Then Michel crossed to the right, standing before the wall, and moved one hand in a circle. A door appeared and opened. Inside, several white robes, shimmering with appliqués of flames, hung from a wooden rod on wooden hangers. They looked similar, but not identical, to D’Artagnon’s. Michel snapped his fingers, and two of the robes detached from the rod, floating toward him on their hangers.
He snapped his fingers a second time, and the door, the rod and the hangers disappeared.
The robes magically settled on his and Izzy’s bodies. The robe weighed several pounds, and she wondered if it was actually some kind of body armor.
“If you please,” Michel said, reaching backward and pulling a hood over his hair.
Izzy did the same. She smelled lavender, and she was very warm.
Michel said to the gremlin, “Let’s begin.”
Raising their hands like scrubbed-in surgeons, he and D’Artagnon faced the altar. They took deep breaths, centering themselves; Izzy did the same, trying to let go of all the chatter in her brain—her anxiety, her fear. The smell of candle wax overlaid something more odious; she caught a whiff of a terrible stench and figured it was coming from the box. It did nothing to make her feel better.
D’Artagnon said something in French. Michel replied, then translated, “He’s worried about your being here. I told him you insisted.”
She looked from him to D’Artagnon, whose face was still hidden. He creeped her out. All of this creeped her out. “I’m staying,” she said to him.
D’Artagnon inclined his robed head. “S’il vous plait, Madame la Guardienne .”
“D’accord . Then do as we do, please,” Michel said. “Do not depart from our ritual.”
He and the gremlin extended their arms and began another chant. Izzy copied them, spreading her arms wide and trying to follow the singsong words, which they repeated in a complex pattern.
The chant seemed to go on endlessly, the stench to increase. A thin layer of something white appeared along the floor.
Michel said, “Don’t be alarmed. It’s for protection.”
It was a mist. It curled around her ankles, cool as whipped cream, smelling of lavender. It billowed up to her knees and grazed her hips, then it rushed all the way up to her chest. As it rose to the level of her chin, she backed out of it, although Michel and D’Artagnon remained inside, breathing deeply.
“It’s all right,” Michel said. “Come back in, please.”
She knew Michel would probably be happy if she bailed. But she stepped back into the fog, closing her eyes, and took an exploratory breath.
Despite the coolness of the vapor, it felt warm as it entered her body; it was soothing, like deep-heat rub on a sore joint. She exhaled and took another breath. The gentle lavender scent filled her nose. With a pang, she thought of the mingled fragrance of roses and oranges that had often accompanied Jean-Marc’s soothing spells. Would she ever smell it again?
Michel snapped his fingers, and she started, opening her eyes.
The mist thinned and drifted back toward the floor, condensing into puddles. The atmosphere grew darker, the room, cooler. The shadows themselves seemed braced for whatever came next.
Michael and the gremlin clapped their hands three times, bowed low and knelt on both knees on dry sections of the floor. Izzy’s stomach constricted as she knelt, too, and a cold chill washed over her. She trembled, hard.
“You’re sure you want to do this,” Michel said. “Once we begin, we can’t stop.”
“Yes.” Her voice broke. “I’m sure.”
“Et voilà ,” Michel said.
She and Michel began to glow again. On the altar, the lid of the white container popped open like a jack-in-the-box. From the interior, a curl of bruise-colored smoke drifted toward the ceiling. Another followed, roiling, billowing and folding in on itself.
“This is concentrated evil,” Michel informed her. “Please keep your distance until we take care of it.”
“Not a problem,” she muttered.
Enveloped in white light, he got to his feet and pulled an object from inside his robe. It was a golden athame encrusted with opals. Holding it like a switchblade, he cautiously approached the altar, as if the smoke were a wild animal that could spring at any time.
D’Artagnon also pulled an athame from his robe, his made of some sort of ebony material and free of decoration. Whispering another chant, the two arced their arms over their heads—Izzy saw D’Artagnon’s long, scaly arm—then whipped them downward and began slicing at the smoke. Wherever their knives connected, the smoke solidified into chunks, which then crashed to the floor. The chunks glowed like embers, then sputtered out.
After a few minutes, no more smoke poured out of the box. The floor was littered with purplish-black briquettes that reeked of decomposition, overpowering the lavender scent.
Panting, both Michel and D’Artagnon lowered their arms to their sides. Michel said to Izzy, “Please come to the altar, but don’t touch any of that. It’s still very powerful stuff.”
I’m glad I put my shoes back on, she thought as she cautiously tiptoed on the balls of her feet to his side.
Michel and D’Artagnon genuflected to the altar. She had seen Jean-Marc do the same at any magical altar he encountered. For the first time since her journey into the world of the Gifted had begun, Izzy did, too.
God forgive me, she prayed, feeling blasphemous.
Holding their athames overhead like flashlights, Michel and D’Artagnon approached the box. After a moment’s hesitation, Izzy approached, as well. She didn’t have the athame Jean-Marc had made for her, and she had no idea where it was.
Weaponless, she looked inside.
The container was filled with a black, throbbing mass of goolike substance that stank like rotten meat. She covered her mouth and her eyes watered.
This is what’s left of Julius Esposito? Had he even been human?
As she watched, the center section of the jelly moved, breaking apart, and in the indentation, a round, human-size eye with a deep-brown iris glared up at her. Her gorge rose and she fought hard not to scream. In that single eye she could see life…and evil.
“Stop looking at it, madame,” Michel ordered her.
Sickened, she turned away.
“More than bokor, ” Michel commented, with the air of a scientist examining a microscope slide. “What was he messing with?”
The temperature in the room dipped; it was like a meat locker. Izzy shivered, hard. Every instinct for self-preservation was telling her to get the hell out of there. Michel had warned her that this would be unpleasant, but it was horrible. She could barely tolerate the sensation of menace crawling over her.
Then a voice bounced off the stone walls: “Give me
