Darkest Misery (20 page)

Slowly, I set my gun down. I had their attention, and one of the addicts yelled at the others to stop firing. Shock grabbed me by the throat. I recognized him. It was one of the guys who I thought had been following me in Grenoble. Damn, that meant the furies had known where I was all along. If only I'd gotten close enough to figure out what kind of addicts they were the other night…

I pushed these thoughts away. Too late now, and this was no time for self-recrimination.

I could hear a couple of the Gryphons' annoyed swearing as they expressed their confusion. What the fuck was I doing?

Good question.

I clomped down the stairs, silently screaming at Devon to get on with it. The Gryphons had stopped shooting when the addicts had, and this window wouldn't last for long. I hadn't thought beyond distracting the shooters.

I needn't have worried. A third of the way down, a dark blur streaked past the ripped-open doorway. Devon wasn't exaggerating about being fast. He had to have been wearing a speed charm. It was the only way to account for his movement.

A couple of the Gryphons saw him too, and they started to shout, but it didn't matter. He was faster than them and faster than the addicts—a combination of a pred's natural abilities enhanced by charms. Two mild bangs in quick succession shattered the silence, and a soggy fog whooshed out of the curse grenades and enveloped the nearest addicts.

While they fell to their knees, grasping their heads with a terrible case of vertigo, the unaffected others spun around. But Devon had anticipated that too. One addict went down before it registered with me who was shooting. Then another.

Attacked on both sides, the remaining addicts didn't know which way to turn. I dove behind one of the car doors and landed next to Marie. The other Gryphons were taking advantage of the confusion, and I hoped Devon got out of the way.

“Are you okay?” I asked, and I could barely hear my own voice.

Either Marie was a good lip reader or she got the gist because she nodded. Her arm was soaked in blood, but although pale, she didn't seem in imminent danger of dying.

Before I could decide what to do next, the shooting stopped all at once and gave way to shouting. Or what I thought was shouting. My hearing was terrible, my ears rang, and the space reeked of gunpowder and various unnatural smokes. My knees trembled when I stood for a better view.

The last addicts had been shot or subdued, a couple Gryphons were on the phone, and what followed could best be described as a clusterfuck. Over the course of the next hour, we pieced it together.

Local police had heard the shooting but been unable to get into the compound because the addicts had created a barricade. The addicts had also killed several of the private security guards. When I found Devon, who was unscratched, and I explained to Tom and the others who'd been responsible for taking out over a dozen addicts, they were as thrilled as might be expected.

The Paris Gryphon Office came along with the ambulances, and we spent what felt like forever taking stock of the situation while the wounded and dead were tended to. One Gryphon had been killed, and a member of the Brotherhood was in critical condition as she was whisked away. Marie had received a flesh wound, but she went to the hospital after Tom insisted.

Not quite a part of the group, I sat on the stairs, wiping away my sweat and drinking water. Devon sat with me, and his icy expression dared any Gryphon to tell him to leave. No one tried, probably because they were preoccupied with other matters, but more than one gave us wary looks, and I could taste their suspicion.

Tom approached me at long last. He appeared exhausted but otherwise unharmed, and I was strangely relieved. Not that I wanted anyone to get hurt, but it hadn't been so long ago that I was threatening to punch him or worse for what his group did to me. So much for familiarity breeding contempt. He was growing on me.

“Still don't think you might have a leak?” I asked, my voice low.

Tom frowned. “Once the Vessel is secure, it's a situation that deserves more attention. Fair enough? Are you ready to leave?”

I pressed a cool water bottle to my forehead. “Good. And yes. What's going on?”

He checked over his shoulder as one of the Gryphon vehicles pulled away. “The addicts who don't need medical care are being taken into custody locally. Some of our group are staying behind to question them. The rest of us are returning to Grenoble with the prize, and an escort from the Paris Office is coming along to make up for our lost numbers.”

I rubbed my temples. “You expect another attack on the way?”

“I'm not ruling it out.”

Devon cleared his throat. “Radical suggestion that you won't take, but since you are a known target at this point, why don't you give the Vessel to me. I'll be following you back to Grenoble, and—”

“No.”

“My mistake for bringing in logic.”

