Summoner of Storms (2 page)

“Caleb, sit down.” John gripped his arm,
tugging gently. “Please. No one’s accusing you of anything.”

“He’s saying I’m not human. He’s accusing
Gray of, what, tricking everyone into thinking I’m still in
here?”

“Sit down, Mr. Jansen, before you make an
even bigger fool of yourself.” Kaniyar’s voice cracked like a whip.
“If the drakul were manifesting, we’d know, even without the
overtly physical signs.”

“So what did you mean to imply?” Caleb asked
the empath. The guy might not be able to feel Caleb’s emotions any
more, but he’d figure them out from the glare Caleb gave him.

“We don’t know what it implies,” John said
patiently, still tugging on his sleeve. “Please. Sit down and let
it go for now.”

“Fine.” Caleb thumped back into his chair.
Snatching up the butter knife, he did his best to take out his
annoyance on the tub of margarine in front of him.

John sighed but didn’t remark on it. Instead,
he turned to Tiffany. “All right. Caleb is here. Now answer my
questions.”

Tiffany scowled at him over the rim of her
coffee cup. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about than giving you
a history lesson, Starkweather. Starting with Forsyth’s army of
demons and what the hell we’re going to do about them.”

“No.” A little surprised at the sharpness of
John’s tone, Caleb glanced from his bagel to his lover’s face. John
wore an expression Caleb had never seen before: cold and angry.
“I’m not discussing anything until I know exactly who I’m working
with.”

“You do know me—”

“I knew Sean even better.” Bitterness twisted
John’s words. And with good reason; he and Sean had been best
friends for years. Right up until the moment Sean put a bullet in
Caleb’s skull and sold them all out to Forsyth. “Cut the crap.”

John and Tiffany stared at one another for a
long moment. With a frustrated huff, Tiffany banged her coffee cup
down onto the table. Coffee sloshed over her brown fingers, but she
didn’t seem to notice. “Fine,” she said. “Have it your way. Her
name was Papillon.”

* * *

“It means ‘butterfly’ in French,” Tiffany
said. “She was a placée in New Orleans in the early 1800s.”

John frowned. Was Tiffany serious, or just
jerking him around? “I don’t think we need to go back this
far.”

Tiffany’s eyes narrowed. “Do you want to know
or not? Then shut up and let me tell you.”

“Fine.” But if it turned out she was just
screwing with him, he was out the door, with Caleb and Gray in tow.
“What’s a placée?”

Tiffany’s full lips pressed into a tight
line. “At the time? A free woman of color, usually very
light-skinned, kept as a mistress by a wealthy white ‘protector.’
Life was fucking hard, but these ladies were damned smart. A lot of
them, Papillon included, had legal contracts ensuring they—and
their children—got a regular allowance and whatever they needed to
live on. They owned property, which was more than a lot of white
women could say back then.”

She gave him a challenging stare. Maybe she
thought he intended to make some asshole remark about prostitution.
“Got it. So she probably had some kind of education, too?”

Tiffany seemed surprised. “Huh. Not as dumb
as you look. She was a woman in two worlds, the one who’d go to
communion with the other placées and listen to the priests remind
everyone over and over that all contact with the spirit world was
an abomination against God. Later she’d go to the local mambo’s
house and speak to the
lwa
.”

“NHEs,” John said.

Tiffany’s eyes narrowed in displeasure.
“Intermediaries between mortals and God. So yes, not human.”

“Dangerous.” John shook his head. “And not
just because she would’ve been in trouble if caught.”

Tiffany scowled. “The idea all possessions
are bad is imperialistic bullshit. Under controlled
circumstances—”

“Which is exactly what Forsyth is telling
himself! Look how well that turned out.”

The smell of scorching wood filled the air.
Tiffany swore and yanked her hands back from the table, which now
bore the imprint of her fingertips burned into it. “You don’t know
shit. It’s not the same thing at all.”

“Tiffany—”

“John,” Caleb cut in. “Don’t be mad, but I’m
kind of hoping Tiffany’s right.”

Shit. He was an idiot. “Yeah, okay. I’m
sorry.” He touched the back of Caleb’s hand lightly. “I didn’t mean
to sound as if I think Gray is no different than the NHEs Forsyth
is controlling. I don’t. But summoning NHEs...I’ve seen it go wrong
too many times.”

