“Change,” Isela said, seeing the image of her brother in his human shape.
The wolf shape withdrew, the muzzle retracting to reveal human lips and a nose in the new gaps formed by the sagging web. Bebe shoved her hands between the sagging web and his skin to keep the passage open. After a terrifying moment of stillness, his rib cage expanded. Dante shed his jacket as he hurried over. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket.
He muttered words at the cloth square as he tossed the coat over Toby’s hips before crouching at his head. Using the warded handkerchief, he plucked the web free of the unconscious man’s face. The web slid off the cloth when he shook it out, and he handed passed it to Bebe so she could free her own hands.
Dante sat back on his haunches, surveying room and its tattered occupants. “That was exciting.”
Isela had no humor left. She let the rest of the contents of the room return to the floor except her two captured combatants. Lights flickered, and she knew her eyes were flashing gold. She didn’t care.
“That’s enough from both of you,” she said. “Gregor, you disobeyed my order. Madeline, we need your help and we don’t have time for… palaver.”
She ignored their furious stares, drawing on the greater power of the god to keep them both pinned like insects to a board.
“Madeline, whatever you are, I will protect you—” She paused at Dante’s gasp. She wasn’t a fool. “From Azrael if needed.” She drowned out Gregor’s strangled protest by slapping an open book across his face. “If you swear to answer every question we ask completely and do everything in your power to help us protect this city when we call on you.”
Madeline’s stillness was not due to being pinned. In a glimpse, Isela saw the spider in the web, waiting.
“How long?” she asked finally.
“As long as Azrael is keeper of the city and I am his consort. I’m sure to one as old as you, that is reasonable.”
The old spider hissed. “Necromancers come and go. I remain.”
Insist on her loyalty, Dante threw in. She can help no other but you.
“You will assist none against us, grace-blooded or otherwise.”
Madeline’s entire form shuddered a bit, and Isela had the impression of many legs moving in quick succession. She prepared to reinforce the restraint in case her bargain failed. She’d bind Madeline up herself and drop her in Azrael’s aedis for that stunt with Toby.
“I don’t really have a choice, do I?” Madeline said, speaking now to the god.
“There is always a choice, weaver.” Isela heard the words come from her mouth.
“Upstart godling.” Madeline muttered after a tense second. “Agreed.”
Isela removed the book from Gregor’s face and glared a silent command. He liberated one shoulder enough to give a half shrug. When she floated them both to the floor, he sheathed his blade and straightened his lapels, running a palm over his hair.
Toby moaned softly, his head in Bebe’s lap as she stroked the hair away from his face. Her own expression was a mix of tenderness and irritation when she spoke. “I had it, you overprotective idiot.”
At least he had the decency to look chagrined. Dante helped him to a sitting position. Bebe drew a pair of black-rimmed glasses from her coat pocket and handed them over. He met Isela’s eyes as he adjusted them on the bridge of his nose, his expression so much like a puppy caught chewing something he shouldn’t that it banished her irritation.
The main door opened, and Niles appeared bearing a silver tray with a tea service. If he noticed the disarray of the room or its occupants, his face revealed nothing.
“I see our timing is perfect,” Divya said as she stepped from his shadow.
Isela sighed, flipping one of the heavy oak tables upright with one hand and making a shooing gesture with the other that chased eight chairs into place around it. As a final thought, she closed the door behind Niles with a twitch of her fingertips.
“Tea would do us all some good.” Dante clapped his hands together, delighted as he approached the head of the table. He slid the chair back, his eyes only for the librarian straightening her hair and clothes. “Madame. Dante Abraham, at your service.”
To Isela’s shock, the faintest smile lifted the librarian’s cheeks as she smoothed her skirt back into place and took the offered seat.
Bebe’s shoulder brushed Isela’s as they sat down with a grin. “Stranger than fiction.”
“Protect the city.” Madeline chuckled, sipping delicately from the cup before her.
She set it down so lightly the china barely clinked with the contact. She’d replaced her glasses and now peered down the table at all of them.