Tom's lips thinned. “Even if I trusted you fully, which I don't, do you have any idea what would happen to me if anyone found out I'd handed a Gryphon artifact to a satyr?”

“You mean like I handed a satyr artifact to a Gryphon?”

“That was a photograph.”

“Which I stole for you.”

“For all of us.”

I spread my arms out between them. “Enough. We'll stick with the original plan. I want to get back, get the cup locked away and have my ears stop ringing.”

“The last one's out of my control, but let's get moving with the others.” Tom motioned for me to follow him.

Devon grabbed my arm as I got up. “He's such a friendly guy. Can we throw him and Claudius into a ring together?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

No one attacked us on the way back to Grenoble, but everyone was on high alert, particularly as we pulled into World. For a brief time, the cup was out in the open, then the building doors shut behind us and we were within the security limits.

Safe at last, I calmed down enough to become aware of my body. I needed a bathroom, food and alcohol. Preferably in that order, but I wouldn't be picky.

The first two were managed. After the cup was tucked away within the archive's security, one of the Brotherhood Gryphons announced we needed dinner. Magic should never be attempted on an empty stomach, and it had been a long time since most people had eaten.

Soon enough, someone brought in food, but alas, no wine. While we ate, I listened to the others discuss the spell we'd found. One of the Gryphons suggested that I might want to go home and relax, and I stared at him with my best
Are you fucking kidding me?
expression.

Tom noticed and laughed silently. Maybe he was starting to understand who I was, after all.

Preparations for the spell work took time, so I checked in with Devon to make sure he'd returned safely. Then I sent Andre an email, asking if he'd made any progress with the list of names I'd sent him. If Tom really was going to dedicate some time to investigating the possible leak, then I didn't want to waste Andre's time. I just wasn't sure I believed him.

I felt more than a little superfluous while I waited for the Gryphons, but there was no way I was going to miss anything. If the cup really was the Vessel, I wanted to holler with triumph. And if it wasn't, I wanted to know immediately.

Whichever the outcome, I informed Devon to have wine waiting in the hotel room. I'd need it.

Tom came over to get me when all was ready, and he took me up to the lab where the deed was to be done. Even he was fidgeting with excitement.

“Too bad Marie and Umut can't be here to witness,” I said as the elevator doors opened. “They played such a big role in this.”

Tom smiled in a distracted way. “They'll both have time to check it out later. Don't worry.”

The lab we entered was far more industrial than the ones I'd seen in Boston. Everything shined in brushed stainless steel and polished glass. Narah's Cup appeared more pathetic than ever sitting on a gleaming lab table amongst all the modern trappings.

Various containers of unknown ingredients sat next to it, and a baby salamander crawled around inside an obsidian bowl. Several bottles were also present, including one that contained a sprite. It pressed its watery face to the glass, its gray eyes following the salamander.

“Let's begin,” said an older woman.

I felt like I was witnessing a religious ritual rather than a charm-casting, or un-casting in this case. Though, to be fair, this was magic unlike any I'd ever seen or heard of. If we were right, there were spells on the cup that somehow disguised the fact that there were spells on the cup. At first, I thought it might just have been my ignorance of magic that had me confused, but talking to Tom and listening to the other Gryphons had clarified it wasn't me. A couple of them had heard of such things, but to work this kind of magic was something else.

I wasn't sure whether to be impressed by the original magician's skill, or terrified by these current people's lack of knowledge. My gut clenched, and it occurred to me for the first time to wonder what the odds were of the Gryphons screwing up the counter-spell and getting us all killed. Until this point, I'd taken the cause of their nervous energy to be the same as mine.

These happy thoughts only increased my anxiety, and I turned my attention to the Gryphon who was actually doing the charm work. It wasn't Jacques Maurice this evening but an older man. I wondered how he'd been selected and if he'd prefer not to have an audience.

All these thoughts swirled around my brain as the minutes ticked by. I watched as inks were made, glyphs were drawn, unknown substances were sprinkled or rubbed, and yet nothing about the cup changed. Not physically. It was possible the magical energies were shifting, or just as possible nothing noticeable would happen until the end when—if—the spell was lifted and the object's power became detectable.

