by Stark, Jenn
My brows lifted. “Because you told them I was coming here. You set me up.”
He spread his hands, the soul of innocence. “Only for the most altruistic of reasons.”
“Uh-huh.” Mercault never had only one reason for doing anything, but I was willing to let this play out. “So, they—whoever this is tracking me—knows I’m with you right now.”
To my surprise, Mercault shook his head. “Happily, no. They are only as good as their eyes, and their eyes lost you once you began moving through the city. But they are making a net this night, Madame Wilde. One that is gradually narrowing, with you at its center. They have the resources to do so, and that is distressing to me as well.”
“Why is that?”
“Because for all the intel about them that I’ve received, I do not know who these people are. No one does, but I should. Someone with this much power, in my own city? I should know who they are. But I do not. I only know that the Magician has decided to re-find his memories, and there are those who probably do not want that to happen who are on the move. And you are the only person who has a chance of standing in their way.”
Mercault lifted the gold artifact from the tray by its leather strand and tossed it to me. I caught it midair, shivering as its undeniable power rippled across its golden surface.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “I just swallowed half my body weight in Atlantic Ocean stealing this thing for you.”
“Then consider it a gift, Madame Wilde,” Mercault said, regarding me with an expression of unexpected concern. “May Guabancex protect you from the coming storm.”
Chapter Four
My audience with Mercault had left me in a decidedly foul mood for a lot of different reasons. For all the information he’d provided, I knew without a doubt he was still holding out on me. He’d given me just enough intel to put me on notice, but not enough to truly help.
Had that been on purpose? And if so, who else was paying for his information?
And what would I find at the Magician’s Parisian hideaway?
The answers to all these questions preyed on my mind as I moved across the seventh arrondissement of Paris and into the sixth, leaving behind Mercault’s tony Paris apartment and angling toward the Jardin du Luxembourg, which lay between me and the address Mercault had given me for Armaeus’s secret home. It was night, and the wind had picked up in fits and starts, cooling off the humid evening, but the garden was still alive with people. Judging from the lights playing ahead of me near the palace area, there was some sort of boating festival going on in the octagonal basin in front of the palace. Hopefully there weren’t kids out at this hour, but then again, this was Paris.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket. Lightweight enough not to smother me in the warm summer evening, it paired well enough with the designer jeans and T-shirt that were about as far as I was willing to go for fashion, even if I was in the City of Light. My boots cost more than the whole ensemble, but I could run, kick, and stomp in them. That was money well spent. The Guabancex totem bounced against my sternum as I walked, safe on its leather thong. I had no idea why Mercault had given it to me, but I supposed I should be…touched?
A woman’s delighted laughter caught my attention as I moved into the long walkway surrounding the park, unconsciously falling into step with the occasional couples murmuring and talking. In another few hours, the garden would be completely deserted, but it was a warm night in Paris, and, with the help of the gusting breeze, the heat of the day was abating. I didn’t mind the crowds. I could disappear into a crowd like this, mulling over this mysterious home of Armaeus’s. I’d texted the address back to the Council immediately after leaving Mercault’s, and the results hadn’t surprised me. Apparently, Armaeus didn’t remember it either. Hopefully, it wasn’t currently being used as an Airbnb.
A flicker to my left caught my attention, and I squinted toward it, but there was nothing moving in the shadows. Still, I picked up my pace slightly. I’d felt out of sorts since leaving French Guiana, and my visit with Mercault now explained why. Someone was following me, for reasons nobody fully understood. Who had I pissed off? The possibilities were endless.
And that wasn’t the only question I had. What memories had Armaeus jettisoned in 1478 and again in 1571, and what had happened in the mid-1800s? Finally and, for me, most importantly, what about this most recent memory wipe several days ago? He’d shoved me out of his mind for sure, but was that it? Or had he secreted away something else?
Almost undoubtedly, he had. But what? What could the Magician as I knew him fear so much that he had to forget it completely…along with me?
And why had he forgotten me, of all people? There had to be a reason.
The chatter of the crowd collected around the octagonal basin in front of the palace finally reached me, the lights growing brighter. Again, while I didn’t mind crowds tonight, that didn’t mean I wanted to be trapped in one when what I really needed was to get through the park and across another several blocks to the tight collection of museums where Armaeus’s town house could be found. I’d never been there, so I couldn’t simply poof my way to it, but walking through the city was never a hardship. There were always people on the move.
Except tonight, there was also a net being drawn around me.
I shot a glance across the interior of the garden, where the wide swaths of grass lay between the tree-lined walkways. Predictably, the space was empty at this hour. Cutting across would be simple enough, especially with my boots to counteract any dew already accumulating on the grass. I hesitated, though, and saw it again.
