Daughter of the Blood

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“Catherine and Laure,” Louise said, as the two rose and stood at parade rest. “Top agents. Crack shots, magically and otherwise. We’re posting them here to stand guard over Sauvage and Ruthven. They’d rather die than let harm come to the woman lying in that bed.”

Both women stared straight ahead, but color rose in their cheeks.

Louise looked at Izzy. “We should mobilize. We’re pushing our luck.”

Izzy wanted to ask her if she really believed in luck. Where did that fit in, exactly, with people who could use magic? Instead, she arranged her gris-gris over the shoulders of her body armor and patted the Medusa in her holster. The weight of the gun, once an unthinkable burden, was now her anchor.

Izzy turned back to Sauvage. “You’re being very brave,” she told her. “Jean-Marc will be proud of you when he hears how well you handled this.” The temptation rose again to go downstairs and see him before they left. She quelled it.

Sauvage’s eyes were huge as she raised herself up on her elbows. “Unless he dies,” she said mournfully.

“God, Jesse,” Ruthven chided her. “Don’t say shit like that.”

Louise motioned for the others to follow her as she crossed to the stone wall opposite the door. She snapped her fingers. A hand’s breadth in front of her, a larger-than-life-size oil portrait of Marianne in her white gown shimmered into view. Her stance was regal, power radiating from every pore. A tiara of white flames glowed from the crown of her dark hair, and she held a clutch of lilies in one veined, muscular hand and an athame in the other. From beneath her gown, a white slipper was planted on top of a skull with glowing red eyes.

Louise looked from the portrait to Izzy and back again, as if measuring the resemblance. Then she pointed her finger and the entire portrait rose into the air, revealing the entrance to a tunnel hewn from the thick marble wall.

“I’ll take point,” Louise announced.

Mathilde said, “I’ll bring up the rear. Stay in the middle, Guardienne .”

Izzy looked one last time over her shoulder at Ruthven and Sauvage, huddled together on the bed, gaping at them.

“Be careful,” she said. They nodded in silent unison.

Izzy wondered if she would ever see them again.

Chapter 5

I zzy and the two Bouvard agents stepped into the tunnel. A white mist swirled around her ankles and more cascaded from above, tumbling featherlight on her head and shoulders.

Izzy stiffened. Louise said, “It’s for protection, Guardienne . It won’t hurt you.”

“I’m okay,” Izzy gritted.

As they rose off the ground a lavender scent wafted through the thickening vapor. The fog became so thick she couldn’t see her hand before her face. But she did see a white glow below her chin: it was the ring.

They glided forward, or so it seemed. Izzy had no sense of direction.

After a time she said, “What will happen to Esposito’s soul?”

“I’m not privy to that,” Louise said flatly.

“His body was destroyed,” Izzy pressed.

“His remains aren’t necessary for the return of his soul. That’s only the case when the person whose soul is stolen is still alive,” Louise said. It was clear she didn’t want to discuss it.

“Alive…” Izzy couldn’t even begin to follow that.

“D’Artagnon debriefed Bob and me on the reading,” Louise elaborated. “Esposito’s soul was taken at the time of death. He probably had a prior arrangement with the Forces of Darkness.”

“He…sold his soul to the Devil? ” Izzy blurted.

“That’s one way of putting it, madame. Although so far as we can tell, there is no Devil, per se. The Dark Side is far more loosely structured than the Grand Covenate. They don’t even have a governing body, and they don’t work together toward any common purpose. They jostle for power among themselves far more than we do.”

“But there is a Dark Side,” Izzy managed to say. It hadn’t even dawned on her to wonder about it; she’d been having enough trouble wrapping her head around the world of the Gifted. “So do they have Houses or…”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” Louise said. “Although a number of us believe the Malchances are in bed with them.”

The Malchances again. Who were these people?

“They’re the House of the Blood,” Izzy said.

“Right. One of the original three, with us and the Devereaux,” Louise put in. “We are the House of the Flames. The Devereaux are the House of the Shadows. We were all founded in the 1400s.”

“When Joan of Arc tried to unify France,” Izzy finished. “And passed her power on to us before she was martyred.”

“‘Martyred,’” Louise repeated, sounding a bit derisive. “We prefer to say that she was murdered. There is no Catholic connection for us.”

“Souls contain mystical energy,” Mathilde put in, as if to smooth over the awkward moment. “Absorbing the soul of another can prolong life, enhance Gifts…” She trailed off. “We don’t do that.”

“We Bouvards,” Izzy said. The implication being that other Gifted Houses did.

There was the merest hesitation before Louise replied, “Oui . We Bouvards.”

