Chains of Fire

by Christina Dodd

  A light burned in a black limo parked by the door.

  She whipped the four-wheeler around to face outward, ready for escape. She cut the motor, donned the fur, and slid the pistol into the capacious pocket, then stepped gingerly through the snow and ice toward the door. As Samuel promised, it was unlocked. She opened it little by little.

  Deep in the dim interior, she heard Samuel’s rumble, the low, warm, comforting voice he used only when he dealt with old ladies and small children, and certainly never to her. She followed the light to a main-floor bedroom.

  There, in the corridor, a tall man with a big belly lay dead, shot through the heart.

  Samuel had been busy.

  Without concern, Isabelle stepped over the body.

  Whoever he was, if he had been holding a child hostage, he deserved death and more.

  Where his soul was going, she hoped he got exactly what he deserved.

  Inside the bedroom, she found Samuel, coat and hat flung off, easing a thin, tense seven-year-old back on the pillows.

  She would have sworn that she hadn’t made a sound, but in French that sounded almost native, Samuel said, “Mathis, here’s Isabelle. She’s the lady I told you would come and take away the pain.”

  The child mewled like a hurt kitten.

  Isabelle hurried to the bed and smiled down at the boy. He was so thin his bones poked at his chalky skin. He coughed, his body racked by agony, and flecks of blood gathered at the corners of his mouth.

  Her gaze flicked to the wheelchair in the corner. It listed to one side; a wheel had been broken. But it bore the imprint of the child’s body. The child suffered from some cruel wasting disease; she could hope to cure only the immediate damage.

  Samuel carefully covered the child with the blankets.

  Mathis’s arm rested on the covers, his hand at an awkward angle to the upper arm; the kidnappers had twisted until they broke the radius and the ulna, those bones between the wrist and the elbow.

  Her eyes filled with tears, for him and for her.

  He suffered horribly now: from his arm, and from his internal injuries.

  She would suffer horribly as she took the injuries into herself to heal him. That was the price she paid for her gift.

  Samuel knew it, and he hated it. Hated it even as he understood it was necessary. He pulled a chair up to the bed, helped her out of her coat. He scowled heavily, but he continued his lighthearted French conversation. “Guess what. That man in the corridor? I didn’t shoot him.”

  “You didn’t?” She wasn’t really listening. She was looking into the child’s eyes, nodding and smiling, preparing him for the moment she would touch him.

  “Mathis did it.” Samuel helped her into the seat.

  That got her attention. The boy was so ill, so hurt . . . yet he had killed his captor? “Really?”

  “I’m not sorry, either,” Mathis said defiantly.

  “How brave!” She smiled at him. “How smart you are!”

  “What a good shot!” Samuel heaped on the praise.

  Isabelle remembered the hole in the middle of the man’s chest. “A very good shot.”

  “Papa taught me to shoot. He said I should know because we are important people and the scum of the world . . . they would try to destroy us. Because we are wealthy. And important.” Mathis half closed his eyes, breathing hard, fighting for air. Fighting the pain. “These scum . . . thought they could leave me alone with one man because they hurt me. They said I was a cripple.”

  “They are stupid, cruel people,” Isabelle answered.

  “Yes.” Mathis’s head fell back on the pillow. If possible, he grew even paler, and he said again, “I’m not sorry.”

  “Who is your papa?” Samuel asked. “Do you know his name?”

  “Papa . . .” A tear slipped down the boy’s cheek.

  “I asked him once before.” Samuel leaned close and spoke in her ear. “He doesn’t seem to remember.”

  “He’s in shock,” Isabelle whispered back. For the first time, she touched the little boy. She flinched at the blast of pain from his arm. The tearing misery of broken bones. The bleeding in his lungs. The disease that rested in his genes and ate at his muscles.

  She struggled to take control of his anguish. Yet it overwhelmed her senses, swamped her with sensation. She sagged in her chair.

  Then Samuel put his hands on her shoulders.

  Strength flowed into her. A trickle. A heat. And the memory of a cold day long, long ago when she had helped Samuel . . .

