LITMIR.BIZ

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that.

      His knit his brows and pursed his lips. “I appreciate your offer to help, but this is new to you, and this will be difficult and grisly work.”

      “I want to be there,” she insisted.

      “You are irreplaceable, and this reading could be dangerous. Esposito was working with very powerful spirits. I’m sure that if Jean-Marc were here—”

      “Jean-Marc is here,” she corrected him. But she wondered if he knew something that she didn’t, if Gifted died differently from other people and he knew Jean-Marc would not be back.

      “Please, madame, how is the regent?” the middle-aged man asked, stepping forward. “I’m Simon, his assistant. This is Pierre, Alain’s assistant.”

      “Sophie is my assistant,” Michel added, gesturing to the woman.

      “Any news?” Pierre asked.

      Izzy said, “The regent is still in surgery. Alain is still missing. Perhaps we’ll learn more from reading the fragments.” She gave Michel a look. “So let’s get it done.”

      “You just agreed to a meeting,” he argued.

      “After.”

      “Please,” Michel pled. “This will be very unpleasant.”

      She shrugged. “It’s like forensics, right? We examine bone fragments, bits of tissue…and we learn things from their vibrations. Or something.”

      He blinked. “No, madame, it’s not like that at all.” He shook his head. “It’s…horrible.”

      Great.

      “No problem,” she told him. “Let’s do it.”

      Chapter 3

      W hy did everything have to be so complicated?

      “I repeat, madame, ” Louise said in the hall outside Izzy’s mother’s chamber, “it would seriously jeopardize both Marianne and the regent to bring Esposito’s remains inside the chamber. They’re psychically toxic.”

      So she was back to trusting the doctors and the Femmes Blanches to do no harm.

      “We need to take them to the reading chamber, and we need to do it now,” Robert said. “They won’t keep their integrity long.”

      She exhaled. “All right. Let’s go to the reading chamber, then.”

      The two security agents looked at Michel. He gave his head a tense little nod, and the quartet walked away. The assistants had not asked to come with them, and appeared to be more than happy to let them leave without them.

      Izzy and company used the service stairway. The descent was shadowy and narrow. Izzy’s shoulder brushed musty-smelling brickwork; she felt claustrophobic and scared.

      Robert, Louise and Michel chanted beneath their breaths; everyone in the party, including Izzy, glowed with white light. Michel’s forehead was beaded with sweat as if the effort were costing him dearly.

      “This is a protective shield of light, like armor,” he told her. “In time, one hopes you will be able to create one for yourself. It’s a fairly basic skill for us.”

      “I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it,” she replied, wondering if he was trying to insult her or cow her. She stood next in line to rule over them like a queen, and everyone she had met so far was appalled at her ignorance and lack of skills.

      After two more flights of stairs, they were in complete darkness. She felt a breeze against her face and heard the squeal of metal on metal. Chains clanked. A chill ran down her spine. Were they going into a dungeon?

      Footsteps echoed against what might have been the walls of a cavern, and Izzy could make out the shapes of the two agents and Michel in front of her.

      As she followed Michel, a stab of pain cut across the arch of first her right foot and then her left. On the floor, a line glowed with icy white light.

      “A ward,” Michel informed her. “Very powerful.”

      A door behind her slammed shut, the sound ricocheting around her. Light flared and flames undulated from the tips of torches set into each point of the white stone walls of an octagonal room. They revealed the mosaic floor beneath her feet, tiled in the familiar design of the head of a short-haired woman surrounded by a halo. Jehanne d’Arc, the patroness.

      A figure walked from the shadows. It was six feet tall, dressed in a hooded, satin white robe that concealed its face and body. Its hands were moving inside the hood, and she nearly burst into giddy hysteria when she realized it was taking off a pair of earphones attached to an iPod dangling from its neck.

      Her amusement died away when she saw its hands—they were leathery purple claws ending in sharp talons. Devilish, to her Catholic eyes.

      “Bienvenue, ” it said in a hollow, rasping voice.

      “May I introduce you to Felix D’Artagnon,” Michel said. The creature bowed low. “D’Artagnon is one of a clan of gremlins who has allied himself with our Family, in much the same way as Madame Sange.”

      “Madame la Guardienne ,” D’Artagnon intoned.

      “I’m Marianne’s daughter,” Izzy insisted.

      Michel continued, “Gremlin is a general term for a class of beings that aren’t human but also aren’t demon. We don’t deal with demons.” His voice tightened. “It’s forbidden, and it’s punishable by death.”

      “Got it,” Izzy said.

      “Monsieur D’Artagnon and his clan are allied with us. They had a falling out with the Malchances about a century ago, and we…assisted them with sorting that out.”

      D’Artagnon nodded.

      “The Malchances. They’re not our favorite people,” Izzy observed.

      “No,” Michel replied. “They’re not.”

      D’Artagnon led the way toward a long stone altar in the dead center of the room. Now-familiar objects sat on the altar—a marble vase containing a lily, and a white candle floating in an alabaster bowl before a foot-tall statue of Joan of Arc. The Flames’ color was white, the symbol of purity. Above the altar, a chandelier encrusted with opals and moonstones held wax candles that gave off flickering, watery light.

      There was no statue of Jean-Marc’s patron, the Gray King, nor of anything blue, which was the color of the Devereaux family. Of the three altars she had seen, this was the first without Devereaux symbols. Were they being written off? Seen as no longer relevant by the House of the Flames?

      Izzy stood a few feet back with Michel and D’Artagnon while Robert slid the box onto the stone surface of the altar. As he retreated, he stumbled badly.

      Louise caught him, grunting, “Hang in, Bob.” She said to Michel, “He’s had direct contact with the fragments, sir.”

      “Then get him out of here,” Michel said. “Check in with me later.”

      Izzy said to them, “Thank you for putting yourselves in harm’s way for the good of the Family.”

      “Merci, Guardienne ,” Robert answered softly.

      The two headed for the door. Once it had shut behind them, D’Artagnon moved to a low wooden table at one of the points of the octagonal room. He picked up a cardboard box of Latex gloves identical to the ones Izzy wore on the job in the property room at the Two-Seven.

      “Madame et moi aussi, ” Michel told D’Artagnon, indicating the box.

      D’Artagnon used his talons to rip open the box and began pulling out gloves, offering a wad to Michel. As Michel separated them into pairs and held one set out to Izzy, he added, “As you know, we suspect the Malchances are the real forces behind

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