Dark eyes met hers. He held her gaze, locked it.

  “Clean,” he said to Lilliane. Then he dropped her back to the floor.

  He has to know it’s there, Izzy thought, sprawling facedown on the stone. A rat scrambled up to her, squeaked at her and skittered on across the floor.

  He must have felt…

  Then it dawned on her that she had no way to shield her thoughts from Lilliane. She forced herself to wipe the image of her Medusa from her mind. Jean-Marc’s face took its place. She couldn’t think of him, either.

  Hail Mary, full of Grace…

  Then she remembered who she was…or rather, who she was supposed to be.

  Je vous en prie, ma Patronesse….

  An explosion rocked the dungeon. Lilliane blinked and cocked her head. “That didn’t take long,” she drawled, grinning at Sange. Sange grinned back, patting Louisette’s head as the vampire scooted closer to her legs.

  Lilliane smiled at Izzy. “But by the time Jean-Marc gets here, you’ll be unsouled. And I’ll be consort to Le Devourer.”

  She gestured to the slimy floor on which Izzy sprawled. Embedded in the stone, a thick silhouette of a massive, horned figure nearly filled the space, extending its arms toward her, massive talons nearly touching her feet. Catching her breath, Izzy drew her knees beneath her chin.

  “Please, Lilliane,” she said, “let me talk to you.”

  “There’s really nothing to say,” Lilliane said coldly. She stood and gathered up her long skirt. She was barefoot. “Except, perhaps, adieu.”

  “I didn’t know about you,” Izzy said. “I didn’t know anything about the world of the Gifted. And I didn’t know Luc was your husband.”

  Lilliane stared at her. Her shoulders began to shake, and Izzy realized she was silently laughing.

  “So?” Lilliane asked. “You would have killed Luc anyway. And that’s beside the point. The point is, you were dragged out of New York to lead the House of the Flames. But there won’t be a House to lead, once Le Devourer and I get to work. The only House in the world will be House Malchance. Everyone else…” She raised her hand and snapped her fingers.

  “So you really have no reason to live,” Lilliane continued. “While I have an excellent reason to kill you.”

  “Le Devourer is quite a connoisseur of souls,” Sange said from the sidelines. “A Guardian’s soul is irresistible, non?”

  Another explosion rocked the dungeon. Lilliane spread her bare feet apart and held her arms out from her sides, balancing herself on the shaking floor like a tightrope walker.

  “Jean-Marc de Devereaux. Such a knight in shining armor. Soon to be a soul in a shining Chalice,” Lilliane said. “I hope there’s time to screw him. I missed my chance before.” She pointed her toes like a ballerina and tiptoed back and forth. “Modern life is so rushed.” She whirled in a circle. “Come out now, my priests and priestesses!”

  From the darkness of the four corners of the dungeons, fearsome figures in black robes and black half masks emerged. They bowed deeply to Lilliane, then to the silhouette as it stretched and shifted along the floor.

  “I doubt you will have time to screw him on this night, either, Madame,” said the tallest among them.

  “Oh, Baron Noir.” Lillian shook her head. “You’re such a bore.”

  Lilliane flicked her fingertips. Red energy crackled from them as she extended her hand. The dagger in the goblet flew into the air, turned—and rammed hard into Baron Noir’s chest. Blood spurted in a geyser from the center of his torso.

  The others drew back in shock as sparkles of red covered his gasping body. He shook as if he were being electrocuted; lines of shimmering scarlet crisscrossed his face. His mask caught on fire; his body burst into flame.

  Izzy yanked on the fastener that held her body armor together and dug her hand inside. She gripped the Medusa and made a tripod—arms straight and double-fisted, legs apart—and shot off a round at Lilliane.

  Nothing happened.

  Baron Noir’s smoking body tumbled to the floor.

  And Lilliane burst into laughter. “Oh, this is so sad!” she shrieked, covering her mouth with both her hands. “So very, very sad. Blam-blam-ppft. You poor thing!”

  She whirled toward Izzy and snatched the gun out of her hand. “Of course I have warded this place. Dampening fields, my darling. Your magic won’t work here. Neither part of it, Bouvard or Malchance. You can’t conjure demons. But I can.”

  Izzy carefully screened out the answering thought that she had no Gift at her disposal. Sange didn’t know. No one had brought the vampire into their confidence.

