33. Blane

CHAPTER 33

Blane

W here did Laurent find his sentry? The man glowered at me from inside the squat little building beside the front gates, and honestly, was a smile really too much to ask?

Maybe it was.

After all, I’d be separating his soul from his body as soon as his master made an appearance. My bet was on it being a shade of darkish grey. The man worked for a monster, but in a menial capacity. He wasn’t out performing general thuggery.

My phone buzzed with a message. Joseph, Vee, and Myrtle had hopped over the wall at the rear, ready to start the search as soon as I gave the all-clear. What was taking so long? Wren was inside, I was almost certain of it. We’d passed my car a quarter mile away, tucked in at the side of the road, abandoned. A minute spent with Laurent was sixty seconds too long, and it was all I could do to stop myself from marching up the driveway and burning down the front door. Only the need to get Laurent away from the building stopped me. If he was with me at the end of the driveway, the others would have a clear run at the house while I chose whether to suck out his soul right away or ask him a few questions first.

Killing him on sight was tempting, but I knew what Wren would ask me to do. She’d come to find Caria, and I had to adhere to that plan.

“He’s not answering,” the guard said.

“Call him again.”

“I don’t take orders from you.”

“You’ll be taking orders from the devil himself if you don’t do as I ask.”

I held his stare, and when he didn’t immediately dial, I conjured up a softball-sized sphere of flames. Bounced it in my hand. Waited.

He swallowed with an audible gulp. “I’ll call him.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

Laurent clearly wasn’t a man who understood priorities. Several minutes passed before the front door opened and he stepped out into the porte cochère. Alone. Where was Wren? I’d half expected him to bring her along with a gun to her head. Hoped he would, if I was honest. Not because I wanted her to be terrified, but because I could remove her from his clutches far faster that way. A little focus, and his soul would be on its way to Plane Four. By rights, it should have been in Plane Three, but the Electi had only just resumed work after a near hiatus that had lasted several centuries.

I said goodbye to the guard, and I’d been absolutely right. His soul was the colour of a thundercloud. It drifted skyward, then scattered for its journey to the next plane. A moment later, I’d signalled to the others.

And I heard a sound that struck dread into my immortal heart.

“Luuuuuucian, I’m bored. ”

I whirled to see Lola stumbling toward me barefoot, totally unaware of the danger approaching. Fuck. Joseph swore he’d engaged the child locks. How the hell had she escaped from Vee’s Porsche?

“Go back to the car.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“You promised you wouldn’t get out.”

“But it’s dark and I’m scared.”

Planes above and below, was anything going to go right today? Lola wasn’t supposed to be with us at all, but right after I’d given in and let Myrtle ride shotgun alongside Vee, Lola had burst out the rear door and stumbled toward us in Delphine’s stupid stilettos yelling, “Don’t forget meeeeeee!” When I tried to take her back inside, she’d started crying, and the parking lot wasn’t empty. People had begun staring. The easiest thing to do had been to bundle her into the vehicle, and then Joseph had pointed out that it didn’t matter if Delphine’s body got damaged because I could just stuff Nev’s soul into a substitute until Decima deigned to join us. Then Lola had promised to wait in the back seat, and now here we were.

Screwed.

I loved this flawed soul, I truly did, but damn, she could be exasperating at times. Laurent was already halfway down the driveway as I weighed up the options. Lola was in the shadows, but what were the chances of her staying there? Not good. If I dispatched Laurent right away, and the others didn’t find Caria, then Wren wouldn’t get the answers she so badly needed.

Which left me to lean through the window and hurriedly free the slumped guard’s pistol from its shoulder holster.

“Forgive me,” I muttered as I clamped a hand over Lola’s mouth and pressed the gun to her temple. “Shhh. ”

She mumbled angrily as I pulled her into view and faced Laurent. If looks could kill, then forget immortality—I’d be dead. He hesitated for the briefest moment, then resumed his march.

“That’s far enough,” I told him. “I think you have something of mine.”

Laurent didn’t stop. “You’re dead.”

“That’s wishful thinking.”

“It’s a fact.”

“I said, stay where you are.”

“No.”

This man was either very brave or very stupid. I had a gun and a hostage, and his hands were empty. So I gave his soul a tug. If I separated his parts temporarily, then I could send Lola back to the car and deal with this fool on my own terms.

But his soul didn’t shift.

What the hell?

I tried again, focusing harder the way I’d done a million times in the past, but the black wall of his psyche was firmly stuck. He was ten feet away when I turned the gun on him.

Six feet away when I fired.

Three feet away when I discovered the bullets had no impact whatsoever.

Who was this man? What was he?

And was it my imagination, or was he getting hairier?

When I spotted the bushy tail extending from Laurent’s ass, I realised I knew the answers to my questions. On the plus side, I now knew where one of the elusive werewolves had been hiding out. On the minus side…fuck.

When I went hunting for werewolves in the Carpathian Mountains with Joseph, I figured that if the beast wasn’t friendly, we could just leeper on out of there. But now that wasn’t an option, not if it meant leaving Lola behind. The only positive was that she was currently inhabiting Delphine’s body, and Laurent wouldn’t harm his own sister. Would he?