Madeline confirmed their fears that the army of golems would be stronger than men and driven by whatever command they had been tasked with. The only way to stop them en masse was the verbal kill switch programmed by their creator; otherwise, severing the heads individually might slow them down.
“Rabbi Loew used the name of his god,” she explained. “But he also was wise enough to create his creature with a kind of morality that ensured it would live in service. I have no doubt that these will not be so generously ordered.”
Not if Vanka or Paolo had anything to do with it.
“So the golem is—was—real,” Bebe said.
Madeline blinked at her. “Good man, that one. It’s a shame…”
Everyone paused for the end of a story that seemed to be coming. But Madeline shook her head, her face returning from reminiscence with a sharpness of her gaze.
“You won’t need to protect this city,” she said, smiling. “Prague wasn’t the first place a golem was attempted, but it certainly was the most successful. Don’t you want to know why, I suspect?”
This time it was Dante who lit up. “Of course. Many places have their own defenses that lend themselves to a particular manifestation. If Prague’s is animating the inanimate…”
Gregor leaned against the wall, looking bored enough to kill something. Isela, for once, agreed. They didn’t need a history lesson. They needed to know what to do. Before she could push, Madeline held up a hand.
“A moment,” she said. “Can I trust your guard not to try to take a piece of me?”
“If I can trust you not to attempt an escape,” Gregor said dryly.
“I gave my word to your mistress,” Madeline said, petulant now.
“You’re safe,” Isela said, if only to end the round of sparring before it began. “But we don’t know when the army will strike, and since we can’t stop them outright, we have to be ready to meet them as soon as possible.”
The librarian moved with preternatural speed, scaling the wall. She went to one of the stone gargoyles inside the room. All female, the figures represented various stages of a woman’s life.
The librarian stroked one, and Isela thought she heard the murmur of a geas. Obediently the gargoyle folded back into the wall, revealing a hollow just wide enough for a hand. Isela shuddered at the thought of putting her hand into a dark, unknown hole, but Madeline didn’t hesitate. She emerged with an old scroll and murmured to the gargoyle. Isela blinked, hearing Toby beside her inhale as the gargoyle appeared to nod in acknowledgment and speak quietly back. She snuck a glance at Divya, wondering what she was making of all this. The director sipped her tea.
Madeline returned to the table. Dante looked optimistic, but it was Bebe she slid the scroll to.
She cut off any protest. “Activating the city’s defenses is a spell of creation. It doesn’t belong in the hands of death dealers. Understand?”
Her gaze was for Isela only.
Isela waited until her sister-in-law had unrolled the scroll. “Bebe?”
Bebe’s mouth moved over the words, committing it to memory. “We can do this and will protect it as you wish, madame.”
Madeline inclined her head. Dante chafed, but Isela put a hand on his arm in warning. Bebe rolled the scroll and returned it.
“I need to get back home,” Bebe s
aid. “We need time to prepare for this.”
Toby stood at some unspoken communication between them. Niles had found a robe that fit him. Clear of the table, he lowered his head and shook briskly. The air quivered, blurring around him as the robe flared and then settled at the paws of an enormous wolf. Bebe caught his glasses in midair, folding them and tucking them into her pocket. She did her best to shake the long hairs out the robe, folding it neatly over the chair back with a smile of thanks for Niles.
Isela dropped to her knees to put her arms around Tobias’s neck. She breathed in the faintest hint of the human brother she recognized under the animal musk and smiled. “No more taking orders from Gregor.”
He chuffed, humor or agreement she wasn’t sure.
“Kiss the kiddos for me,” she said, patting him once before facing Bebe.
“I’ll get the girls working on this. It’s not complicated, but it will take some focus. And we’ll need help to broadcast the signal to the whole city since we aren’t really a full coven, no matter what your mother says.”
It couldn’t be helped that she had inherited from the wolf not the witch, but she felt a tinge of guilt that she could not have completed her mother’s coven as she intended. Bebe seemed to read her thoughts, or the trouble in them, and laid a hand on her arm.