  “Maybe you should try the sword,” Sange said. “Oh, wait. You can’t. I have it.” She tapped her cheek and narrowed her glowing red eyes. “You two are so arrogant, you and Jean-Marc. You had suspicions about me. But you let me come with you. I know why Jean-Marc did it. But it won’t help.”

  Izzy didn’t understand. Sange rose from her chair and reached for the sword. Louisette and Jac handed it up to her.

  “Oof, heavy,” she told Lilliane.

  “You should do more exercising,” Lilliane replied.

  “Oh, I plan to. I’m going to spend a lot of time killing Bouvards.” Sange wrinkled her nose at Isabelle. “Jean-Marc brought me here because he was worried about the people at the safe house,” Sange went on. “What I might do to them. Left those men in charge—your castoff Ungifted—and still worried about me. He’s a genius. He knew I was dangerous.”

  She ran a fingertip along the sword. A thin stream of blood welled along the skin, and she lowered it to Jac and Louisette, who lapped at it like kittens.

  “You know, if that werewolf hadn’t come after you in the cave, he would have quickly subdued those attackers. Ah, well, fate.”

  “Fate,” Lilliane echoed. “Fate loves me.”

  “She’ll turn on you, Sange,” Isabelle said angrily.

  “Non, sweet Isabelle,” Sange replied. “She’ll reward me. Lilliane is going to give New York to me, in return for everything I’ve done for her.

  “By the way, I arranged for Caresse’s death,” she said. “It wasn’t your Medusa, ma petite. It was Suzanne, your loving Femme Blanche. She wants to be a vampire. Who can blame her?”

  Izzy gaped at her. “Wh-what?”

  Sange pressed her hand in mock distress against her chest. “Lilliane, how can it be that you’re so wise, while your sister is such a idiot?”

  Anger boiled deep down in Izzy’s soul. She felt the darkness rising up inside her, the tendrils of evil, the legacy of her Malchance blood. Her heart was a boiling cauldron of wrath. She wanted to kill Sange, kill her—

  Before she knew what was happening, a fireball erupted from her hands and shot across the room. It slammed into Sange’s face and the vampire queen burst into flames.

  Screaming, Louisette and Jac leaped to their feet. Jac started batting at her while Louisette screeched, “Put her out! Put her out!” She raced across the room, dragging the sword behind herself. She seemed to realize what she was doing and dropped the weapon, yelling and shrieking in horror as she ran down the line of unmoving, dark-robed figures.

  “Guards, sh-show yourselves,” Lilliane ordered, doubling over in hysterical amusement. Armed Malchance special ops clanged into the room from the passageway that led to the public square—ten, twenty, more, in full armor and helmets, weapons drawn.

  Lilliane laughed so hard she tumbled onto the floor. She drew up her legs and put her hands around them, throwing back her head.

  “Don’t shoot until I give the word,” she informed her guards.

  Sange burned, a figure inside an inferno. Louisette ran in a circle around her, hissing and howling.

  “Water!” Jac pleaded, tugging at the masked figures, who stood frozen in horror…and fear. Baron Noir lay on the floor, blood pooling over the stones. “Someone conjure water!”

  “You’re as pathetic as Sange is, Isabelle,” Lilliane said, but her voice shook with fury. “I should have known I couldn’t stop your magic from working in here. Your magic is my magic. Malchance magic.”

  Then Lilliane grabbed up her athame and advanced on Izzy. Izzy ran backward, trying to create another fireball. She was bewildered—and thrilled. There had been no warning signs, no preparation that she was about to perform magic. It had simply happened.

  Her heel connected with the sword. She scrabbled over it, willing more energy into herself, begging her patron, the Grey King, anyone, to give her power.

  Anyone? a voice whispered in her head. It was low and insinuating, alluring, sensual. It drew her mind to itself, and every cell in her body. Even I?

  The silhouette on the floor stretched an arm toward her. She swayed, gazing at it. Something inside her reached for it, wanted it. The Malchance side.

  I’ll take that as a yes, said Le Devourer.

  “You’re more dangerous than I gave you credit for,” Lilliane sneered at her. She seemed oblivious to the fact that Le Devourer was attempting to seduce her sister.

  “Also, dumber. Why waste your surprise attack on a stupid vampire slut?”

