Then her memory stirred, reminding her of the first words he had spoken to her, the words that had sounded eerily familiar. She’d read those words in Bran’s notes, but what did they have to do with this impossible being? The tingling under her skin told her there had to be a connection. Nothing this unbelievable could be chalked up to pure coincidence, right?
She refocused on his words and watched him closely. “Okay. You used that word again. That ‘nocturnal’ word. What does it mean?”
“Nocturnis?”
She nodded.
“The nocturnis are the enemy,” he growled, making the floorboards vibrate again. “They unite as the Order of Eternal Darkness, serving the Seven in their never-ending attempts to return to this world and seize it for their own.”
The bell in Kylie’s head went DING!DING!DING! and she shivered as if a cold wind passed through her. Neither reaction had anything to do with the bell next to her or the night air surrounding her, or from the fact that a living gargoyle stood between her and the only way down from the tower, a hatch above a narrow stairway. No, this was all from the pieces of an unknown puzzle suddenly beginning to come together. A few more, and she might even have a frame laid out to start filling in the picture of Bran’s secrets.
“And the Seven are … what?” she prompted.
“The Seven Demons of the Darkness.” The gargoyle’s jaw worked, clicking his fangs together ominously. His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Your ignorance of such things betrays you as an ordinary human, not a member of the Guild, but I do not have time to waste. If my slumber was disturbed, it can only mean that the Seven are stirring. I must find my Warden and assess the current threat.”
He shifted as if to turn away from her. Kylie felt a surge of panic and reached for him. No way could she let this creature slip away from her, not after he’d come this close to answering so many of her questions.
“Wait!”
He ignored her, moving into the open archway and ruffling his wings in preparation for flight.
Hauling in a breath, Kylie took a gamble and hoped like hell she wasn’t tangling herself up in a lie when she called after him. “What if I told you that I knew a Warden, and that I have information he was collecting on the guys you’re talking about? What if I could get you even more?”
The creature hesitated and turned his head to gaze back at her over his shoulder. He didn’t step down from the ledge, but he settled his wings once more against his back. “How did you come by such information, human? If you claim ignorance of so much more.”
Kylie pushed to her feet and wrapped her arms around her torso. She told herself she felt cold, not vulnerable. “I said I had information, not that I understood it. I didn’t know my friend was one—a Warden—until you mentioned them, and I guess I can’t promise he was, but I can tell you for certain that he had a whole bunch of information gathered on all the things you just mentioned. Wardens, Guardians, nocturnis, demons. The whole shebang. I’ve been going through it for months without being able to figure it all out. Maybe you’d have better luck.”
Now he did step back into the bell tower, but his expression and his whole demeanor had changed. For the first time, Kylie could see the ferocity of his shape and feel the menace in his hard, dark gaze. The black depth glittered in the night, seemingly backlit by a thousand tiny flames.
“How did you get this information, human?” he repeated, his lips curling back to expose long, gleaming white fangs.
She actually took a step back. Her. The girl voted most likely to spit in a golem’s eye. “It came from a friend, like I said.”
“And he simply gave you, an ordinary human, access to such powerful secrets?”
The low rumble of his voice sounded like an approaching storm. New Englander she might be, but Kylie had a sudden vision of tornados tearing across the horizon. She shook her head and retreated another step. “No, he didn’t. But when he died, I took a look.”
That provoked a snarl. “How did he die?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to find out.”
“Explain.”
He stopped moving forward, but considering he had her backed into the corner of the belfry a good four stories in the air, she figured he’d gotten her right where he wanted her.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “Bran Powe was my closest friend. A year and a half ago, he disappeared. Just vanished. No one knew what had happened to him, not me, not his family, not the police. No one.”
Her hands shook as she told the story, but her heart had stopped fighting to beat its way out of her chest as she remembered how she’d gotten into all of this. When she remembered why.
“No one heard anything for a full year, and trust me, we were looking. Then, six months ago, I got a call from his sister. She told me he was dead, that his body had been found and that there were no signs of foul play. She tried to tell me that he must have had a heart condition that no one knew about, that his death had been tragic, but natural.”
“You do not believe that.”
“I don’t.”