Louise’s hesitation hung in the air. Was it an unconscious admission that she didn’t consider Izzy a Bouvard? If that were the case, was this “rescue mission” actually a coup? Was she being hustled offstage to be gotten rid of?

She remembered her NYPD dream, when Esposito had forced her to follow him by taking Sauvage hostage. Was this a mirror of that? Was she being lured out of the mansion supposedly to save Alain…when it was really to take her down?

I’m not liking this, Izzy thought.

As quietly as she could, she eased her Medusa out of its holster and wrapped her right hand around the grip. She felt along the barrel with the fingertips of her left.

They traveled on in silence. Izzy’s pulse raced in her neck, her temple. She kept the Medusa close.

A light rose around them, and the mist thinned. The curved interior of the tunnel was covered with symbols. There were reflective triangles, ankhs, crosses and eyes set in the center of hands. Numerals gleamed in white stonework: seven, thirteen, thirty-three, five. In an alcove, a brass brazier burned before a life-size statue of Joan of Arc holding a banner and a sword. Pungent incense permeated the air.

Izzy glanced backward. The entire length of the tunnel was covered with magical charms. It reminded her of the interior of Andre’s werewolf van, back in New York.

“All these things are for protection,” Mathilde told her. “Most of these charms are centuries old.”

Louise raised a hand and said, “We need to perform a ritual before we go any farther.”

“It’s also for protection,” Mathilde said.

The three sank to the tunnel floor in the rapidly evaporating mist.

Mathilde and Louise breathed deeply in, deeply out. Then the two women swayed left, right, leading with their shoulders, exaggerating the movement until they twirled in slow circles, chanting in a lilting, singsong language.

Without any sort of advance warning, all three were outside the tunnel, on the mansion’s grounds, shrouded in darkness at the base of a high brick wall. Cool night air tightened Izzy’s face.

Louise snapped her fingers, and the wall disappeared. In its place, two black-masked men faced Izzy, Louise and Mathilde, with Uzis drawn and aimed. Solid oaks rose behind them like another wall; above, a bone-white moon stood sentry. Izzy raised her Medusa and pointed it at the taller of the two men.

“Lower your weapons,” Louise said. As both men obeyed, she said, “Masks?”

“We’re on recon,” the taller man replied.

“Take them off,” she snapped.

The men yanked the masks off over their heads. They were both dark-eyed and dark-haired, young and in fighting trim.

“Hugues, Bernard,” Louise said, addressing each in turn. “Any surprises so far?”

“Got out without incident, patrolled, nothing,” the taller one said. Apparently he was Bernard. He looked at Izzy. “Is, this, ah…”

Izzy’s Medusa was still aimed at his chest. She said in French, “Je suis Isabelle de Bouvard, Maison des Flammes. ”

“So it’s true,” Bernard said, his features softening. “La fille de la guardienne .”

Both men sank to one knee.

Izzy considered her next move. Louise had hand picked the security agents surrounding Izzy at this very moment, and Izzy had no idea where their loyalties lay. She concentrated on her gut, trying to feel her way.

Jehanne, guide-moi, je vous en prie.

Go, the wind whispered. Allez. Vite. Hurry.

“Allez vite ,” Izzy commanded them.

They skirted the perimeter of the Bouvard estate. The mansion, magically repaired from the attack, lay beneath a gauzy dome of white beneath the ivory moon. Figures holding Uzis patrolled each of the floors and the roof.

There were more security forces stationed along the wall, within and without, and Louise motioned for the party of five to keep well away as they melted into the bayou just beyond the grounds. It seemed so strange to be hiding from her own bodyguards, but in truth, Izzy had no idea how many of them were “hers.”

The moon watched, an enormous eye in the sky, while Izzy and the others picked up the pace and laid tracks between themselves and the compound. As they penetrated the murky rot of the swamp, Izzy was on high alert. She was inside her nightmare; she recognized the landscape—the uneven paths, the skeletal trees—and she was terrified. Her fright-or-flight response was engaged full force.

For ten years I dreamed about this place. Ten long years. And now I’m here.

Bernard was on point, then Louise, then her. Directly behind Izzy was Mathilde, and in the rear, Hugues.

She listened for the Cajun werewolf pack—surely one of them had let loose with the howl she had heard in her mind. She wondered if they were trying to contact her; she hoped so. She realized then that of everyone around her, Andre was the local she trusted most—even more than she trusted Jean-Marc. Andre’s agenda was far simpler: he was loyal to Jean-Marc because the regent looked out for the wolf pack, and Jean-Marc had asked Andre to protect Izzy. So he had.