“And I’ve seen it go right too many times,”
Tiffany replied. “Anyway, the point is, Papillon knew a few things,
but didn’t spend her life thinking about NHEs. Until the night a
rougarou
—a lycanthrope—attacked her. It would have killed
her, except the drakul hunting it showed up. The drakul was in the
body of someone she knew, someone who had died from yellow fever
just a few days before. It saved her life.”

Tiffany took a long sip from her coffee cup.
“Papillon didn’t know what had happened, what she’d just seen. But
the experience changed her. Awoke a curiosity, or a drive, whatever
you want to call it. She went to the cemetery and her friend’s
crypt. And she talked to what she found inside.”

“Yes,” Gray said.

Etheric energy suddenly flooded the room,
along with the scent of ozone and petrichor. Startled, John turned
to find Gray sitting beside him, eyes black as oil slicks. His long
hair shivered and twisted in an unfelt breeze, the locks slithering
over his shoulders like black snakes. Several of the Vigilant
stirred in alarm, even though they’d fought beside him just a few
hours ago.

“What?” Tiffany asked.

“Yes,” Gray repeated, in a voice almost like
Caleb’s but underlain with a deep rumble of distant thunder. “I
remember.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” one of the
other Vigilant said, eyes going wide. John privately agreed with
him.

“I only recall because mortals seldom spoke
to me,” Gray said. “Usually they came into tombs to cut off my
head. Or pin me to the ground with stakes.”

He said it as if it were perfectly normal,
the sort of thing that might happen to anyone. John’s stomach
turned over queasily at the thought of someone hurting Gray, even
if he’d been in a dead body unable to experience pain at the time.
“What did you tell her?”

“She asked if I was Géraud. I told her no.
She thanked me for saving her. I explained I hunted demons and had
no interest in her. She left.”

“You...” Tiffany appeared taken aback, lips
parted but no other words coming out. Then she seemed to remember
herself and swallowed. “I never thought...but, counting Gray, we
only know of two drakul in North America right now. How many could
there ever have been?” Her hands curled on the scorched wood of the
table. “I should have considered the odds.”

“What does it matter?” John asked.

“Because he’s what started it all. My whole
life...” She shook her head. “Never mind. The point is Papillon
came back. She wanted to know more. But you had left.”

“One of the demons had a cane knife,” Gray
said. “It forced me to move on.”

In other words, it fought back and damaged
the body to the point it became uninhabitable for Gray. Thankfully,
Tiffany didn’t ask for any details.

“After the incident, Papillon wondered what
else was out there,” Tiffany went on. “She knew Greek and Latin,
and began to research old books, searching for clues to the drakul
and other beneficent spirits. Her protector ‘indulged’ her by
buying rare volumes for her as gifts, although of course he knew
nothing of her true interest. In time, she drew other like-minded
souls to her, people who wanted to make a scientific study of NHEs,
without either the trappings of religion or the blindness of fear.”
Tiffany glanced at him. “And no matter what you say, Starkweather,
SPECTR is still spouting the same line as the Inquisition. They
took God out of the equation but left the fear in.”

“Ward,” Kaniyar said, before John thought of
a reply. “Let’s not start another argument if we can avoid it.”

Tiffany frowned but nodded. “Yeah, okay.
Anyway, Papillon and her followers became the Order of the
Vigilant. Always watching from the shadows, ready to step in and
either protect people from demons, or protect spirits from people,
whatever it took. Keeping an eye out for men or governments ready
to abuse both to get their way. Working between the cracks and
behind the scenes.”

“Why a moth?” Caleb asked. Apparently, Gray
had said all he intended for the moment. “For your symbol, I mean.
If her name meant butterfly.”

Tiffany’s grin held a feral edge.
“
Papillon
was the mask she wore to survive—pretty and sweet
and delicate. But with the Vigilant, she became
papillon de
nuit—
a moth, going about its business hidden by the night. She
was my ancestor.”

Had John wondered when the Vigilant recruited
Tiffany? She’d been born into it. For a moment, he felt a flash of
pity—did she ever have the opportunity to make her own choices? Or
had her entire life, from her parents sending her to the state
school instead of a private one, to the Academy, to her job as a
field agent, all been chosen for her?

