The Wondrous and the Wicked by Page Morgan Read Free Book Online Page B

daughter was planning to marry a poor reverend.
    Not that Vander had proposed yet.
    “I’ll understand if you don’t want to meet anymore,” Grayson said as Vander crouched to slide a long, narrow trunk out from under his bed. “I know it isn’t easy for you to keep secrets from Ingrid or to feel what I normally feel because of this damn blood.”
    Vander twirled the small dial of a lock set into the trunk. Left, right, then left again. The hinges sighed their release.
    “I want to help you, Grayson.” The trunk opened to reveal an impressive collection of blessed silver weaponry nestled in form-fitting velvet cushions of midnight blue. Vander removed the hand crossbow he usually wore underneath his coat, two silver darts, and a light rapier.
    “Besides, I don’t exactly mind recovering from our meetings,” he added with a wry grin.
    His “recovery” involved seeing Ingrid and entering into her dust field just enough to drown out the hellhound symptoms. Lectrux abilities were apparently much easier to live with.
    “Where are you meeting?” Grayson asked.
    Vander sheathed the blessed weapons and held up his hands, palms out. “Don’t worry, big brother. We’ll be in full public view. I won’t be able to do more than hold her hand.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Probably.”
    Grayson feigned a scowl but quickly let it dissolve. He liked Vander Burke. He was going to be a bloody
reverend.
What older brother—even one who was only six minutes older—wouldn’t want his sister to fall in love with a reverend?
    “Before you leave,” Vander said, adjusting his spectacles, “I have some potentially good news.”
    He nodded toward the table at the foot of the bed, and the needle and syringe kit Grayson had become acquainted with during his last de-dusting. Vander had been wondering, even before hunting Grayson down in Montmartre: If his dust could absorb another person’s dust, what then could his blood do? Could it absorb the potency of a Duster’s blood? At their last meeting, he had tied a rubber tourniquet around Grayson’s bicep, and, using the needle and syringe from his kit, drawn a vial of his blood. He’d planned to draw a vial of his own blood, mix the two samples, and then watch and wait.
    “You warned me not to expect much,” Grayson said, though he’d let his hope run wild anyway.
    Vander hunched over the microscope and used the thick steel knobs to focus the lens. “My warning still applies. However”—he stepped aside and gestured for Grayson to have a look through the eyepiece—“the samples aren’t clotting.”
    Grayson held his breath. That was promising, at least. Vander had explained how blood from one person did not always mix well with blood from another. Transfusions were risky, accordingto the phlebotomy text he had been reading, because there was a high likelihood that the joining bloods might clot, spread through the recipient’s body, and stop the heart altogether.
    “We’re a match,” Grayson said, bending over the microscope and adjusting the focus until the multiplication lenses showed the blood cells pressed between each slide. They were perfect little pillowy cells.
    “We can try a small injection.” Vander failed to mask the thrill his new experiment gave him. “Come to Hôtel Bastian tonight, after most of the patrols have gone out.”
    Grayson clapped Vander on the shoulder and refrained from thanking him yet again. The demon hunter raised his finger.
    “But like I said—”
    “Don’t get my hopes up,” Grayson finished for him. He grabbed his hat from the cane-back chair and tipped it toward Vander before slipping into the corridor.
    The smell of musty carpet and rotting wooden crossbeams set in the plaster walls didn’t bother him as much on the way out as they had on the way in. His dust had been reduced, and for the time being, he felt comfortably distant from his curse.
    The stairwell took him to the street-side door and deposited him on the