A shuffle, a redirection, a movement in the crowd indicating a person who’d been moving forward, now dodging slightly to the side as my gaze moved across him. Was I imagining this?
Scowling, I kept to my original trajectory, the basin. If I was being followed—or worse, herded—I wanted to know by whom. I had no shortage of enemies, but in my role as Justice, I also had no shortage of supplicants. I didn’t want to blast someone out of hand.
No, I didn’t want to blast anyone at all, I corrected myself. I was in a crowd of people, the vast majority of whom were probably not Connected. I didn’t need to disrupt their perfectly pleasant weeknight—
The movement to my side happened so quickly, if I hadn’t already been hyperaware, I might have missed it entirely. A body stepped close, too close for ordinary movement, and the hand that came up and toward me was thick, heavy, and gloved. I didn’t wait for it to descend to my face but ducked and swung away into a pair of elderly Parisians, startling the white-haired woman and knocking the cap off her husband as both of them spluttered in surprise.
And then there wasn’t one man, but three, and the two flanking the first thug were far leaner and right on top of me. Crap.
I turned toward the grass and took off, leaping the low chairs and hurtling onto the soft, springy lawn. I’d gotten about halfway across the open space when I realized my mistake—another set of runners, both of them looking equally fit, was approaching from the other side. At this point, I’d be caught in the middle of a bad-guy sandwich, and I didn’t even know what toppings we had!
Fortunately, footraces were sort of my specialty, and I wasn’t too proud to use the skills I had at hand—particularly when they would be far less noticeable than hurling fireballs from my fingertips. Kicking my speed up a notch, I turned right and ran hell for leather toward the Palace of Luxembourg and the shallow basin in front of it.
I’d guessed correctly. The basin was the focal point of the evening’s festivities, with light-strewn miniature sailboats winking in gorgeous splendor as they jetted around the pool. Some of the boats seemed to be making their way with the help of long sticks poked at them from the side, while others were being guided with little handheld remote controls clutched in the hands of wide-eyed children. All this I took in in a blur as I quickly surveyed the basin. I’d left my pursuers far behind me, I had no doubt, but I was running too fast to burst di
rectly into this crowd of people. With a simple course correction—
The impact of two large male bodies crashing into me from behind at the same time was immediate and impressive. I catapulted over the low wall of the octagonal basin of water and splashed directly into the pool of the Luxembourg Gardens. Even before my feet touched down in the shallow water, I was launching forward again, dashing across the choked pool, still subconsciously trying to miss the tiny works of art that Hurricane Sara was devastating, but that was a lost cause. And I got no farther than a couple of steps when once again my assailants were directly behind me, creating their own mini tsunami. What the hell was going on? I didn’t have time to figure out why my unnatural speed was being unnaturally matched before another of my attackers clipped my shoulders and sent me sprawling face-first into the water.
Naturally, I came up swinging, but though I was fitter than the average twenty-something, supernatural strength required more than a dice roll for me, and, given the screaming of the crowd around me, this was not the time to light up like a Christmas tree just to get these asshats off my back. As if they could read my thoughts, one of said asshats reared back and unloaded a roundhouse punch to my jaw, once more sending me back into the pond. Fetid Parisian muck shot up my nose and mouth, finally kindling my anger.
My entire body crackled with Connected awareness. I might not have the strength this dude certainly did even without supernatural powers, but there was no way they should be able to keep up with me. If they were going to play with magic, so was I. I just had to keep it on the down low—the very down low. I leveled my gaze across the water. The only boats still in play were the ones that were remote controlled, most of them hightailing their asses out of the imminent danger of a fight in the center of the pool around the fountain.
Not so fast, Sparky.
My hands extended underwater, my third eye flipping open. Just like that, the motorboats wheeled around. In a heartbeat, I traced the currents of electricity both magical and man-made that were bouncing around the basin like date night at laser tag. I co-opted all of them and followed them into the boats, which picked up speed as they raced toward my attackers. To make things a little more interesting, I also sent a little charge to their forward hulls. Because what would be the point of these boats running into anything if they immediately broke? All this took place in the course of the three seconds it took me to stagger to my feet while the men lunged for me—actually, two men and one woman, I realized now. My commandeered fleet of toy boats triumphantly surged forward, some of them coming up out of the water to crack into my attackers en masse, the combination of water and electricity helped along by yours truly creating an entirely new light show that would’ve been far more satisfying if I had the chance to enjoy it.
Instead, I turned and ran.