  Mathis sighed as he felt the first modicum of relief that flowed into his wasted muscles.

  Isabelle took a breath, gained control. The disease that ate at him retreated a little bit, allowing her to place her hand on his chest, to breathe for him as she took his injury and healed it.

  “That’s better.” Mathis sighed, and relaxed. “So much better.”

  “Yes.” As his pain eased, Isabelle’s pain eased, and she laughed softly. “Look at Samuel. Doesn’t he look handsome with his scarf tied rakishly around his head?”

  Samuel struck a pose, hands on hips, head back. “Like a sheik,” he said, and flipped the ends of the scarf over his shoulder.

  “Like a sheik who lost his desert.” Isabelle touched Mathis’s shoulder, his upper arm.

  “He does look funny,” Mathis acknowledged; then his lip trembled. “But isn’t that blood on the scarf?”

  “You should see the other guy.” Samuel took her shoulders in his hands again.

  She didn’t want him to help her. But he fed her strength. And she desperately needed that strength.

  “Samuel is a very powerful fighter.” She stroked the air above the boy’s lower arm. “He’ll take care of us until we get you home.”

  “My mother and father will be so worried.” Mathis’s lip trembled again; then, as Isabelle lightly stroked his skin, knitting the torn muscles, the shattered bones, his face relaxed and he gave a small sigh of relief.

  “That is better. Merci, mademoiselle.”

  “Do you remember your parents’ names?” Samuel asked. “I could give them a call and let them know you’re safe.”

  “Of course I know their names.” Mathis sounded impatient and superior, as if he’d never had a lapse in memory. “They are the Moreaus of Paris.”

  The name fell into the room with the weight and prestige of a thousand years of French aristocracy.

  Yet Isabelle covered her dismay with a casual tone. “The French ambassador to the United States? I know him. I saw him earlier tonight.”

  “You know my papa? Please call him and tell him to come and get me.” The child’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  “It would be better if we take you to him.” Isabelle signaled to Samuel. “We don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to, do we?”

  “No!” Mathis said.

  “Your wheelchair is injured, so Samuel will carry you to the car and we’ll drive as quickly as we can to your home.”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Then you can sleep in your own bed. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  Mathis yawned.

  Isabelle stood and swayed.

  Samuel caught her by the waist and steadied her. “I wish you’d take an aspirin or something.”

  “For me, medication merely gets in the way.”

  “What do you get out of this?” Samuel’s voice was scratchy with irritation.

  She indicated the child, relaxed and no longer in pain.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Samuel leaned over and gathered him up. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 8

  Samuel and Isabelle watched Mathis’s reunion with his parents from the back of a police van.

  “This is so touching. Do you think they’ll remember us before the police put us away for three hundred years?” Samuel chafed at being treated like a criminal.

  The Swiss police clearly didn’t believe a word of Samuel and Isabelle’s story. Officials stopped the car before they
got within a mile of Moreau’s château. While Mathis shrieked at the police to stop, Samuel and Isabelle were yanked out of the car, handcuffed, and stuck in the back of the van.

  Then the Moreaus arrived, wild-eyed and panicked, and Mathis’s shouts dissolved into the tears of a small boy who no longer had to maintain his brave facade.

  “Look at them. They are so happy.” Isabelle peered through the window and wiped sentimental tears onto her shoulder.

  “Here.” Samuel seated himself on the bench beside her and offered his shoulder. “My coat has got to be better than that fur.”

  “I’m fine.” She could hear the tremor in her own voice, and cursed her sentimental nature. Normally she didn’t mind, but with Samuel, she hated to show a single sign of weakness. He was so quick to take advantage.

  But he could be charming, too, like now, when he bumped her arm with his. “We’ll be okay.”

  “Yes. I suppose.” Although the police were pacing around the van like trainers about to transport tigers to the zoo. She watched for another minute, then voiced the thought that had occasionally bothered her in the past. “Have you ever thought about all the Chosen Ones who were out in the world when the Gypsy Travel Agency blew up?”

  “I thought all the Chosen Ones were in the Gypsy Travel Agency when it went up?”

