“Human? Not a demon lord or demonic in any sense of the word?”
“No. Evidently she is well-known in the community as a scholar.”
“Oh, well then,” I said with a relieved sigh, waving away the worry that someone like Bael was trying to take control of the French Otherworld. “She sounds perfect for the job. Let her win the challenge. I’m glad that’s taken care of, because I need you to book me three tickets to—what was the name of that little town in Italy that Gabriel mentioned?”
“But, my lord—”
“Santa Cristina?” Rene answered.
“That’s the one. It’s in the Tyrol, he said. I want you to book us three tickets on as direct a flight as you can get us, and arrange for a car while you’re at it.”
Traci fretted as I started out of the room. “My lord, the challenge—”
I paused long enough to give it a firm smile. “I know it’s kind of galling to purposely throw a challenge, but believe me, you’ll get over it fast enough.”
“But what sort of challenge—”
“It doesn’t matter. Pick whatever sort of event you like for the challenge,” I said, ruthlessly interrupting its bleats. Traci had a tendency to go on and on about trivial matters if you didn’t keep a firm hand with it. “Now please get onto finding us those tickets. I want to be out there as soon as we can. I assume you’ll want to come, Rene?”
“I wouldn’t miss it…er…what is it exactly we will be doing in Italy?”
“We’re going to enact a revolution,” I said succinctly, and closed the door softly on the stunned expressions of their faces.
10
“I’m cold.”
“Shush. Is that it, Rene?”
A tiny penlight pierced the blackness of the car and shone down on a map. “I think so.”
“It’s got to be below zero in here. Can we turn on the heat, at least?”
“No. We don’t want anyone to hear the car. Was that an owl? A real owl, or a some sort of a signal, do you think?” I asked, peering blindly out into the night. Surrounded as we were by dense forest, there was nothing to see but a whole lot of dark.
Rene’s shadow cocked its head. “I did not hear. Aisling, I am beginning to believe that perhaps there are not the guards present that you imagined.”
“I can’t feel my toes. I can’t feel my legs. I can’t feel my package,” Jim said in a mournful tone. “How’m I ever going to make little demons if my package ices up and drops off, huh? Huh?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake! Here, you can have my blanket, although I’d like to point out that you do, in fact, have a thick furry coat, and your genitals are not going to freeze and fall off your body.” I wrapped the car blanket that I’d been huddled under around Jim, who recoiled in horror.
“I’m not going to take a blanket away from a pregnant woman! That’s like a cardinal sin or something! I’ll get double demerits!”
“Oh, stop comp—ack!” I jumped at least a foot off the backseat of the car, where Jim and I had been sitting, at the sudden movement outside the window. “Uncle Damian! You just about gave me a heart attack!”
“You told me to be stealthy,” he said gruffly as he slid into the front passenger seat. “You can turn the engine on, Rene. There’s no one out here.”
“Oh, good, heat at last. I hope one of my legs doesn’t snap off before it’s thawed out,” Jim said, crowding forward to try to get some of the heat as Rene started the car.
“There’s no one? Are you sure?” I asked Uncle Damian.
He raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, you were in the black berets or something during the war,” I said, trying to mollify him.
“The term is black ops. Not that I’m admitting to having been involved in anything like that,” he said.
“Plausible deniability, we know. But it’s been a few years since you were doing anything like that, and if Fiat has dragons guarding his uncle, they could be very tricky.”
“Aisling, I said there was no one out there,” he answered, his voice as hard as flint.
“Well, hell.”
“Abaddon.”
I sucked on my lower lip for a moment, thinking hard and fast. “Maybe this isn’t the right place.”
“It’s the right place,” Uncle Damian answered.
“You’re sure that Bastian Blu lives here?”
“That’s what the man said.”
I thought a bit more. “He could be lying. I wouldn’t put it past Fiat to have set up a false house so people would think his uncle was here, but really, he was somewhere else.”
