Ignited (19 page)

“More likely, he plans to double-cross them.”

I’d seen the crazy light in Franc’s eyes. Somebody as fanatical as he was wouldn’t give up so easily. Not when he was sure that he was right and that the ends justified the means. His moral code had been compromised long ago, and he wouldn’t think twice about betraying a Protector.

“What a bastard,” Erin muttered.

I snorted. That was putting it mildly.

Lucy asked, “Did Spencer and Miranda suspect that you knew Remy?”

The question surprised me. Was she asking because she was worried about me? I couldn’t tell from her expression. She tucked her hair behind her ear and watched Gabe’s face. Her attention switched to Lottie when she spoke.

“No. We were careful. They did wonder why Asher wasn’t with us, but we told them you’d decided to make a side trip to Paris. I’m not sure they believed us.”

Considering how long they’d been gone, I was disappointed that they didn’t have more news. I guess I’d hoped they’d have some kind of clue that would lead us to my father. How much longer could we sit around without doing something? They’d already had him for too long. Look what they had done to Asher in a matter of weeks. They’d had my father for months.

Lottie stood to begin clearing plates, and I said, “Can you wait a second? I have something to tell you, too.”

Gabe tensed beside me like he thought it was about him. I waited for Lottie to retake her seat before I told them what I’d found in their book about the O’Malleys. It hadn’t occurred to me to keep it a secret when we all had too many things left unsaid already. Lucy’s eyes lit up when I described the crest in the book. I opened it to that page and pushed it toward her. She read the three words below the crest out loud.

“Mighty of the land and sea,” Asher translated.

“The crest has a ship in it,” Lucy said, touching it. “Do you suppose sailing has always been in our blood?” she asked me with wonder in her voice.

I smiled. “I think Dad would insist it is.” He’d made his living building ships and spent every weekend he could on a sailboat.

Gabe tapped the table, lost in thought. “You know, it’s weird. I don’t remember any Protectors named O’Malley. How does a family just disappear? We might not have known every Protector in existence, but we knew of every family name. Do you guys remember the O’Malleys?”

Asher and Lottie both shook their heads. My gaze landed on the page opposite the O’Malley page. “Hey, Gabe. Do you know what these markings mean?” I pointed at the small birdlike symbol that appeared next to some names in the 1600s.

He studied it. “Never seen it before.”

“There’s more. I think I found my mother’s ancestors, too.” I explained what I knew about the name Lovellette, and how I suspected my grandmother’s family had taken that name back.

“It makes sense,” Lottie said. “I could see your family wanting some connection to their heritage when they’d been forced to cut themselves off from everything. Most Protectors don’t have a record like our family kept in that book, so they were probably safe using the surname. Does it say what name Camille married into? Maybe we knew your mother’s family.”

“Oh, you knew them.” Dread made me wish I hadn’t eaten that last piece of naan bread. I took the book back from Asher and found the page with Camille’s name. I pointed to it. “Read it, Gabe.”

He leaned over. His entire body tensed a second later and his eyes shot to mine. He whispered, “Son of a bitch,” echoing my earlier sentiment in the conservatory.

“Who is it?” Asher asked.

“The Duboises,” I said. “And Camille and Martin Dubois gave birth to a daughter, Elizabeth Dubois.”

I braced myself, waiting for the uproar and the explosion of outrage. Nothing happened. The room fell into total silence. I shifted in my seat, lifted my fork up, and then set it back down again. This wasn’t what I’d expected.

“Okay, I’ll bite. Who the heck is Elizabeth Dubois?” Erin asked, confused.

“Only one of the most powerful Healers we’ve ever heard about,” Asher said.

He left out all of the important details about Elizabeth’s very direct impact on his family. I dared to lift my eyes to his. Blame, anger, disappointment: any of those emotions I would have expected, but I saw evidence of none of them. Asher’s gaze was calm and clear.

“Don’t look like that,” he told me. I realized I must have looked terrified. “Remy, it’s okay. To be honest, it makes sense. Your powers are off the charts. You could only be descended from a powerful Healer, and Elizabeth was one of the most powerful that we knew of.”

“Aren’t you at all creeped out by the coincidence?” I asked them. Because I was.