  “There’s no way. Some of them had to be on missions that couldn’t be broken off. Some of them surely had been captured by the Others, or had drawn suspicion on themselves for the covert operations. There are parts of the world that imprison you merely for being different, and the Chosen are different. Somewhere, one or two or more must have been accused and imprisoned by . . . by . . .”

  “The Swiss police?” The floodlights illuminated Samuel’s grim expression.

  “Exactly. And the usual mechanism that should rescue them—the Gypsy Travel Agency—is no longer in place, and they languish still in prison.”

  “Are you trying to tell me we could get put away and never see the light of day again?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He stood up, slammed himself against the door, and shouted, “Moreau! Mathis! Hey, come on! We’re in here!”

  As he rammed the door again, one of the cops opened it.

  Samuel flew headfirst out onto the road.

  Twenty-five pistols pointed his way.

  Isabelle shrieked, “Don’t shoot!”

  Moreau’s head swiveled in their direction. His gaze lit on Isabelle, on Samuel. He focused. He pressed Mathis into his wife’s arms, pushed them toward their limousine, and strode to the van, shouting, “Halt! Lefèvre, you’ve made a mistake!” He spoke to the police chief, quietly at first, then, as Lefèvre shook his head, more emphatically. Finally, Lefèvre nodded and indicated the police could unlock Samuel’s handcuffs and allow him to stand.

  Moreau indicated Isabelle, and the officers showed less reluctance as they released her hands and helped her out.

  Samuel pried himself off the ice and rose slowly, shaking out his legs and rotating his shoulders.

  Isabelle watched, holding the collar of the coat tightly under her chin, trying to stop her teeth from chattering.

  It was two in the morning. The sky was clear, the wind blowing, the temperature hovering in the low teens. Cold seeped through the thin soles of her strappy heels and slid up her bare legs. Her efforts with the child had exhausted her. She had knitted Mathis’s bones along with her own, and now her arm ached. When Samuel wrapped his arm around her, she held herself stiffly until he shook her. That rattled her composure, and she leaned against him.

  “That’s better,” he said gruffly.

  On two things she could always depend: If she suffered a weakness, Samuel knew it, and if he could, he would assist her—and point it out as often and as obnoxiously as he could.

  Moreau was throwing his weight around. “I know these people. They are guilty of nothing except saving my child.”

  “That remains to be seen, Ambassador.” Lefèvre was clearly irritated at the challenge to his authority. “Even if they are not guilty, they know things about this crime. They must be questioned.”

  “Of course, and as soon as possible.” Moreau noted Isabelle’s weakness, Samuel’s protective stance. “We’ll take them in our car to our home. You can follow and question them.”

  Madame Moreau joined them. She was the exact opposite of her husband: tall, thin, nervous, with a full head of curly blond hair. She exuded an authority all her own as she said, “Yes, please, Lefèvre. Let me have you and your men up to our home so I can show our appreciation for your efforts. I have refreshments waiting for you, and you can perform your interrogation in warmth and comfort.”

  Isabelle could see Lefèvre wanted to argue. She could also see he knew he would lose. So he pointed a black-gloved hand at her. “What about the charges of stealing Frau Reidlinger’s hundred-thousand-euro mink?”

  “Oh, Samuel.” Dismayed, Isabelle ran her hands over the luxurious fur. “I knew it was expensive, but . . . a hundred thousand euros?”

  “What can I say? I have good taste.” Samuel shrugged.

  “I’ll handle Frau Reidlinger,” Madame Moreau said. “She’ll have a new coat in the morning.”

  Moreau winced.

  She turned on him. “The kidnappers were demanding twenty million euros. Surely a coat is a small price to pay for the return of our Mathis.”

  “So it is.” Moreau put an arm around his wife. “Now, let’s go so you can put the child to bed. He’s exhausted, and so are you.”

  She clung to him for another moment; then, with a tremulous smile, she broke away, took Isabelle’s arm, and led her toward the limo. Moreau and Samuel walked behind them.

  Lefèvre shouted to his men to load up and follow, and hurried to his car.