Uncle Damian sighed, his breath making a little puff of smoke in the cold mountain air. The Italian Alps in winter were lovely, but there was a reason that the tiny town of Santa Cristina was best known as a ski resort. Outside the car, the snow was piled up at least six feet deep. “He didn’t lie. I didn’t give him the opportunity to do so. I may not have been in the service for twenty-six years, but I have not forgotten how to interrogate an individual or search for enemy patrols. Now let’s get going. I can think of other places I’d rather be than sitting here.”
Rene turned the wheel and drove us up a long, snowy road, the headlights picking up occasional glimpses of startled deer and nocturnal animals as they hurried out of our path.
“I can’t believe Fiat doesn’t have anyone guarding his uncle,” I mused, pinching my lip.
“Maybe no one cares about him.” Jim shrugged. “Fiat’s been in control of the sept for a long time. Maybe he doesn’t think his uncle is a threat anymore.”
I smiled to myself. “He’s going to have a big surprise then, isn’t he?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’ll be you that gets the surprise,” Jim said.
“Bah. Holy cow, is that the villa?” I gawked as the car rounded a wooded curve, the sight of a large square stone villa being highlighted by the car’s lights. “That’s a heck of a nice place to be exiled to.”
As we drove up to the front, I could see that the main part of the villa was shaped like a square block, but an addition on one side gave it a bit more depth. On the far side, standing slightly away from the main building, a four-story stone square tower pulled the eye upward, following the line of the hill behind it. Gothic domed windows and doors gave the place a faintly medieval sense, a feeling that was enhanced by the aged figure who opened one of the double front doors as we stopped before them.
“Hello. Do you speak English?” I asked the elderly man who stood bent and crooked, carrying a large candelabra in one hand.
“Yes,” the old man said, gesturing toward the open door with the candles. The flames danced and sputtered in the freezing night air, not doing a whole lot to light up the area around us. The old man squinted at me for a minute. “You are a mate. You are here to see Signor Blu?”
“Yes, we are. My name is Aisling Grey. Er…is Mr. Blu up to having visitors?”
The old man blinked rheumy eyes at me. I was startled to see that his pupils were elongated, although it made sense that dragons were taking care of Fiat’s uncle. Still, it was rare you saw an elderly one.
“Is he…I mean, he’s not strapped into anything, right?”
“Strapped into anything?” He looked at me like I was the one who’d been shut away for being insane.
I glanced at the others. They just stood silent, content to let me handle things. Blast them. “We don’t want to disturb Mr. Blu if he is…unwell.”
“The signor has remarkable health.” The old guy gestured toward the door. “We do not have many visitors. Enter.”
“Thank you. It’s a bit cold out tonight,” I said, stepping into the villa, trying to keep from gawking at the gorgeous surroundings as the old man hurried us through an open-vaulted entryway. Given that he walked about as fast as an elderly snail, there was plenty of time for appreciating the décor.
I felt a little tingle as I went through the doorway, usually a sign of a protection ward. Jim had no problem passing through it, though, so it co
uldn’t have been a very strong one.
“Stand as far away from anything antique as is possible, don’t shed, and try not to drool,” I ordered it in a low tone of voice as we were escorted into a small room.
“You’re so anal these days. It’s just a bit of old furniture. Hey, you think that’s a Fabergé egg over there?”
“Move so much as one toenail, and I’ll have your ears!” I whispered, praying that I could get through the evening without disaster striking.
“The man, he did not seem to act as if his master was insane,” Rene mused as he examined the paintings hanging on the wall. “When you told us of your plan last night, I was not so sure it would work. People are not locked away without reason, hein? But now…pfft. It is possible.”
“It pretty much hinges on whether Fiat was being kind to an ailing relative, or a rat fink who wouldn’t hesitate to strong-arm family out of his path to power. Knowing him as I do, I’m willing to bet you that his uncle is as sane as I am.”
Three pairs of eyes considered me with what I thought was excessive speculation. Before I could point that out, the door opened and Fiat stepped into the room.