“No,” Gabe said. “There are only so many families. We were bound to know your ancestors. And it’s not like we’re going to hold you responsible for what some relative of yours did a hundred years ago.”

I’d pumped myself up for their outburst, and their non-reaction left me nonplussed.

“I don’t know. I kind of want to kill her now,” Lottie said. Every head turned, and she laughed, her green eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m kidding, people. I think we’re past that.”

She began clearing the table, and that signaled the end of the conversation.

After dinner, everyone but Asher and Lucy headed to the basement to watch—wait for it—more
Doctor Who
. I sank into one corner of the couch and could have hugged Erin when she planted herself beside me, effectively blocking Gabe. My smile of relief came too soon, though, because he sat on the floor by me, using the couch arm as a backrest.

His shoulder bumped my knee more than once, and it could have been an accident. I believed that right up until his hand slid over the top of my bare foot, his thumb brushing my instep. I nearly jumped out of my skin, and Erin sent me an odd look. I tucked my legs under me, putting my feet well out of Gabe’s reach. The second Erin’s attention returned to the TV, I shoved Gabe’s shoulder. He glanced at me with a wicked smile, and I scowled.

Then his phone rang. He reached into his pocket and pulled it out to check the screen. Lottie silenced the TV when he held up a finger. He gave a warning glance around the room and answered the phone on speaker.

“Miranda, hi.”

“Gabriel,” a female voice drawled. “I hope I didn’t pull you away from anything.”

The Protector’s tone was loaded with innuendo. I raised my brows when Gabe’s cheeks flushed pink.

“Not a thing. Everything’s okay, I hope?” he asked.

“Spencer and I are fine. It’s you we worry about. Are you in trouble, dear?” she asked.

Gabe paused. “Now, why would you ask that?”

“Well, you and Lottie show up here without Asher, you won’t tell us where you’re staying, and there are rumors. Rumors about the Blackwells and a Healer girl. You’re keeping things from me, Gabriel. I’m hurt,” she said in a pouty voice.

Was this woman for real? Of course, they’d heard about me. That wasn’t really a surprise at this point. But how would Gabe handle direct questioning from a longtime family friend?

He laughed. “No, you’re not. We all have our secrets. It comes with the territory of who we are.”

“Yes, but your secrets have landed at my doorstep.”

Lottie pressed forward in her armchair. Erin leaned over to whisper to her, but Lottie’s green eyes narrowed. She pressed a finger to her lips and watched Gabe.

He sounded less calm than before. “What do you mean?”

“A package was delivered to the house for you. The messenger was that fellow Xavier that we told you about. You never mentioned that you knew him.”

She didn’t sound accusatory, but Miranda didn’t sound trusting, either.

“We only met in passing,” Gabe told her. “I wouldn’t say I know him.”

That wasn’t exactly true. He had once pretended to be Xavier’s ally in order to rescue me from the torture the Protector was inflicting on me at my grandfather’s request. Another of Franc’s tests, though I hadn’t known it at the time.

“Well, he knows you. Word has gotten around that you were at our house, and he asked where you’d gone.”

“And you told him . . . ?” Gabe’s voice tapered off with a dangerous note.

“I told him the truth. We had no idea where you’d gotten to.” Silence stretched on for a moment, and she added, “I know you’re not suspecting us of betraying you. That would be an insult among friends, and we are friends, are we not?”

“We are,” Gabe said in a soft tone that matched hers. “I’m sorry, Miranda.”

“Never mind, dear. Spencer thought it best he meet you somewhere to deliver the package. It might not be a good idea for you to come ’round the house anytime soon. There seem to be a lot of eyes on us all of a sudden.”

Lottie grabbed a piece of paper and wrote something on it before shoving it across the coffee table toward Gabe. He read it and nodded.

“Have him meet me at the police call box outside the Earl’s Court Tube Station. I’ll be there in two hours.”

Miranda agreed, and they hung up. Lottie and Gabe wasted no time. They both rose and started for the stairs, talking at a million miles an hour.

“Stop.” I didn’t raise my voice, but Gabe looked at me. “I’m going with you, Gabe.”

I thought he would argue, but it was Lottie who spoke up. “Is that wise, Remy?”

I gave her a half smile as I stood. “We all know that package is meant for me. I’m not going to let you both walk into danger while I sit on my hands.”