Gunthra's goblin, who claimed to have seen the furies with a Vessel, had said its power was unmistakable. She could sense it from some distance away. Having been created by magic, preds were more attuned to it and better able to work with it, but would we be able to sense the same? Would I, being sort of pred myself?

I checked the time. Nearly half an hour had passed, and no one but the guy working the spell or the Gryphons assisting with ingredients had moved.

“Almost done,” he said at last.

He uncapped the bottle with the sprite and poured the creature into the cup. Someone timed it while it swam around, then it was returned to captivity.

I bounced from foot to foot, fingers tapping uselessly against my palms with impatience.

The Gryphon took one of the magical ink pens he'd created and drew a glyph in the center of the wet cup. A couple others peered into it and consulted a copy of the parchment.

“Looks right,” the older woman said.

Then why wasn't anything happening? My fingers curled into my sweaty palms with disappointment, and the woman signaled to someone over my shoulder. I turned as two Gryphons wheeled in a cart. An object draped in a sheet sat on it. As they approached the lab table, one of the Gryphons pulled off the covering.

I blinked.

They'd brought in a dragon, and not a little one either. This dragon was fully grown and old, about the size of a large housecat—one of the rare ones you did not want to run into while waiting for the subway. Unlike most of its brethren, this boy or girl could breathe true fire.

In the wild urban jungle they called home, dragons tended to die much younger, usually taken down by other dragons since they were a highly territorial and unsociable species. Or they were killed by human exterminators for obvious reasons. But the Gryphons would have reasons for raising their own, and it appeared I'd discovered one of them.

Inside the cage, the dragon stretched its sinewy, scaly limbs. Dragons, like other magical pests, were attracted to powerfully magical things. A good reason for me not to like them. Dragons bit me and imps stung me more than the average person.

And this dragon was surrounded by magical things and people. It circled its cage, seemingly unable to decide where to focus its attention.

During the time I'd been watching the dragon, Gryphons had cleared off the lab table of everything except the cup. The dragon's cage was lifted on to it, and suddenly the dragon's attention shifted as well. Its head snapped toward the cup. Could it sense something I didn't?

“Ready?” the older Gryphon asked.

The younger of the dragon's handlers put on dragonhide gloves and opened a window on the dragon's cage. It wasn't big enough to let the creature free, but the dragon could stick its head outside. Since the window faced the cup, the dragon did just that. It sniffed the air a few times, cocking its head to the side with very humanlike curiosity.

We waited some more.

“Not going to oblige us on your own, are you?” the Gryphon asked. With a shrug, she pulled a sprig of some kind of plant from her pocket and wound it around what looked like miniature fireplace tongs with an insulated handle.

Guessing what was about to come next, I shifted a few feet around the table for a better view. People who were in the line of fire moved to get out of the way.

The young Gryphon brought the plant end of the tongs to the dragon's face. All it took was a sniff and the dragon got annoyed and sneezed. A few sparks flew from its nose. It tried to bat the sprig away with its head, but the Gryphon held it steady, continuing to taunt it with the plant. Then slowly, she lowered it in the direction of the cup. By now, the dragon was understandably irritated, and there was only one way to destroy the thing.

It let loose. Flames the color of molten gold burst from its mouth. I sucked in a breath, never having seen true dragon fire in person. For my safety, that was a good thing, but aesthetically, the real thing blew away the photographs and videos I'd watched.

But the fire faded as quickly as it had begun, a burst of shimmering, liquid light that became no more than a flash spot on my retinas.

The cup, on the other hand, began to smoke.

I rubbed my eyes, trying to rid myself of the retinal burnout so I could see clearly. The smoke coming off the cup was no more like normal smoke than dragon fire was like a campfire. It rose in an amber spiral, counterclockwise, almost as though peeling off the cup, or perhaps like the cup was releasing the smoke inch by inch. As though it was burning up from the inside out.

I held my breath, and a Gryphon near me gasped.

Faster now, the spiral spun and lengthened, and the smoke dissipated a couple feet above the cup. Like an inverted tornado, it thickened until the outline of the bowl disappeared in the cloud. And when it lifted seconds later, vanishing all at once, the cup had changed.

I let out my breath and clasped my hands to my mouth to keep from doing what, I could only imagine. I was too awestruck to swear. Too happy and relieved to shriek.

This was it. It had to be. We did it. The Vessel was safe.