“That was a neat trick with the chairs.” She winked. “Way cool. I bet you’re strong enough to help us… you and your little friend.”
Isela felt Gold’s pleasure in her breastbone. We can, Issy.
Isela took in the wreckage as Divya and Niles waited patiently. “Sorry about the library.”
Divya waved her off. “Any news on Yana?” At Isela’s expression, she sighed. “Any news you can share?”
Isela paused. “We’ll bring her home. I promise.”
Dante hesitated as the group started for the door. He took a few steps toward Madeline, and she lifted her head warily.
“Madame, forgive me if this is too bold,” he said with a new formality. “May I call on you again? When this trouble has passed, of course.”
Madeline looked taken aback for a breath. Slowly she nodded but did not speak. That was enough to send Dante cheerily out the door whistling.
Isela bit back a smile. She met Madeline’s eyes. “I’m sorry I brought this to your door.”
“It was not to be helped.” Madeline sighed, chucking her under the chin with a knuckle. “Godling.”
Isela smiled ruefully. “I’m not sure what to call you anymore.”
“Same as always,” Madeline said. “I’m the librarian.”
Gus minced no words. “What the hell happened to you?”
Gregor snapped something uncharitable on his way to the liquor cabinet. As he poured, the tear in his suit jacket revealed the smudged white shirt beneath. Tariq stifled a grin as Isela blew rebellious stray hairs from her eyelashes before tucking them behind one ear.
Her eyes were only for Azrael and the freshly-minted-silver gaze burning into her.
“I take it you had success,” Azrael said, and a chair slid into place for her beside his own.
Seated, he kept his hand lightly on the back of her neck. She leaned into it. When she looked away, she found Gus staring, a little grin on her face. Tariq occupied himself with a book.
“Madeline’s a spider,” Isela said.
“Arachnea.” Dante hurried to his seat and withdrew his notebook and set to work.
“And you have the spell,” Gus said when Isela finished the story.
“Not exactly.”
Gus stomped her foot. “Entonces ¿Dónde está el pinche araña?”
“Madeline is in her library,” Isela said. “She’s sworn to help us. And she did. The witches are prepping the spell now. I’m going to help them broadcast it over the city. All you guys have to do is stop Vanka and Paolo.”
Azrael sat back in his chair. Gus looked at him as though waiting for the explosion. Instead, a slow smile curled his lips and his eyes never left Isela.
“All we have to do, indeed.” The words left him in a soft chuckle. “Well, since my consort appears to have the protection of the city under control, let’s turn our attention to where it’s most needed. Finding the mortal they plan to use.”
Emboldened, Isela lifted her fingertips. “Ah, I may be able to help with that too.”
Azrael sat back in his chair, resting his elbows on the arms and folding his hands.
“Gold, the god, communicated with me the first time through dance,” Isela explained. “She mirrored my movements. That’s how she found me. If they’re making Yana replicate my choreography, then I—we, Gold and I—can mirror them to find her.”
Dante sat up, resting his notebook on his knee. Tariq closed his book with a snap.
“But once you find her, we have to get to her,” Gus said slowly. “And there’s no knowing how far they could be from here.”
Isela shook her head. “The power weakens over distance—you have to be close to where you want to use it. It’s why I went into the tomb with Azrael that night. No matter if they’re powering the mud army or charging up, they won’t be far.”
“There are plenty of abandoned chateaus and farms outside the city,” Gregor said. “Master, utilizing your contacts, I can begin searching the outlying areas—”
“We still have to travel to them, and if Isela makes a connection, they’ll know it.” Gus shook her head. “And they can be gone before we get there.”
The room stilled. Tariq drummed his fingers impatiently. “Teams. If we divide up, then can the closest team get there and hold them until the others arrive?”
Azrael raised his fingers. “May I have a turn?”
All eyes went to him.
“My lady.” He held out his hand to Isela. Without hesitation, she slipped her fingers onto his palm. His smile grew. “Exhale.”
