The Companion - Time For Eternity Part 26

He'd let her have one cut. Let's see if she retreated when it healed. He flinched as she drew the blade across his left pectoral, leaving a deep cut. Fine Stoic he was. She motioned to the guard. "Hold that torch over here."

She stepped back, staring intently at his chest. He could feel the wound begin to seal itself. Not as quickly as once it would have, but enough to be perceptible.

"Blessed mother Mary preserve us," one of the guards muttered.

Madame Croute only grinned, though invoking Catholic saints was technically against the law. "A useful talent. That means you can heal whatever I choose to do to you. That will prolong our game, perhaps indefinitely."

d.a.m.nation. How could he keep her focused on him and not on Francoise and the others if she wasn't even frightened of him?

"But wait!" She seemed to consider. "Can you disappear?" She shook her head. "I think not, or you would have done it. Still, that last guard died swearing it was true."

Yet again he was the cause of death. But his was not the only blame here. This woman was evil. A plan began to form. Could he compel her to leave those he loved alone? Maybe with frequent renewals of the compulsion. And maybe if she knew he was nearby, and had to find him, that would keep her focused on him.

Let's play a little hide-and-seek. He let his eyes go red.

She stepped back, visibly shocked.

"Like what you see?" he murmured. He captured her gaze and watched her go slack. "You won't hurt Mademoiselle Suchet or any of my staff. You will not touch my property. Now," he added conversationally as he released her, "I'll be taking another family out. See if you can find me." Companion! The whirling darkness rose around his knees from the stones. Not as fast as he liked, but the effect was not lost on Croute and the guards. Their eyes were wide. "I'll be joining you here later for another visit. Shall we say, an hour?" And he winked out of sight.

"I need a tray of food, Gaston," Francoise said, hurrying through to the kitchen.

"How is he?" Gaston trailed in her wake. He didn't have to say whom he was talking about. "Did you find him well?"

"Not good." She set her mouth. She wouldn't tell Gaston how bad it was. Or that Henri was a vampire. Or about the prisoners concealed in the warehouse. Or how much danger he and the other residents of number sixteen were really in. "Have the gendarmes been here?"

"Not yet. The mob is milling about in the park."

She glanced back at him. He knew his danger, then. "Don't tell them I have been here."

Gaston reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "Don't do anything foolish, mademoiselle. You must wait. Three days. It will all be over in three days."

She searched his face. Gaston knew about the prisoners hidden in the warehouse.

"They're watching the warehouse. He can't get them out." Gaston looked perplexed.

"Besides, he can't last three days."

Gaston paled, but he gathered himself. "He is strong."

Did Gaston know how strong? "We can't let him suffer." She watched Gaston blanch further. "We have to hurry things along somehow."

Gaston straightened his shoulders. "What can I do?"

"I don't know."

Yes you do.

Frankie, as always, was right. "Wait. You can get the household out before the mob attacks. Is there somewhere you can go?"

"Calais. I have a cousin there."

She nodded. "Now, how can we get the servants out of the house?"

Gaston tapped his finger against his prim mustache, thinking. "I shall send them on errands one by one."

"They will be followed."

"Ahhh, but the market is crowded. One could lose oneself. Annette to Fanchon, the groom to the ironmonger, another to the saddler ... I see how it can be done."

"Appoint a meeting place outside the city."

Gaston smiled. "And me, I go to the warehouse with you."

"No, no, my friend." She took his shoulders. "The staff depends on you for leaders.h.i.+p. Their safety is in your hands."

"What about his grace?" Gaston was frowning again.

"His grace can escape when he knows everyone else is safe." Gaston didn't need to know how. "I will be sure he knows that all is well with you ... and with everyone at the warehouse."

He got a mulish look about his mouth. She raised her brows in challenge. Gaston sighed. "Oui, mademoiselle. I shall do my part."

She smiled and patted his shoulders. "Now, go."

Francoise hurried up the quay toward the warehouse with her covered tray. The sky was that peculiar greenish blue that would shortly deepen into twilight. It must be after seven. Torches were being lighted up and down the street. To her right, the Seine, a miasma of effluvia from a large and dirty city, rolled sullenly beyond the stone wall that lined the Quai Henri IV.

Two guards were posted at the warehouse. Several others lounged against the stone wall.

I told you so.

She swallowed once and hurried forward with her tray just as a whole marching troop of soldiers rounded the corner and spread out along the quay.

Uh-oh.

Dreadful.

The only way any crates will get out of this warehouse is if the army takes them out.

Francoise stopped in mid-step. She sucked in a breath. "You're a genius, Frankie," she whispered under her breath. She could feel Frankie turning over the idea as well.

Mais bien sur. Francoise could practically feel Frankie grin. She hurried forward.

"Please, good messieurs, may I pa.s.s to take Monsieur Jennings his supper?"

"Locked up tight, he is." The older of the two guards had a paunch bursting two b.u.t.tons on his uniform. That was quite an achievement in these troubled times when food was scarce. From inside the warehouse she heard the faint pounding of hammers and the creak of wood.

"Well, well, what have we here?" The man with a saber scar on his right cheek lifted the white linen cloth that covered her tray.

"Ca.s.soulet," he murmured reverently.