  Izzy tried to conjure another fireball, but she was losing track of what she was doing. The shadow on the floor undulated toward her.

  Lilliane charged her.

  Stop this, stop now! she told herself. She dropped to her haunches and grabbed the sword. The metal was icy. Give me strength, let me lift it—

  With a roar, she hefted it over her head and balanced there for a moment, swaying beneath its weight.

  Both sisters jerked, startled. Some of the robed figures took steps forward.

  Others did not.

  The guard took aim. Isabelle had to hurry.

  “Ma Patronesse,” she whispered, “Jehanne. Help me. My mother, forgive me. This is your child, but I have no choice.”

  Time moved all around her; she was in the center of a tragedy, a triumph. She was going to kill Lilliane.

  The sword crashed down…

  …and passed through Lilliane’s body without harming one single hair on her head—as if it weren’t there at all. The momentum brought Izzy to her knees, landing hard against the stone as the sword rang out like a hammer on an anvil.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Lilliane snickered.

  She pointed at Izzy and held her stomach, rocking uncontrollably back and forth on her heels. She looked around at the perimeter of black-robed figures and the crowd of guards. Baron Noir’s body sizzled. Sange was a smoking pile of ashes, and her two vampire sirelings sat keening on the floor beside her remains.

  Say the word, belle Isabelle, ma belle.

  Le Devourer’s voice crept like a velvet tiger inside her head. Through tearing eyes, she watched the shadow ripple and move toward her.

  He is going to save me, Isabelle thought, mesmerized. Le Devourer can be my new patron, since the old one has failed me.

  Yesssss, Le Devourer whispered. I will not only save you, I will adore you and comfort you. I will set you above every other Gifted and Ungifted in the world. But you must invite me.

  “Now it’s my turn,” Lilliane declared.

  Izzy’s mind raced, working overtime to rationalize the choice she so desperately wanted to make. All was lost. The sword had not saved her. Jean-Marc hadn’t come. There was no one…

  She smelled fire, felt heat scorching her skin. She thought of Jehanne, nineteen years old, burned at the stake.

  I am going to die. Here, now.

  You don’t have to, Le Devourer promised. Call me. Bring me to you.

  “No,” she said aloud.

  A pity, Le Devourer said without a trace of regret.

  Apparently unaware of their exchange, Lilliane reached out her arms; red energy burst from her palms and flung Isabelle across the room. Her back smacked hard against the altar. She saw ribbons of gray dots.

  Lilliane sniggered and giggled. She bent over Isabelle, singing and laughing.

  “First, to make sure you can never come back,” she whispered. Then she darted forward and plunged her athame into Izzy’s chest.

  It wasn’t painful; it felt cold. There was terrible pressure. Reeling, Izzy stared down at the scarlet-ebony blood that branded her a Malchance dripping down her front. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t feel.

  “Now there will be nowhere to put your soul, if someone manages to steal it back from us,” Lillian hissed. “Your body will die, and your existence here will end.” She put her hands on either side of Izzy’s head, grabbed it and kissed her long and hard. Izzy swayed; she was freezing and sinking fast.

  Her mind filled with the image of Jean-Marc’s face. His dark, serious eyes, his square jaw, his lips.

  I wish, she thought, oh, my God, how I wish…

  Jerking back her head, Lilliane stuck her knife between her teeth like a pirate and chanted around it.

  “Barbaras est magnus,” she sang.

  Lilliane’s crimson aura lit up the dungeon.

  “Cason magnus dux.”

  Her hands shimmered with scarlet. With a whoop, she plunged them into Izzy’s skull.

  Thepainthepainthepainthepainthepainthepainthepain.

  New York City

  The moon was the only normal thing in the sky. Beneath it, streetlights buzzed and the wind scattered garbage and trash over a human corpse—a homeless man, unlucky enough to make 108th Street his home.

  Vampire minions swarmed from the burned-out tenement across the street, glowing greenish white in the field of Pat’s night vision goggles. Their leathery wings enclosed grotesque white faces like picture frames. Their fangs chattered crazily, like toy windup teeth.

  Beside Pat, his dreadlocks contained inside a midnight-blue helmet like his, Alain tapped his shoulder and pointed to the right.

  Beneath the strobe-flicker of a semifunctional street-light, a trio of half-decomposed women staggered down the sidewalk. What was left of nice dresses—burial clothes—flapped in tatters over gray flesh.