“Oh, shit,” I swore under my breath, desperately trying to think of some explanation for being there.
Rene was standing close enough to hear me. “Merde,” he corrected.
“Um…hi, Fiat,” I said with all the wit and vim of a stale pancake. “I expect you’d like to know why we’re here, huh?”
Fiat’s eyes widened. “An explanation is always pleasant, although I believe greetings are generally conducted first. Orazio said your name is Aisling Grey? I am Bastiano de Girardin Blu.”
My jaw dropped. I couldn’t help myself, it dropped a whole inch or so while I stared at the Fiat double and tried to process the information. “You’re Fiat’s uncle?”
“Yes.” He nodded, glancing at the others. His voice had a heavier Italian accent than Fiat’s, but other than that, it was difficult to tell the two men weren’t one and the same. “You are a Guardian. You have a demon with you. You are here to banish me to the Akasha?”
“Am I seeing things, or does he look just like Fiat?” I whispered to Jim.
“There are a few differences. He isn’t a snake in the grass, for one,” it answered.
Bastiano straightened his shoulders. It was really uncanny how much he looked like Fiat, from the curly blond hair, to the brilliant blue eyes, right down to the same square chin. “I knew this day would come. If you will allow me a few minutes to see to my people, I would be grateful.”
“No, I’m sorry—” I said, about to explain the misunderstanding.
“They have been with me since Fiat imprisoned me. They are harmless, but deserve a reward for serving me so well,” Bastiano interrupted. “If you wish me to beg you for this concession, I will do so.”
“Oh, jeez, no! Mr. Blu, you’ve got this totally wrong. We’re not bad guys,” I said, waving my hand toward the three others. “I’m a Guardian, yes, and Jim is a demon, but we’re not here to banish you to limbo. We’re here to rescue you.”
“Rescue me?” Now it was his turn to look stunned. “Do you mean it? No, you cannot. This is a cruel game you play.”
“I assure you, we’re not playing games. Maybe I’d better start at the beginning…”
“You’re gonna want to sit down,” Jim told the dragon. “Once she gets going, it’s hard to stop her.”
“Silence, demonic one,” I said, smiling at Bastiano. If I thought he looked surprised at the news that we weren’t there to banish him, he was downright flabbergasted by the time I was done relating the pertinent events of the last few months.
“You were the mate of the green wyvern—I am glad to know that Drake still has charge of the sept—but now you are Fiat’s mate?” he asked.
“In name only. Fiat tricked us into that situation. He’s…well, you know what he is.”
Bastiano nodded. “Cruel,” he said.
“Bastard,” Jim said with a sniff.
“Evil to the core,” said Rene.
“Looks like a porn star,” added Uncle Damian. “Don’t trust men who look like they make their livings with their dicks.”
A slight flush rose on Bastiano’s cheeks.
“Present company excluded, naturally,” I told him, shooting my uncle a glance. “This is going to sound horribly rude, I just know it, but would you mind me asking how old you are? Because you really do look just like Fiat, and I wondered if you were born around the same time as him?”
He blinked. “I was born in 1442. Fiat was born to my sister in…I believe it was 1585? Sometime around then, so yes, I was still young when he was born. As for the similarity of our appearance…” His hands made an eloquent gesture of dismissal. “That is a family trait, and not important. What is important is the regrettable fact that by your very act of coming here, you have doomed yourself to imprisonment as well.”
“Huh?” I asked, trying hard to keep my jaw from dropping a second time.
“Do you think I would stay here if I could leave?” His eyes darkened until they were almost black. “This house is nothing more than a prison, and for us all, there is no way out.”
11
“No one…argh…locks me…oooph!…into a house without my…dammit! That hurt!…permission! Look out!”
The confinement wards that were drawn each morning on all exits of the house by one of Fiat’s employees were pretty darned good, but not good enough. True, it took me five minutes of struggling to shove Bastian (who told us he preferred the shortened form of his name) through the one on the front door, but in the end, brute force and my own determination won the day.
