angelic Order had not sent anyone.

  Gabby lowered her chin and started to walk around Yann, who stood like a pillar in the middle of the bridge. He followed her with his dark, inquisitive eyes. She saw them hitch on her crescent of scars. They throbbed, as if each scar knew it was being inspected. Yann’s throat made a mean little gurgle as she rushed past him.

  This was what Gabby had feared. Not the unlimited supply of demons she might come face to face with when she became a member of the Alliance. She could fight those demons; she could send them back to the Underneath, where they belonged. She couldn’t do the same with the marks on her skin. They would always be right there: the first things people noticed about her. If a creature like Yann—a gargoyle, for heaven’s sake!—looked at her with such disgust, how would others see her?

  How would Nolan see her? He’d left before the bandages had come off. Would he change his mind about her when he returned to Paris and saw the scars for the first time?

  Gabby brought down the black tulle of her veil, which she’d rolled atop the brim of her hat while battling the rattilus. Covered, she felt better. She felt more like the old Gabby, the Gabby who’d been pretty and confident.

  She wanted that Gabby back more than anything.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Hope was a futile thing.

  Luc had known better than to harbor any, even after two months had passed and he remained the only Dispossessed at l’Abbaye Saint-Dismas.

  Irindi had promised the arrival of another gargoyle, and the angel of heavenly law had finally kept her word. That morning, just as the servants were finishing up their breakfast in the rectory kitchen, Luc had felt the telltale chime at the base of his skull. He’d set his fork down, taken one last sip of his coffee, and raised his eyes as the new groom entered the kitchen with the butler.

  Gustav had gone around with introductions. Dimitrie was his name, with some long surname Luc couldn’t care less about. The Dispossessed had no use for last names.

  The boy’s eyes rested only a half beat longer on Luc than the other servants. A boy indeed. Dimitrie matched Luc’s height, but he was gangly and smooth-cheeked. No older than fourteen, Luc had suspected at the time, but now, as he followed the boy into the stables, he gave him the benefit of perhaps another year. Dimitrie had just enough breadth around the shoulders for fifteen.

  Luc closed the stable doors behind him to shut out the kicking wind. Dimitrie had entered a stall and was speaking in soft tones to the snuffling mare.

  “She doesn’t like you,” came Dimitrie’s voice from within.

  Luc approached the stall entrance and crossed his arms. Fourteen. The boy’s voice was still a warbling pitch.

  “The mare. She doesn’t like you. See how nervous you make her?” Dimitrie went on. He ran his slender fingers down the horse’s meaty shoulder, then along its back. He finally looked at Luc.

  “Irindi sent you?” Luc asked. A little warning would have been nice.

  Dimitrie didn’t so much as blink. “You required help.”

  From an infant? Luc wanted to reply. He stayed quiet. Dimitrie could have been trapped within his fourteen-year-old body for one year or one hundred. Maybe more. There was no way to tell without asking, and it wasn’t a question one Dispossessed asked another so soon after meeting. Luc himself had been seventeen for 327 years. This was the first time he’d met another gargoyle whose human age was younger than his.

  His age didn’t matter, though. Neither did it matter how awkward and spindly the boy looked. He was no innocent—Dimitrie had committed the same crime every other gargoyle had: the cold-blooded murder of a man of the cloth. Priest. Reverend. Bishop. It didn’t matter their title or rank. If a man killed an ordained soul, he was barred from heaven upon his death and cast into the ranks of the Dispossessed.

  Luc was a murderer. They all were, even this waif of a boy.

  “I understand. This has been your territory,” Dimitrie said.

  Luc had been guarding this place on his own ever since his first day as a gargoyle. When the abbey had been a functioning church, Luc had protected all its parishioners while they were on sacred ground. The priests usually lived alone, except for a few servants here and there. Even when the abbey fell out of use before Luc’s last hibernation and an old Sorbonne professor and his blind wife had taken up residence in the rectory, Luc hadn’t had much trouble seeing to their safety.

  He had shaken free of a thirty-year hibe
rnation just over four months before, and almost immediately he’d been challenged with humans who were pure disasters: in league with the Alliance, completely aware of the Underneath, two of them with demon dust and one with an appetite for demon hunting. … Luc did need help. And he should have been relieved to have it.

  “I mean no disrespect, but it’s also my territory now,” Dimitrie said, giving the horse’s snout a gentle rub. “And they are my humans as well.”