What had she said to Gray?
“My whole
life...”
What would it be like to come face-to-face with the
entity whose one act changed everything for her, even to the fact
she was born at all?

“All right,” John said slowly, turning over
everything she’d said in his mind. “The Vigilant have been around a
while. But from what I’ve seen here, you have some serious funding.
And you aren’t afraid to spend it on paramilitary gear. What
exactly—”

“Head’s up,” Caleb said sharply. “I hear cars
on the road outside.”

The Vigilant exchanged glances.
“La
capitaine,”
Tiffany said. “Shit. She’s going to chew my ass out
but good. Come on.”

Tiffany rose to her feet and led the way out
of the dining room into the large foyer. As they approached the
entrance, the doors flew open, crashing into the walls on either
side.

Men and women boiled in, dressed in body
armor and with guns ready. Tiffany froze, her eyes going wide in
shock. John swore, but he didn’t even have his athame, let alone
his Glock. Behind him, etheric energy bloomed as Gray surged to the
surface.

* * *

“Keep your drakul on a leash.” A woman
entered behind the gunmen. Unlike them, she dressed in an expensive
skirt and suit, and carried no obvious weapon. Although her hair
had acquired more silver since the last time he’d seen her, John
still recognized her immediately.

“Mrs. Ward?” Shit. Of course. If Tiffany was
in the Vigilant because of her ancestry, it only made sense her
mother would be as well.

All the guns trained on Gray, whose growl
vibrated in John’s bones. Fucking hell, what was going on?

“Stand down, drakul,” Renée Ward ordered.

“It’s okay,” John said, holding up his hands
to show he was unarmed. “Gray, calm down. Mrs. Ward, I don’t know
if you remember me, but—”

One of the Vigilant lunged forward. John
jerked back automatically, but the man’s fingers fisted in his
t-shirt, yanking the material down. “Look!”

Gray moved faster than John could blink, one
moment a short distance behind him, the next with his fingers
wrapped around the operative’s arm.

“Do not touch him!” Gray roared, and the
chandelier over their heads shook.

And oh fuck, things were going south fast.
“I’m okay!” John grabbed Gray’s arm in turn, trying to tug him
loose from the Vigilant before somebody got scared enough to start
shooting. “It’s all right, Gray. I’m fine.”

Gray released the Vigilant, who stumbled away
as fast as humanly possible. But the drakul still growled, a low
rumble of threat, which didn’t help anyone’s nerves. “Darling, no.”
John put his hands on Gray’s chest, even though he couldn’t hold
Gray back if the drakul decided otherwise. “Just back off. Let
Caleb handle this for the moment.”

Lightning sparked in the depths of Gray’s
obsidian eyes, like a nighttime storm on the horizon. With a last
growl, he folded inwards, energy tucking itself back into Caleb’s
slight frame.

Unfortunately, Caleb looked ready to do some
growling himself.

“Mom, what the
hell
is going on?”
Tiffany demanded. Her eyes were wide and her perfect brows drawn
down. “Just calm down and put the guns away! There’s no need for
this!” She gestured at Gray. “He’s the one Papillon met. The drakul
who saved her.”

Renée didn’t seem at all appeased. Instead
she folded her arms over her chest, returning her daughter’s glare.
“Which only makes the situation even more tragic. What in God’s
name were you thinking? You were supposed to exorcise the drakul,
not let it take the living body permanently. Do you have any idea
what you’ve done?”

“Forsyth is building an army of demons,”
Tiffany said. “He’s hiding them in the tunnels beneath RD and using
technology to control them.”

Utter silence met her pronouncement. Renée’s
mocha skin took on a grayish hue. “Damn it,” she said. “It makes
sense now.”

“What does?”

“Things are worse than I realized.”

Tiffany gestured in Caleb’s direction. “In
that case, we need some major fucking firepower. And this was the
only certain way to keep Gray out of Forsyth’s hands.”

Renée glanced at Caleb. “No. It’s no excuse,
Tiffany. You
know
where this will end up.”

Tiffany’s fists clenched. “No, Mother, I
don’t. No one does! We have guesses and rumors and theories, that’s
all. But what I do know is Gray saved my life—on purpose, not by
accident like with Papillon. He’s cooperated. I don’t see any
reason to think—”