“That was sure a heck of a lot easier coming in than going out,” I said, blowing a strand of hair back from my damp forehead.
Bastian looked a bit worse for wear, but at last he stood on the front steps of the house in which he’d been held a prisoner for eighty-some years, jubilation filling his face as he swung his arms wide and spun in a circle. “I do not believe it! You did it! You have done the impossible!”
“All in a day’s work,” I said modestly, watching as he executed a little dance of joy. “I’ve had pretty good luck getting through wards before, so I was almost certain I could get you out of this one, too.”
“Hey, Princess Modesty, you want to come flex your übermuscles for us, too?” Jim called from just inside the doorway.
“Oh, sorry. Yeah, let me give you guys a hand.” I entered the house, feeling only a little tingle of the ward until I turned around and tried to leave again.
Bastian babbled happily as over the next forty minutes I shoved Jim, Rene, Uncle Damian, three elderly retainers who had taken care of Bastian and were loyal to him rather than Fiat, and what seemed to be an inordinate amount of luggage out through the confinement ward. By the time we were done, I was exhausted and had a horrible feeling that I looked like I’d been pulled through a hedge backwards a few dozen times.
“The demon says you have a plan,” Bastian said a short while later as Rene returned from fetching a taxi. The five of us piled into the car Rene had rented, with Bastian’s people taking the taxi. “Now that I am free, you may count on my assistance in whatever manner you deem necessary.”
“We’re going to fly back to London first,” I answered, chewing on my lip and wishing I’d thought more about what we were going to do once we had Bastian. “Fiat is there right now, and it seems as good a place as any to tackle the situation.”
Bastian nodded and waited for me to continue.
“Er…I haven’t quite worked out all the details, but I thought you could go before the blue dragons, tell them how Fiat unjustly imprisoned you so he could be wyvern when he wasn’t born to the job, have him removed, and then you can take over and disown me as mate.”
The silence that followed my words was almost deafening. “That is your plan?” Bastian asked.
I nodded.
“The full extent of it?”
I nodded again, a bit less enthusiastically.
He sighed and sat back against the seat, his eyes closed.
Uncle Damian turned around in the seat to give me a dark look. Jim pursed its lips. Rene’s gaze in the rearview mirror was all too readable.
“Well, I’m doing the best I can!” I burst out, pricked by all those looks. “I can’t think of everything! It’s not like I don’t have a gazillion other things on my mind!”
“It’s all right,” Bastian said, his eyes still shut. “You have done the impossible already, the rest is up to me.”
His face was barely visible in the darkness, little flashes of it glowing dimly now and again as the lights from buildings penetrated the car.
“A challenge?” I asked.
“Yes. You said Fiat engineered the situation with you via a challenge…very well. I will give him a taste of his own medicine.”
I eyed the man next to me. His voice had thus far been lyrical and quite pleasant to listen to, but a note of something indefinable had entered it at the last minute. Was that phrase “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” quite so true as I had hoped? Or had I just unleashed a power a whole lot worse than Fiat?
“Merde,” I muttered.
“No word?” Uncle Damian asked six hours later as I rubbed my arms in the cold morning air, our conversation drowned out for a moment by the sound of a plane taking off.
I shook my head, worry making my belly churn. “That’s not like him. He didn’t even have his voice mail on, and he always has that in case I need him for something. I don’t mind saying I’m starting to get really worried. And pissed. Dammit, why didn’t he tell me where he was going?”
“He doesn’t want you following,” Uncle Damian answered as I watched people haul their luggage over to the passenger pickup area.
“Arrogant, foolish, bossy man,” I grumbled to myself. “Jim, I summon thee.”
Jim popped into view, shaking itself in a manner guaranteed to send dog hair and spittle flying. “Do you have to send me to the Akashic plane every time? Couldn’t I, like, go somewhere else? Bahamas? Venice? How about the Mexican Riviera?”