  Luc launched himself into the stall, his boots scattering fresh hay. Dimitrie jumped back and the horse whinnied and stomped. Luc curbed his temper, fast. It wouldn’t be wise to show this boy just how little he wanted to share his humans. Especially one human in particular.

  Ingrid.

  Once Dimitrie met Ingrid Waverly and breathed in her scent for the first time, he would be able to call it up at any moment. He would be able to feel the echo of Ingrid’s heartbeat, the flutter of her pulse. He would be able to know exactly where she was at all times, whether she was afraid or happy or sad or anxious. He’d feel her every emotion. Dimitrie would be connected to Ingrid just as Luc was. Luc stifled a growl of irritation.

  “Where do you come from?” he asked to change the subject.

  There were hundreds of Dispossessed in the city, thousands in Europe, perhaps hundreds of thousands the world over. The Dispossessed guarded any territory where les grotesques stood, whether it was a public park, a cemetery, or a private home. Dimitrie didn’t look familiar, but Luc’s circle of acquaintances was rather slim.

  “Not far. Bourges,” Dimitrie answered, his eyes still on the horse’s quivering flesh. Luc supposed he did make the animals a bit jumpy, but he was Lady Brickton’s driver. The horses had no choice but to work with him.

  “The other servants tell me the family is unnatural,” Dimitrie said. “Especially the twin brother and sister.”

  Luc arched a brow. He’d thought Irindi would explain things to Dimitrie. But perhaps she simply tossed the boy into his new territory and washed her hands clean of it.

  “You should keep yourself separate from the other servants,” Luc advised. “Give them no reason to gossip about you.”

  After the debacle in December, Lady Brickton had raised the servants’ pay significantly to secure their silence and to keep them on staff. The servants knew almost everything now. They had witnessed not only Grayson in hellhound form, but two gargoyles as well, one of which had shifted from true form to human form directly in front of them. They had also seen Ingrid, whose angelic blood had lit her up like an incandescent bulb and given her the power to subdue the attacking gargoyles—all on the front lawn of the churchyard.

  Only the butler, the cook, and two lady’s maids had chosen to remain. Nora, Gabby’s maid, had been killed by a hellhound. Luc supposed that was reason enough for the others to have flown the coop.

  “Besides,” Luc added, a knot at the base of his throat coiling tight. “It isn’t wise to become friendly with the humans.”

  Luc had learned his lesson.

  Dimitrie’s bony shoulder rose in a shrug. “I don’t mind humans so much.”

  The confession silenced Luc. Admitting something like that to another gargoyle was a serious risk. There were plenty of gargoyles who did mind humans. Despised them, even. Especially Alliance humans. They were supposed to be allies to the Dispossessed, and yet there were rumors going around now that Alliance leaders wished to enslave gargoyles even further. Make them bend to Alliance edicts. Suffer Alliance punishments.

  Luc would love to see the fools try. Gargoyles were already slaves enough. Irindi and the rest of the Angelic Order ruled over them. They watched and listened. They knew everything. You have an affinity for the child christened Ingrid Charlemagne Waverly. The memory of Irindi’s hollow, monotone voice as she had accused Luc of such a disastrous and unorthodox breach of conduct still flooded him with shame. Yes, he did have an affinity for Ingrid. Worse yet, he’d kissed her, and he’d wanted more—much more—than a kiss.

  He still imagined sometimes, when feeling particularly weak, what that more might be like.

  But it was a waste of Luc’s time to continue with such pointless imaginings. He was a gargoyle, and the angels or God or whoever had created gargoyles in the first place had covered all the bases. No Dispossessed could take a human lover. Anything more than a kiss triggered an involuntary shift, and a painful one, too: bones snapping, muscles and tendons stretching to unnatural lengths.

  Not to mention that the Dispossessed considered such relationships treasonous, punishable by death. Just last December, René, a member of the Wolves caste, had been ripped apart and discarded into the Seine for his indiscretion.

  How could Luc protect Ingrid if the same was done to him? Protecting her had to come above all else. He supposed Dimitrie would at least be able to help him in that respect. Still, for the boy to admit he liked humans was a dangerous—even foolish—move. Luc wondered what kind of gargoyle Irindi had sent him.

  He was still inspecting Dimitrie when the stable doors heaved open. Heeled boots hit the raised floorboards, and with one deep breath, Luc caught the heady perfume of hibiscus and water lily. Almost identical to Lady Brickton’s scent, just slightly milder.