  The Moreaus and Samuel and Isabelle climbed into the warmth of the car and found Mathis curled up under a throw, fast asleep.

  Madame Moreau picked him up and cradled him in her arms. “He’s tired, but he seems better than he has for many months.”

  The chauffeur drove the narrow lane to the château. The Swiss police followed closely.

  Isabelle sank into the leather seat, soaking up the heat, but still she remembered her theory about the Chosen Ones, lost when the Gypsy Travel Agency was destroyed. “The police were very determined that we were guilty.”

  “It’s easier that way,” Samuel said. “Now they have an unsolved crime on their hands. Kidnappers who prey on the children of wealthy parents. Switzerland can’t afford that kind of publicity, or the exodus of wealthy tourists that will ensue.”

  “Exactly. Lefèvre is truly suspicious of you, but I have the advantage of knowing you both since you were children.” Moreau’s pleasant face was grim. “What do you plan to tell Lefèvre about the rescue?”

  “The truth,” Samuel said. “I overheard the kidnappers at the party. I started to go to the rescue myself, and Isabelle insisted on coming, too.”

  “I seem to remember a note delivered to her hand,” Moreau said.

  “She has so many suitors.”

  Isabelle had to admire Samuel’s capacity to dodge the question while telling the truth.

  “Why didn’t one of you call the police at once?” Moreau seemed to be quizzing them, giving them a chance to get their stories straight.

  “I’m a grandstander,” Samuel said.

  Moreau turned to Isabelle. “But you are not.”

  “There’s nowhere on this gown to carry a cell.” Isabelle gestured at herself, at the diaphanous silk she wore. “So I left without mine. Samuel is stingy with his, especially when he’s, er, grandstanding.”

  Moreau nodded as if satisfied, then leaned over his sleeping child and kissed his hair.

  “We almost lost him,” Madame Moreau whispered. She looked up at Isabelle, tears in her eyes. “We couldn’t have children of our own, and this child—he was abandoned as an infant on our doorstep.”

  “Really?” Samuel’s deep, sure voice was at odds with Madame
Moreau’s trembling recital. “He’s an abandoned child?”

  “It was the hand of le bon Dieu, I thought, and we adopted him.” With trembling fingers, Madame Moreau stroked Mathis’s forehead. “For the first three years, he was so bright, so happy, so perfect. Then . . .”

  Moreau put his hand over hers. “You don’t have to tell them.”

  “Yes. I do. Listen to what I say, and you’ll understand why.” She turned back to Samuel and Isabelle. “He began to fail. He lost weight. He couldn’t grasp things. He fell. We took him to the doctors, the best specialists in the world. They didn’t know. Couldn’t find the problem. Suggested many things, including that I was hurting him on purpose. Finally, they diagnosed him. A genetic disease, so rare there is no name for it. It eats at his brain, at his nervous system. They tell me he’ll die. My boy. My gift from God.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Samuel sounded as brokenhearted as Madame Moreau, and Isabelle knew, in his way, he was. No matter what else she thought of him—and she held her grudges carefully before her like a shield—she always knew he loved children. Loved them, cherished them, cared for them.

  “You risked your life for him,” Madame Moreau said, “and for that, I thank you. In so many ways, he is a special child. He has gifts you cannot imagine.”

  “Try me,” Samuel said.

  Isabelle dug her elbow into his side. “We have some experience with gifts such as Mathis’s.”

  Madame Moreau looked directly at her. “I think you do. For he told me he was hurt, badly hurt, and you . . . you cured him.”

  That was always a problem. Discretion was not a child’s gift.

  Isabelle dropped her gaze and looked at her fingers, laced together in her lap. “He exaggerates.”

  “He is not a foolish child. He sees the face of death every day. His disease has made him mature beyond his years. He says you healed his broken arm. Healed his chest.” Reaching out, Madame Moreau grabbed Isabelle’s arm. “You healed my child.”

  Isabelle looked up into Madame Moreau’s eyes. “I cannot . . . cannot do that. Cannot fix such an affliction. I’m sorry.”