Rocked by Love (Gargoyles, #4)(33)
“It appears so. That may explain the lack of a taint in the apartment, despite his initial involvement with the Order.”
Kylie looked at him, curious about that statement. “You mean the Catholic stuff really works?”
“Not in the way you imply.” Dag shrugged. “Any strong faith in goodness can work effectively against the Darkness. Religious rituals and acts of faith are magical workings by another name. They possess power to affect the world. That does not mean that any one human religion has all the correct answers to the meaning of life. It merely suggests that if this man believed in the power of the Catholic Church to remove the taint of the Darkness from him, he may have influenced the efficacy of the ritual.”
“All righty then.”
Kylie leaned backward, suddenly remembered she was balanced on her ball, not sitting in a chair, and righted herself with only minimal flailing of the arms. At least she didn’t accidentally elbow Dag in the crotch. Though on second thought, it did feel like a bit of a wasted opportunity. She also disturbed King David’s nap, to which he reacted poorly. He jumped to the floor with a hiss and stalked away, the tip of his tail twitching all the while.
“Well,” she managed. “I’m thinking that this maybe explains why this guy was willing to answer my questions about demons, Guardians, nocturnis, and Wardens.”
Dag frowned thoughtfully. “Perhaps, perhaps not. It explains his separation from the Order and his negative feelings for it and all it represents, but does it fully account for his remaining alive past his release from police custody? Or his continued collection of information on the group and the decision to share it with a stranger such as yourself.”
“Hey, I’m not that strange.” She ignored his skeptical look, mostly because she’d seen it before when she’d said similar things to others. “But yeah, I can see it as a motivating factor. Someone sucks the soul out of the person I love, and I’m going to want to bring those sons of bitches down. And I’d take help from just about anyone who offered it.”
He appeared unconvinced. “How did you offer to help him, precisely? I was under the impression that you merely asked questions and expressed an interest in certain concepts surrounding the struggle between Darkness and Light.”
“Does all that cynicism ever give you heartburn?”
“You have already experienced one attack by a minion of the Darkness. Do you truly wish for another?” He stared at her with those burning black eyes of his until she wanted to check her skin for burn marks. “You are in danger. Until we know the source of the threat we cannot assess its gravity. Would you prefer to be taken unawares?”
Kylie glared at him. “I thought you didn’t approve of sarcasm, Rock Hudson.”
He ignored her and gestured to the computer screen. “We must assume that this human was intelligent enough to hide from the Order after he escaped their clutches. One who had seen so much of their operations would never be allowed to live unless fully indoctrinated and devoted to their cause.”
“You’re right.” Kylie considered that, her lips pursing as she thought. “That makes me wonder if Dennis Ott was his real name or some sort of alias. If I wanted to avoid a group of crazy psychopaths who knew my name and all the other pertinent details of my identity, the first thing I would do is change my name. I’d also leave town pretty quick, but if he did want some kind of revenge on the Order, he may have felt sticking around offered him the best chance at bringing them down.”
“He had no chance of ‘bringing them down’ as you say. The Order predates him by thousands of years. If my brothers and I have not managed to destroy it by now, he had no hope of besting our attempts.”
“So he was an optimist. A na?ve, totally-out-of-his-depth optimist, but still. It doesn’t really matter to us who he was before he got mixed up with the nocturnis, I’m assuming, but if you’re interested, I can see if I can find anything on his real background.”
Dag shook his head. “That is unimportant. What matters is that even though he made an effort to hide from them, the Order still found him and killed him. If he was equally careless in concealing his connection to you, it would explain why the nocturnis are already looking for you. If they believe he shared his knowledge with you, they will not like leaving a loose end untied.”
Oh, wow. Kylie hadn’t even thought of that. “Um, maybe I should stop procrastinating and go ahead and order that home security system I’ve had my eye on…”
“Any measures you take to increase the security around you are worth exploring, but relying on mundane human methods would be folly. I will begin regular patrols around the building and will take full charge of your whereabouts at all times.”
She couldn’t say she liked the sound of that; to her it smacked too much of the life of a prisoner. On the other hand, she liked the sound of dying from a knife to the throat and the gut even less. “I guess we’ll be busy for the next little while, then, huh?”
“Very.” Dag looked grim. “In addition to doing what must be done to increase your safety, we still have unanswered questions raised by the contents of this device. Who was the man in the video recording? Based on his words, both what he said and how he said it, I believe there is a possibility he may have been, if not the Hierophant, then one very close to the ruler of the Order.”