A lead blanket-sized weight lifted from my shoulders. But while I was content to stand and gawk, several of the smiling Gryphons rushed forward to examine what we had.

I got my look as the crowd thinned. The Vessel held the same basic shape and size of the cup, but it was neither crude nor lumpy, nor made of anything that appeared to be clay. It had been hollowed out of rock of some sort, a blackish-brown color with glyphs carved around the outside edge. When I put my hand toward it, close but not touching, I could feel a hum of power, an electrified wind brushing my skin. It wasn't exactly pleasant, but it was stronger than anything I'd ever felt before.

“So this is it,” I said.

“This is it.” Tom knelt to get a better look at the glyphs. “It must be. Tonight we lock this in our most secure vault within the archives, then tomorrow we regroup and plan our next move, knowing we've handled the worst of the threat.”

I withdrew my hand and yawned. “Tomorrow? How about we take a day to bask in our success, sleep in and not work? I think we've earned it, and we have time.”

“Your problem, Jessica, is with your dedication.” I opened my mouth to argue, but Tom laughed. “Yeah, I suppose you're right. Go do something touristy tomorrow. God knows I've forgotten what it's like to have a life too.”

I didn't know how, when or if
Le Confrérie
planned on letting the other groups in our failing alliance know about the Vessel. The fewer who did know, the less chance we had of the furies discovering where it was, although I suspected that was a lost cause. After what happened in Paris, even Tom had to admit someone was likely feeding them information.

To be safe, however, I asked Devon and Lucen not to share this information with Dezzi yet. They wouldn't keep quiet forever, but I wanted their silence until I met with Tom again.

I finally had my glass of celebratory wine, and I slept in late the next morning. Devon had suggested a few fun things to do today, including an excursion I'd been wanting to take since I arrived—a gondola ride to an old fort overlooking the city. The views from the ruins were supposed to be amazing.

But that was for later. I had a private errand to run in the meantime.

I was certain none of the satyrs nor the Gryphons would approve of me heading out alone, but with the Vessel secured, I felt more secure too. Nonetheless, I wasn't going to be stupid. I kept my knife with me and my eyes and other senses alert as I strolled over to World. Nothing suggested any threats on the brief trip, and I relaxed as I entered the building.

Umut wasn't working today in the archives, but another woman waved me in. After consulting the note I'd made, I headed straight for the red-covered book. With it in hand, I sank to the floor to read, hoping for the best.

Alas, my good luck, such as it was, appeared to have run out. The chapter on transformative magic was about exactly what I'd been hoping it was about—the complex series of charms and the utterly bizarre process of how humans were turned into preds. I started from the beginning and read for a while, learning more about the process than I'd ever wanted to know and wondering why anyone would choose to put themselves through it. Long lives and immunity to disease and aging were nice, but the transformation, coupled with the aftereffects Devon had told me about, did not seem worth it. Of course, Devon had also told me most people had no idea what they were getting into.

Yet while the craziness of it all occupied my thoughts, I never lost sight of my real reason for reading—could the pred process be undone? And there, the book had an unequivocal answer—no.

My heart sank as I read about theories and actual attempts to “save” preds by returning them to their human selves. Since the book discussed magic as though it were medicine, the author ended the chapter by concluding that becoming a pred was a terminal condition for which there was no cure. Perhaps later theorists would prove more successful.

I doubted it. Curing preds or “saving” them was not something the Gryphons cared much about.

Throughout the nineteenth century when this book was published, religious overtones had permeated the organization. Reclaiming a pred was part of it. Yet these days, with preds an accepted—though not well liked—part of society, turning a pred human would not be anyone's priority, and most preds would likely be outraged by the idea. The Gryphons were entirely secular too, and they stuck to their primary task of law enforcement and human protection.

I sighed heavily and shut the book. Yesterday's high was well and truly gone, replaced by a dim hopelessness that I knew I should feel guilty about. Lucen's life wasn't mine to wish away any more than mine was his. Hell, if he was researching ways to make me more fully satyr, I'd be pissed. And although he'd once said he wished he could stop needing addicts for my sake, he'd never said he wished he could stop being what he was. There was a difference, and I'd chosen to ignore it for my totally selfish reasons.