  “What were you doing on that bridge?” Luc asked before Gabby had come into view.

  “I was certain you already knew, so I thought I’d come make nice,” she replied as she swung around the corner of the horse stall.

  Gabby’s smoky eyes landed on Dimitrie. She bit her bottom lip and Luc felt her heart throb with alarm.

  “It’s fine,” he said, nodding his chin toward Dimitrie. “Meet my new roommate.”

  The black veil of her hat had been cut at an angle to shroud the scarred half of her face, exposing just one of her stormy eyes. It was wide and unblinking as it traveled from Luc to Dimitrie.

  “This is … I mean, have you finally …” Gabby trailed off.

  Luc sighed. “Just ask if he’s a gargoyle already.”

  Gabby scowled at him. “Well, now I don’t have to, do I?”

  He held back the smile fighting to leap to his lips. Ingrid’s younger sister reminded him so much of his own, Suzette. Impetuous and witty, with a sharp tongue and plenty of spirit. Luc looked away from Gabby as the memory of his sister slid like a dull knife between his ribs.

  Dimitrie stepped away from the horse and, bending at the waist, dipped into a low, proper bow. He even nicked off his tweed cap and crushed it against his chest.

  “My lady,” he said, face still aimed at the floor.

  Luc knitted his brow, taken aback once again. “Straighten up,” he barked, and Dimitrie snapped up to his full height. “You’re her gargoyle, not her servant.”

  “Actually, he is my servant,” Gabby said. “As are you. I don’t see you returning the wages my mother pays you, now, do I?”

  Gabby waited for Luc’s reaction, her lips in a pointy pout. Lady Brickton knew gargoyles existed. She knew they were at times men and at other times beasts. But she did not yet know that Luc was one of them.

  “My name is Dimitrie,” the boy said when Luc stayed silent.

  “Lady Gabriella Waverly,” she returned.

  “You didn’t answer me,” Luc interjected. “What were you doing on that bridge?”

  Earlier, her scent had surfaced and Luc had been able to trace a mix of emotions: fear, fast drowned out by disappointment. He’d nearly been able to feel Gabby stomping her foot in frustration. And then she’d been fine, all fear vanquished, and the trembling of Luc’s bones, preparing to shift, had stilled.

  “I met a friend of yours,” Gabby said, avoiding his question.

  “Yann isn’t my friend,” Luc replied, already knowing where she’d been and which gargoyle had probably been there.

  She frowned. “Good. I don’t like him.”

  “I advise you not to like any gargoyles,” he said.

  Gabby began to push the black netting away from her face but remembered Dimitrie had
n’t yet seen her scars. She quickly tugged the veil back into place.

  “Not even you?” Gabby asked, turning playful.

  Luc hitched up the corner of his mouth. “Especially not me.” He saw a flash of her white teeth. “You shouldn’t cross into other gargoyles’ territories.”

  She sighed and wheeled around on her heel, heading for the stable doors. “Their territories are everywhere. What am I to do, play hopscotch around Paris to avoid running into any of them?”

  Sarcasm. Suzette had had plenty of that as well. Gabby was dark like Suzette, too, with her caramel hair and smoky eyes. Perhaps all these resemblances to his sister explained why Gabby rankled Luc so much. She, more than anyone else, even Ingrid, reminded him of what he’d done in his previous life. The sin he’d committed defending Suzette’s honor.

  “Can you just stay at the rectory for now? Until your sister returns, at least?” Luc asked, disgusted by the queasy churn in his stomach.

  That morning, Ingrid had gone to Monsieur Constantine’s home as she did twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays. Constantine sent his driver to pick her up, and she usually returned home with Vander Burke, the Alliance Seer. Luc wasn’t with her these mornings; she didn’t need him. But that didn’t stop him from eavesdropping on her every now and again. The bubbling of her pulse when she was in the Seer’s company bothered Luc.

  Out of habit, he called up her scent: a springtime morning of sweet-smelling grass; rich, dark soil; and of course, that additional bitter tang that Luc now knew was the scent of her demon blood. She was on her way back to the rectory. He felt her location as clearly as he knew his own.

  “There she is now,” Gabby said as the clatter of wheels came from the churchyard drive. The wheels crunched through the snow and the frozen gravel beneath.

  “Not yet,” Luc said, and walked with Gabby toward the stable doors. Dimitrie stayed in the horse’s stall, acting more like a servant than master of the territory.