Redemption Song (Daniel Faust #2)(82)

A butler, tailed black jacket and all, met us at the door and ushered us into a foyer lined with yellowed Italian marble and deep mahogany walls. I sensed more than a stiff upper lip as I walked past him. Or something less. His movements were a little too formal, his eyes a little too vacant. The scent of magic around him was a familiar odor: one of Meadow Brand’s mannequins, wearing an illusion.

Just what I was banking on.

A pair of maids guided us into a grand hall fashioned after an old hunting lodge. The dining table was a good fifteen feet long, with high-backed chairs and china plates whiter than a politician’s teeth. A couple of Rembrandts graced the walls, probably fakes. The maids were fake, too. As Sullivan’s crew filled the room, I realized the entire household staff was nothing but mannequins wearing human faces. I only knew because I had experience with Brand’s tricks. If Sullivan had sniffed them out on his own, his poker face didn’t betray him.

“So it’s true,” Lauren Carmichael said, gliding over to greet us in a Christian Dior gown the color of a winter storm. “You’re bringing me Gilles de Rais and Daniel Faust.”

“Mademoiselle,” I said, offering a deep bow with a flourish. Turning my face away, if only for a moment, let me hide the glare in my eyes as Meadow Brand loomed into sight at Lauren’s shoulder.

“We need to get him a new body to live in,” Meadow growled, the jagged scar along her face twisting. “I want to kill the one he’s wearing.”

“All in good time,” Lauren said and leaned in as Sullivan took her hand like a gentleman.

“This will be a momentous night for both of us,” Sullivan said.

“It certainly will,” Lauren said, looking around the room. “But where’s the priest? I wanted to meet him.”

“Alas, he’s taken a bit ill. Didn’t think it wise to spread germs around. Since you were so interested in his work, though…”

One of the cambion stepped up and offered Lauren a slender folio with red leather covers, its spine clasped in brass leaf.

“I did bring the book itself,” Sullivan said. “It would be my pleasure to walk you through what we’ve translated thus far, and show you the scope of our ambitions. After dinner, perhaps.”

“Yeah,” Meadow Brand said, her unwavering glare burning a hole in my neck. “Soup’s on.”





Forty

We all sat at one end of the table. Lauren at the head, Sullivan to her left, and Meadow to her right. I sat beside Sullivan, a little close for my liking. The Choirboys filled out the rest of the table, conversing in hushed voices as Lauren’s fake servants flitted in and out of the room in patterns too precise to be random.

The first course was a Cajun-style gumbo, rich and savory and hot from the kitchen. Mama had made it a little less spicy than usual, but if I concentrated I could taste the more special, exotic ingredients she’d added to the mix.

Sullivan didn’t take a bite until he saw me dig in first. He knew I’d put ringers on the catering staff. Probably thought my plan was to poison everyone. What I had in mind was a little more interesting.

The next course offered heaping mounds of pasta Florentine. I’d made the right choice bringing Ben along to help with the charade. His Italian cooking was good enough to pass for professional. At least if I died here, I wouldn’t go hungry.

“I’m curious,” Sullivan said. “You know of my crusade, but what of yours? Why would you need…a man like this to help you?”

Lauren’s gaze drifted toward me. “I’m perfecting a machine that the Lord Marshal had a hand in prototyping. Something to make the world a better place.”

“Something to make the world a better place, from the hands of a child-killer?”

“You are impugning my reputation,” I told Sullivan. He slapped a sheaf of papers on the table. De Rais’s contract.

“As long as I own you,” he snapped, “you will speak only when spoken to!”

It was a clever move. He needed this trade to go off without a hitch. Shutting me up meant one less thing that could go wrong. He was making it that much easier for me, too. I shrugged and ate my pasta.

“Shining things can bloom in dark places,” Lauren said. “Look at you, after all.”

He waved a hand, drenched in fake modesty. “I’m just walking the path of the pilgrim. Helping the wayward souls who come to me for guidance, that’s the joy of my life.”

“Bullshit,” Meadow muttered, making it the one time I’d ever agreed with her.

“Ms. Brand!” Lauren said, but Sullivan shook his head.

“If the lady objects,” Sullivan said, “I’d like to hear why.”

Meadow stared him down across the table. “You can’t change a fish into a bicycle,” she said. “You can’t change a demon into a saint, and you can’t change a cambion into a human. Things are what they are. People are what they are. Fighting that’s a f*cking waste of time.”

Sullivan’s lips tightened, and I could see his hand clench under the table. He took a deep breath and forced a smile.

“The journey of a thousand miles,” he said, “begins with a single step. A human sage said that, and I’ve always found it admirable advice. Can anyone change their nature? Can anyone be redeemed, and put their past behind them? I’m still on that journey, young lady, so I can’t say where it will end. I can only have faith.”