She was safe as long as he didn’t suspect I’d switched out their souls. All she had to do was?—

Lola caught me by surprise when she bit my hand, and her scream made my ears bleed. I tightened my grip, but it was too late.

For a second, the burning fury in Laurent’s eyes turned to puzzlement. Lola was screaming at him, not at me. And Delphine had known, hadn’t she? She’d known that her brother was a monster in more ways than one.

And now it was down to me to do what I’d failed to do before.

Protect Lola.

Save her soul.

“Run,” I told her. “When I let you go, run. Do you understand?”

“Mmmfh.”

Dammit. I loosened my hand slightly.

“Y-y-yes.”

Laurent was fully transformed now. He seemed to favour four legs rather than two, but he still stood almost as tall as me. When he raked a paw through thick, lustrous hair, it stood up in a quiff that reminded me of Elvis, but obviously he lacked the man’s charisma. Until this moment, I hadn’t understood just how expressive an animal’s face could be. Laurent was gloating. Gloating at my shock and no doubt planning to dance on my corpse once he’d torn me to shreds. Well, I had a few surprises of my own.

I shoved Lola to the side. “Go!”

She ran.

And I realised I should have been more specific. Because instead of fleeing back to the Porsche and locking the doors as I’d intended, she sprinted barefoot toward the house, shrieking as she went.

For Dad’s sake…

Laurent lashed out with claws longer than Taylee M’s, and that was another suit ruined. I jumped back before he managed to draw blood and hurled a fireball at him. Smug superiority gave way to a hint of shock.

“Oh, did it never occur to you that there might be other preternatural creatures in this plane?”

“This what?”

Hmm, werewolves could speak? Fascinating. Aurelia would no doubt be thrilled to learn of the discovery. She spent a ridiculous amount of time reading through the celestial archives, and she’d grown especially curious about shape-shifters after Myrtle’s first unfortunate transformation. And right now, I was wishing I’d paid more attention when she’d rambled on about her research over dinner because how in Mount Malum’s name was I meant to kill one of these things? Laurent had dodged my fireball with alarming ease, and as we circled, sizing each other up, I caught sight of Lola running through the mansion’s open front door.

Because I clearly didn’t have enough problems already.

“Plane Five? Earth?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You’re a werewolf, but you know nothing about your origins?”

He swiped at me again, eyes glowing yellow, and I leapt sideways. I could reach the mansion in no time, but from what I’d seen of Laurent, he also had the gift of celestial speed, so he’d be right behind me. And I didn’t want him anywhere near Lola or Wren.

“My origins?” He barked out a laugh. “A friend decided to hold his enterrement de vie de garcon in Transylvania, and this was how I returned.”

Curiosity got the better of me. “You encountered a werewolf in Romania?”

“How the fuck should I know? I was so damn drunk, I don’t remember what happened. My friend buried his life as a boy that night, and I lost my life as a human.” His fangs showed as he grinned. “It took a while for me to figure out the benefits.”

“Celestial abilities are meant to be used for the benefit of mankind, not for personal gain.”

“What are you, the supernatural police?”

“Far from it. I was Lord of the Underworld.”

This was a strange conversation to be having, but my goal was to keep Laurent away from the house, and better to be talking than fighting. I was equipped to deal with unruly souls, not fiendish beasts who’d quite possibly been blessed with immortality. Aurelia would know what to do. The temptation to leeper away and ask her was almost overwhelming, but in the moments I was gone, Laurent could do untold damage to the women I loved. Two connected souls, two very different bonds. I couldn’t lose either of them, not again.

“Did they kick you out for being too soft?” Laurent asked.

“I’m here to learn more about sin, and it seems I came to the right place.”

“You’re here to fuck with my business.”

“When your business involves harming innocent women, I have a duty to intervene.”

“Innocent? Stupid, more like. Caria never did what she was told.”

Anger bubbled up inside me. “And Wren?”

“That was Caria’s fault. She couldn’t keep her mouth shut.” Laurent shrugged his hairy shoulders. “A bitch plays with fire, and she’s gonna get?—”

I hurled another fireball at him, bigger than the last, and this time, he didn’t dodge fast enough. The fur on his side caught alight.

“—burned,” I finished as he roared in anger and pain and dropped to the ground, rolling to extinguish the flames.

“Motherfucker!” he growled, his wolf voice much deeper than his human one.

My turn to duck as Laurent leapt at me, his fur still smoking, the vile aroma of singed hair permeating the air. In hindsight, I wished I’d just kept talking because fighting really wasn’t my thing. I’d barely scraped through my combat skills module at the Celestial Academy. Where was Joseph when I needed him? He’d aced every class, albeit in demon form.

I got in a punch as Laurent flew past, but his skull had the strength and substance of a rock. My knuckles throbbed as we both lined up for another strike, but a blood-curdling scream from the house made us both whip our heads around.

Laurent sprang toward the mansion.

I blocked him with a wall of flame, forcing him to a halt as my heart stuttered. Who had screamed? Why?

And more importantly, what the hell could I do about it?