She considered me for a moment and seemed to make a decision. “In that case, I’ll stay here and keep the Healer company.”

“My name is Erin,” Erin muttered.

Lottie smiled, and I guessed she’d purposely teased Erin to put the girl at ease. Both girls moved to the sofa, and Lottie picked up the remote as they argued about Lottie’s manners. That was the last I heard as I ran to my room to grab shoes, a knit cap, and a jacket. I was shoving my hair under the cap when I met Gabe in the entrance hall.

“Is that your idea of a disguise?” he asked, tugging on an escaped strand at my cheek. “Come on. Let’s get this over with,” he said grimly, taking my hand and opening the front door. He wore the same jeans and T-shirt he’d had on downstairs, plus a black jacket.

I stared at his back and trailed him down the street. Rather than walk to a car, we continued on to an entrance with a blue and red sign that said UNDERGROUND. “We’re taking the Tube?” I asked.

He nodded. “It’ll be faster that way.”

It turned out that the London Underground wasn’t that different from New York’s subway system. If anything, the London system was easier to navigate, and Gabe obviously knew what he was doing. The other difference was the polite voice telling people to “mind the gap” as they stepped on and off the train.

On the crowded train, Gabe grasped a blue pole that ran from ceiling to floor in order to stay balanced while standing. He pulled me into his side, wrapping an arm around my shoulder to shelter me from a rowdy group out to have fun on Friday night. I didn’t fight him, and we didn’t speak. My mind had begun to spin possibilities about what could be in that package. Franc had sent it, obviously, with Xavier as his messenger. It would contain a warning of some kind, I was sure, but what kind? My stomach lurched when the train stopped twenty minutes later.

Gabe held my hand again as we climbed the stairs. At some point, we stopped and he said, “Spencer is a good friend, but don’t give him any info that we don’t have to. We want to keep him out of this, and while he might not hunt Healers, I want you to be on your toes. Guard up, okay?”

I realized I’d forgotten to raise my mental walls, a common occurrence around Gabe. I took care of that, and we exited the station. Like Gabe, I glanced around, staring into the shadows to see if someone lurked there. Everyone seemed to be going about their normal day, not paying any attention to us. Then my gaze lit on the police call box that sat a short distance from the station entrance: a blue police box like the one that was used as a time machine in
Doctor Who
.

“Did Lottie really pick the Doctor’s Tardis as our meeting place?” I asked in a wry voice, watching a tourist in a
Doctor Who
T-shirt pose for a picture in front of the structure.

Gabe sent me a quick smile as he continued to scan the area. “I thought the choice was inspired, myself.” He straightened with sudden awareness. “There’s Spencer. He’s alone.”

Spencer looked up as we approached and smiled at Gabe, huge dimples forming on either cheek. A tall man who appeared to be in his thirties, Spencer had blond hair and hazel eyes. Neither handsome nor unattractive, he would not stand out in a crowd, except for those awesome dimples. Gabe didn’t let go of me when Spencer hugged him, and I shifted my weight awkwardly until they stepped away from each other.

“So you’re the one causing all this trouble,” Spencer said to me with a quizzical smile. His accent sounded straight out of
Pride and Prejudice
. I felt a hint of energy that wasn’t Gabe’s drifting in the air, but I kept my face expressionless.

“Spencer . . .” Gabe warned him.

The Protector held up both hands. “Can’t blame me for being curious. I’ve never known the Blackwell boys to act so secretive.”

“I’m sorry for your trouble,” I said sincerely. It had never been my intention to come between the Blackwell family and their friends. “You mentioned there was a package?”

He slipped a small, white jewelry box out of his coat pocket and passed it to me. He gave me a quizzical look. “The man who dropped this off isn’t the type to mess with. I don’t know what you all are mixed up in, but you need to be careful.”

“We will,” Gabe promised.

Spencer waved at us. “Go on now. As curious as I am about you, Healer, it’s not safe out here in the open. No doubt they were using that box to draw you out.”

My head whipped up when he called me Healer, but Spencer was already walking away. He climbed into a waiting black cab. When the car passed us, I saw a woman was with him in the backseat. A stunning woman with red hair, high cheekbones, and full lips. She waggled her fingers in a wave, and then the car drove off. Gabe gripped my elbow and pulled me back into the Underground station.