"You should give her to my master," Leary said, his grin widening. "He likes females, and the ones I bring do not last long. In a week they will be consumed."
Michael knew Richard's changeling condition did not permit him to drink human blood, and no Kyn could consume flesh. "How so?"
"It is the new communion," Leary said, nodding. "To partake of ruined flesh, turn polluted blood into wine. It is fed to those in rapture so that they might know the power and glory of the lord. Sometimes I am permitted to watch."
"Madam was right," Phillipe said, his disgust plain. "He is a jackal."
Leary gave the seneschal a lofty glance. "You will never serve my master."
"No." The thought that Richard was feeding his humans to one another revolted him. "He will not."
Michael continued interrogating Leary, compelling him to tell him about the number of times he had traveled to Dundellan, where in the castle he had been permitted to go, and what he knew of Richard's guards and household staff.
"The high lord uses the dungeon for special things," Leary told him. "Some of the doctors who check the new ones I bring take them there for tests. All of the passages are guarded."
The thought of Alexandra being kept in Richard's dungeon made Michael's fury rise like a scarlet wave, engulfing him with new rage. He was barely able to finish questioning Leary and allow him to return to watching the soccer match.
Alexandra. Her name beat, an echo of the lifeblood pulse in his head. I am coming.
Michael found Phillipe standing on the balcony of the master bedroom. Moonlight painted his broad, scarred features with gaunt, pale strokes.
"We will have to take him with us," Michael said. "Are you injured?"
"I have healed." His seneschal absently rubbed the place on his chest where the table had struck him. "Forgive me, master. I did not expect Madam Evareaux to attack me."
"It is her temper and her talent. Cella can do to worked stone what Lucan does to living things," Michael told him. "Anger made her lose control for a moment. It will not happen again."
"She makes a formidable siege weapon." His seneschal looked over the railing down to the street. "Does she truly go to pray?"
"Yes. She makes a pilgrimage to St. Paul's every time she visits London. She still believes that God will someday reveal his purpose in making us." He looked out into the night, somehow knowing that Alexandra was doing the same. "At least prayer provides comfort to her."
"I have prayed for Alexandra." Phillipe sounded almost ashamed to admit it. "She is truly innocent. Whatever God has done to us, surely He would not turn His face from her."
Michael lit a cigarette and looked out at the revolving lights of the London Eye, the largest observation wheel in the world, built to mark the new millennium. Behind it, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament seemed like toy models. "Do you remember how pleased my father was when I took my vows?"
His seneschal nodded. "The master thought much of the Templars."
"I did not. After my mother died of plague, I no longer believed in God. I joined the order only to escape his bitterness." Michael released a thin stream of smoke and watched it curl in the air. "For centuries I thought that was why I had been cursed and made Kyn—because I had worn the cross over a faithless, empty heart. In the beginning I believed that Alexandra had been cursed because she also does not believe."
"There is much that I no longer believe in."
Phillipe said slowly. "I think it is as Alexandra has said. That we lost our human lives to this thing that she calls a pathogen, and that God has nothing to do with it."
"Whether He exists or not, we are what we are. It does not matter." Nothing did, except taking her back. "Richard will see me dead before he releases her. Should that happen, you will do whatever is necessary to bring her home."
"Of course I will, master—"
Michael faced his seneschal. "When I am gone, when you have her safe, you will make her your sygkenis."
Phillipe opened his mouth, closed it, and then shook his head. "You need not ask this of me. She is yours. You will prevail."
"We did not choose Richard as our high lord because he could be easily taken." His head pounded with a maddening, gnawing craving to destroy something. "None of us is indestructible, and if he takes my head, Alexandra will suffer. You are the only one she trusts, the only one who can take her in hand. You do love her."
"I do," Phillipe said slowly, "but as I would love a sister."
"I must know that she will be safe. If I am dead, there are others who will come for her." He forced the words out. "She will need your strength and protection. I must demand this of you, old friend. Swear to me that you will take her."
A door slamming in the next room interrupted Phillipe's reply. Michael crushed out his cigarette. "Leary."Out in the sitting room, the television still broadcast the soccer match, but Orson Leary had vanished, as had the keys to the van.