"Oui. Prepared by Pierre Dufond, the chef of the Duc d'Avignon himself. And bread of course, fresh from the oven." The guard lifted the lid of the other brown glazed dish. "Haricot verts. With fresh b.u.t.ter and almonds."

The guards looked as though they might drool onto the tray.

"One man can't eat all that," the heavy one said.

She glanced over her shoulder. Other guards were strolling across the street. "Enough to share with you two, but perhaps not for everyone." The two guards frowned at their compatriots. "I shall take the smaller pot of ca.s.soulet and half a loaf, and give you the rest as a ... gratuity for opening the door."

"Done," said Saber Scar.

The heavyset one pulled one of the great wooden doors open. "Don't even think you're getting any of our due," he said to the two lounging up.

"Share and share, ye know," one of the newcomers said. The conversation took a decidedly belligerent turn. Francoise bent, took her bowl and loaf, and slipped inside while their attention was on keeping what they'd coerced from her.

Inside, the warehouse was dark. As when she had been here before with Avignon, crates and barrels loomed in the shadows.

The smell of tar and brandy and dust was everywhere. Ahead, several pools of light illuminated the desk she remembered from the night Madame LaFleur had died. Three men in their s.h.i.+rtsleeves were knocking together crates.

Jennings looked up from where he was directing some others to bring bundled stacks of planks from the back. "Mademoiselle!

What brings you here?" He hurried forward.

"You know they are watching the house and this place, don't you?"

He nodded. "Yes," he said, glancing back at the crates, worried. Then he took the tray from her with a question in his eyes.

"Pierre's ca.s.soulet. My pretext for coming. Most went for a bribe to the guards." As he set it on the desk she decided she had no time to be roundabout. "I know about the special cargo you have behind the back wall. He told me.

Jennings looked wary.

"They'll be watching any barges, and they'd open any crates and barrels you tried to load." He'd thought of that. She could see it in his eyes. He was building crates for human cargo because it was the only thing he knew to do. "The only way these crates are getting out of this warehouse is if the army takes them out."

"And how will we arrange that?" His disbelief was obvious.

"I think Avignon can arrange it."

He frowned. "He's in a cell in the Conciergerie."

"But he has a frequent visitor. Madame Croute. Who, if she thinks about it, would want the contents of this warehouse very much, especially since she is bent on killing the goose that lays these golden eggs. This will be the last clutch."

"You've seen him?"

She nodded, her mouth grim. "He's trying to hold out until the s.h.i.+p arrives in Le Havre and the barge can get down the Seine.

But it won't serve." She didn't want to dwell on why not.

The English had more restraint than the French, and while Gaston had asked about Henri, Jennings did not. "But once she has the crates, they'll be under as tight a guard as they are here."

Francoise smiled. "But then she'll have no reason to guard this empty warehouse."

Jennings's eyes widened. "So we don't move them in the crates at all?"

"They'll be on the lookout for Avignon's barges. Can you find another boat?"

Jennings frowned again. "Several skiffs would be better. Draw less attention. Maybe we can meet up with the Maiden Voyage in the Channel. If we get to Le Havre before it arrives. " He'd gotten a gleam in his eye. "We'll break through the wall to the warehouse just to the south, bring them out there. But there are a lot of people behind that wall."

"Can you get them into the boats without anyone noticing?"

"We'll have to." He shrugged. He shot her a sharp look. "Any way to get Avignon out?"

"I'll take care of that. Just you mind your cargo." She looked around. It was strange to think there were people crammed in behind that back brick wall, silent and fearful.

She shot him a smile she hoped was confident. "Time for me to go." She glanced to the ca.s.soulet. "Enjoy your dinner."

I thought that went rather well.

Francoise was hurrying down the quay toward the Conciergerie on the north end of the Ile de la Cite. "If he can get boats on such short notice. If Robespierre does not arrest him. If he can get them out without anyone noticing ... too many ifs."

My, aren't we Little Miss Suns.h.i.+ne? What a gla.s.s-half-empty kind of girl.

Francoise knew what she meant, surprisingly, perhaps because she now shared experience with Frankie. "I am more optimistic than you are," she protested. "You never saw the good in Henri. You still think I should kill him or abandon him if he escapes. That is not a 'Miss Suns.h.i.+ne' girl either."

Because that may be the only way to prevent becoming like him.

"Was it so horrible?"

You know how lonely it was.

"You didn't let yourself be close to anyone."

Whoa. Bad me. Just because they'd fear me if they knew what I was. And don't forget that they'd age and die, and hate me either for abandoning them or because I didn't age with them ... How shallow of me to let that stand in the way of a relations.h.i.+p.

Francoise tried another tack. "But you weren't horrible, and neither is Henri."

I killed people.

"Not after you knew how to take less blood more frequently."

That was his fault. He left me there, not knowing anything. Frankie's distress was palpable.

"You said yourself there's a real possibility he couldn't come to you. Donna said he was guillotined about this time." The thought of the guillotine shot through both of them and revulsion shuddered up from someplace so ancient and elemental that it would not be suppressed.

"How could they guillotine a vampire?" they thought together.

Donna said they could do it if he was injured too badly, or if his strength was sapped by being burned in the sunlight. I don't know how it happened the first time.

"But we know one way they might be able to do it now. They could drug him with the drugs you brought back."

G.o.d forgive me.