  “Zombies,” Alain murmured. “Easy to kill.”

  Pat set his jaw and lowered his NVGs. How had this happened, and so fast? Had Jean-Marc known New York was about to be invaded by the dark side within hours of his leaving? Had he made up some crap story about going to Haiti to take Izzy out of harm’s way?

  If so, God bless him for it.

  Sweat trickled down the side of Pat’s face. Two of his Bouvard men burst out of the tenement in black body armor, Uzis pointing toward the minion swarm as they ran toward Pat and the others. The three Devereauxes behind Pat hunkered down, alert, standing by for his order.

  Blam-blam-blam, rest. Blam-blam-blam, rest. Minions started screeching and tumbling end-over-end from the sky. Their bodies thudded against the sidewalk, the street, on the tenement steps, on a Dumpster. The survivors swooped down on the Bouvards as they raced for Pat’s group, long teeth, gargoyle heads, talons on their wings.

  Blam-blam, and another minion dive-bombed to the empty street below, landing just in front of the trio of zombie women. The zombies tottered forward, stepping on it, then over it, unseeing, mindless.

  In the broken tenement windows, pale faces framed by white hair appeared. Six vampires had made a nest there. Pat had obtained the information from that treacherous bitch, Suzanne.

  Not pleasantly.

  Sirens roared in the distance like terrified jungle cats. The police were out; the National Guard was on its way to the city under siege.

  The vampires stared from the windows. Then the tallest one raised a rocket launcher to his shoulder.

  “Hostie,” Alain said. “RPG-7. At this range…”

  “Grenades at the ready,” Pat said. “Izzy,” Pat murmured. “Be well. Be safe.”

  The vampire fired the launcher.

  A human woman burst out of the tenement, screaming.

  Chapter 16

  Haiti

  J ean-Marc slammed Claude against the ancient rampart wall. Something slithered in the grass beneath their feet and Jean-Marc reinforced his aura. The poisonous mambo snake hissed and retreated. There were snakes everywhere.

  And every sort of assault Lilliane could devise.

  Jean-Marc’s party had jogged for hours through the steep, rocky terrain. Now they were in Haiti’s famed cloud forest. Charred mahogany and cedar permeated the air. Explosions of red light flashed through the lacy canopy, casting streaks of red war paint against the black camouflage on the faces of Jean-Marc and his men. Half the world was on fire.

  “Look,” Jean-Marc said, jerking his head up and sideways without breaking contact. “The sun is coming up. If we don’t make contact with your fellow rebels in two minutes, I’ll hold you here until you burn.”

  “I’m doing my best,” Claude informed him. He was cool, composed, exhibiting extreme grace under pressure. He reminded Jean-Marc of Pat Kittrell.

  Jean-Marc was past frustrated. After considering the risks, he had reopened telepathic communication and cast his mind above the island, searching for Isabelle. In the cave near the Jersey shore, he had flown with the gulls, but here, in Haiti, he flew with savage, mindless vampire minions hissing and darting through boiling clouds of smoke. He Saw the destruction below him. Huge swaths of landscape were ablaze. Fireballs and mortar fire had set off dozens of fires, and plantation owners, trying to keep the battle from coming onto their property, had started burning cane as a first line of defense. Then they rounded up their zombies and put them behind the fires, fodder to slow down the onslaught of the Malchances as they searched for Jean-Marc.

  Malchance soldiers were swarming the island, shooting at anything that was not Malchance. Hapless civilians fled to the beaches. Voodoo drums rumbled like thunder. Loa raged in protest, creeping back into their snake disguises and escaping into burrows and the burning cane fields.

  Above the lush canopies of trees, the vampire minions kept diving and circling. Vampires peered from treetops. A werewolf pack howled and flashed among the pines and rosewood trees, eager to tear apart Lilliane’s enemies.

  Jean-Marc sent out a prayer of protection for Andre.

  Castle Malchance rose though the clouds like a hunchbacked gargoyle on the tallest mountain peak, a monochrome of evil washed with splashes of blue magical energy and smoke. Jean-Marc was well provisioned with weapons, but the castle was equally well warded. Barrage after barrage of his finest ammunition exploded against Lilliane’s impregnable barriers.

 

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