"He will go to Richard," Michael said. "Phillipe, arrange for another car at once."
The outer door to the suite swung open and Marcella strode in carrying Leary under her arm. "Your informant, my lord." She dropped the limp body without ceremony in front of Michael and tossed a ring of keys to Phillipe. "I did not kill him."
"Thank you, Cella."
She gazed down at the unconscious priest. "This time."
Riding to the village on the back of Nicola's motorcycle gave Gabriel some time to think, but the thrill of the air rushing over his skin and the little bumps and jolts from the road entranced him as much as sitting astride the bike, his body pressed to hers. He kept his hands on her hips, where she had placed them when she had told him to hold on, but he longed to slip them inside her clothing so he could again feel the delicious coolness of her skin. Wanting her—wanting more of her—made him ache from his fangs to his groin.
She saves me, he thought, and all I want is to use her for my own pleasures.
Like most country innkeepers, the couple in the village locked the doors of their inn at night, but Nick produced a key and let them in through the back door.
"Up some stairs." She took his hand and slowly led him to her room. "We'll be okay here for the day. Jean isn't nosy, and Adélie makes up the room in the evening."
Her room smelled of fresh-cut flowers, furniture oil, and clean linens. So accustomed was he to the scents of mold and dust and despair that it was if he had been whisked away to another world.
Her world, not his.
"It's nothing fancy." She sounded gruff, almost angry. "I can't afford the five-star places. But it's clean and quiet."
It took a moment to register what she meant. She thought he was offended by her room. "I cannot see it, Nicola, but it feels and smells charming."
"There aren't any cockroaches. Here, lie down." She guided him to the small single bed and pulled back the covers. "Whoa, wait. Take off those pants first. They're mud city."
He stripped out of Claudio's damp, dirty trousers. "I must obtain more clothing."
"I can get some tomorrow," she said as she went into an adjoining room. Gabriel gingerly lay back, but it had been so long since he had occupied a real bed that the comfort felt as alien as the smell of the room.
"I have this place in England," Nick said as she came back into the room. From the sounds she made, Gabriel guessed that she was undressing. "It's in the country, nothing special, but it's out of the way and safe. We could go there, lie low for a while. Just until you're stronger."
Gabriel had not considered how utterly destitute he was. "I will need money and papers to travel."
"I can take care of it," she assured him. "Do you want me to call any of your friends for you, tell them you're okay?"
"There is no one to call." He took the too-soft feather pillow out from under his head and pushed it aside. "My home is outside Toulouse, in the hills near the border. That is where I must go."
Clothing fell against something made of wood. "Yeah, but shouldn't you let the others—what did you call them, the Kyn?—know you got away from the holy freaks?"
The bitter fact was that this human girl had done more for him than his own kind. "If my life mattered to them, they would not have left me to rot in the hands of my captors."
She said nothing for a long moment, and then asked, "Don't you have any family?"
Gabriel pushed away thoughts of Angelica. "My tresora, Dalente, looks after my estate in Toulouse. He is human, but I have complete faith in his loyalty. He will care for me, and arrange other matters as I need them."
One of her boots hit the floor with a small thump. "You mean you guys really do use human servants? Like in all the vampire movies?"
"Our tresori do serve us by guarding us during the daytime and handling our affairs, but they are more like trusted friends." Dalente would know what had happened to the Kyn in the two years since Gabriel's capture. Perhaps he would have him contact Michael Cyprien. If nothing else, Gabriel could persuade Michael to arrange a safe haven for him in America.
"We're not that far from Toulouse," Nick said. "I can take you tomorrow night."
If he spent much more time with her, he would not be able to let her go. "I will make my own way, thank you."
"You don't have any money," she informed him, "and even if I bought you a bus or train ticket, I don't think you want to travel that way. Not with all those green scars showing. People will freak out."
"I have Dalente keep cash and papers for me at the house," he said. "He will wire the money to me."
"Which you'd need identification to collect. Easier if I just take you home." Her voice moved closer. "How did they burn you like that?"