Isela’s ears popped as the world spun out of view. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, they were in the garden of the Summer Palace by the fountain. The spring sunlight dappled through breaks in the clouds. Cool air raised the goose bumps on her exposed skin. She staggered and caught herself on the lip of the fountain. Icy water splashed her fingers. She inhaled damp wood and soft earth.
“What did you—”
“Testing a theory,” he said gravely.
“You promised,” she began.
“I’m explaining now. I didn’t want to create doubt in you before I attempted it. And you were the only one I trusted to be strong enough. If something went wrong, I knew Gold would protect you. Now I know I can do it. And it was no more drain than simply taking myself.”
He reached for her. “Close your eyes this time perhaps.”
Isela recoiled, but by the time she struggled free, they were back in the study. Even Gregor looked speechless for once.
Azrael crossed his arms over his chest, smug as a cat. Isela sank into her chair and willed her head to stop spinning.
“That’s how we get to them,” Azrael said. “Once Isela finds the dancer.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Yana emerged from her cell, too weary to think of escaping the four guards that were her constant escort. They never spoke a word. She’d tried fighting, cajoling, pleading, even a brief and repulsive attempt at seduction that mercifully fell flat. They no longer bothered to lock her cell. The moment she emerged, one of four corpse-like faces would look up from its assigned post and fix her in its blank gaze.
They weren’t the worst of her imprisonment. That distinction belonged to the redheaded necromancer and her companion. She didn’t need to be told Vanka was dangerous and unstable. On the runway in Saint Petersburg, Vanka had summoned an unearthly wind to scour the skin from the bones of the airline steward and the captain as the guards dragged Yana off the plane.
Her companion was no less frightening for all his smooth talk.
Won’t you help us, carinho? he’d murmured in her ear, sweeping her hair out of her face as she vomited on
the icy tarmac. We can work together on this, can’t we?
Making it a question only served to prove how powerless she really was as he ran his long fingers up her arms, sending heatless crimson sparks dancing along her skin.
It hadn’t done any good to tell them she wasn’t trained as a godsdancer.
We know, the male said, his large, beautiful eyes mournful in a face too handsome to be human, but your connection with the other one is important. You know which one we mean, don’t you?
Yana shook her head stubbornly, but the image of Isela came to her mind immediately. His eyes sparked with recognition.
And your late grandfather agreed that you should help us. You do want him to have his proper rest, do you not? So here’s what you will do for us.
All that, spoken in her ear like the murmur of a lover, while the redhead looked on. Her facial expression vacillated from bored to irritated but never jealous. So he was the carrot and she was the stick.
Those lovely, mournful eyes settled on her again; their inhuman shine was knowing. As knowing as his fingers on her skin and the disrespectful words, cloaked in affection and seduction, that he used to address her.
She was certain that he could read her mind and was doing so. It didn’t hurt like in the movies. She couldn’t feel it, and that was the most insidious of all.
He smiled. It doesn’t need to hurt.
“But it will,” Vanka assured her without changing her position of disinterest as she leaned against a wall. “If you don’t cooperate.”
Yana wasn’t stupid enough to think she could escape or that defiance would serve her in any other way than to get her tortured or killed. And if she didn’t do what they wanted, who would they take next? Trinh? Kyle?
She gave them what they wanted—or tried to. That was the worst part. She did as they asked, day after day, for hours, laboring under the thinnest hope that if she succeeded they might set her free. She watched the videos until her eyes ached. She learned the choreography as best she could, and then she danced. There were moves she simply was not capable of achieving, and so she substituted them. She’d never respected godsdancers the way she did now. And Isela, her quiet American friend who had been swept up in the necromancer’s machinations, was the best of all of them. She understood Isela’s secret now. She’d watched the tapes long enough and knew enough about the godsdance technique to know the difference. There were 108 moves in godsdancing. Except when Isela danced. Then the number was infinite.
Dancer's Flame (Grace Bloods Book 2) Page 27