It took me only a few long strides, this time moving so fast, I barely grazed the surface of the water, to get the hell out of the pool and onto dry land. A chorus of shouts and screams went up around me, but I didn’t have time to deal with that as I heard the unmistakable crunch of very dry boots racing toward me from one direction while whistles and shouts signified that the police were heading my way from the other side. I blasted another quick jolt of energy behind me to keep the water electric, satisfied by the screams of my assailants in the center of the pool, then took off again.
The moment I cleared the public space and dove back into the tree-lined walkways of the gardens, I gave up all pretense of playing fair. While it was true I hadn’t done anywhere near enough work on developing the psychic abilities I’d so quickly and haphazardly assembled over the past several months, there was a time when minds wiser than mine had tried desperately to get me to accept some level of training. I flashed on the placid expression of Sensei Chichiro, a Japanese trainer who’d taken a pound of flesh out of me en route to getting me to embrace my skills. One of those skills was the ability to manifest whatever I needed, in whatever quantities, and while I tended to forget that one in the heat of battle, what I really needed right now was a diversion.
There were so many possibilities. A park full of Pikachus, a swirl of stilettos, a tidal wave of toy trains, but I needed something that would disappear in the midst of a sweltering Parisian night almost as quickly as it appeared, and I needed it fast. I focused on Mercault, the refreshing sparkle of his gin as it splashed over the ice…the ice.
Really, what could be more refreshing?
As I focused on the ice in Mercault’s glass, I thought of it doubled, and doubled again, and doubled a third time, over and over again until there was a virtual wall of ice cubes in my mind, large enough for me to vault over. In my mind’s eye, I did vault over it, whirling around to shove it backward.
The effect was so gratifying that this time, I did turn to watch as my four pursuers took a face full of frozen water with ice cubes the size of boulders. I’d been caught in a few hailstorms before, none of them of my own making, but this was worse. Far worse.
I twisted back around with only enough time to throw up my arms to fend off yet another assault.
A woman the size of a nine-year-old sprang out of the trees like a gymnast ninja assassin, her hands flicking out and releasing a half-dozen throwing stars in the space of a couple of breaths. I missed getting struck only by dropping flat to the ground; then she was on me.
Once again, I recognized how feeble my physical training regimen had become. Well, too bad. I’d gotten used to relying on magic to solve my problems, and now wasn’t the time to improve my push-up count.
My hands burst into flames that swept over the woman, wrenching a scream from her. I thrust her away from me, the spurt of fire so quick that only the most careful observer would’ve even noticed I’d used it. And there were no observers here, thank God. Not with all the excitement back at the pool. I staggered to my feet, whirling around, but the pursuers in the middle of the park were still on their backs groaning, surrounded by a deeply wet patch of grass. Worked for me. But I wasn’t finished yet.
I stumbled across the park to where my petite attacker with the throwing stars still writhed from my personal Taser hit. I rolled her over. Her face was caught in a paroxysm of impotent rage, and I didn’t waste my time asking her who she was. I whipped out my phone and took her picture even as she struggled to scoot away, her neck turning and craning away from me. Which give me the opportunity to take another picture of a tattoo barely visible above her high collar. I’d never seen anything like it, and surely that was helpful.
“You bitch!” she hissed in French, and as I flipped open my third eye, I realized that she packed her own Connected punch. Frankly, that made things a little easier. So I decked her with another burst of fire and hauled myself up to my feet, keying a text to my right-hand everything, Nikki Dawes.
Nikki would get the photo of the woman to the Council, and I could trust her to tell me not only their response, but their reaction. If the Council was aware of who these people were who were gunning for me, and hadn’t warned me…I needed to know that. At this point, I needed all the information I could get.
I burst out onto the street and immediately saw my next problem.
A man stood leaning against a Ducati motorcycle, staring at something on his phone. The moment I broke through the edge of the Luxembourg Gardens, he glanced up across two lanes of busy Parisian traffic, and there was no avoiding his gaze. He saw me and I saw him. I got the faint impression of surprise across his face, but he was nobody I’d ever met before, I was sure of it. Tall, slender, and dark-haired, he could’ve hailed from any country, anywhere, but I didn’t think he was American, for some reason. We stood there staring at each other for the briefest seconds, and I knew that this was the man behind the people following me, tonight. This was the caster of the net.
The truth was, though, I was tired of being chased. I might not know where Armaeus’s fashionable walk-up was located in the city, but there were other parts of the city that I knew like the back of my hand. One of the
m would do. Any of them would do.
Even as the man across the street straightened, I yanked out my phone and snapped his photo too. Then I stepped back into the shadows and was gone.
Chapter Five
I expected the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés to be empty at this hour. Once again, I was wrong.
The ancient church, built and rebuilt over the centuries, had proven a haven to me more than any other place in the world when I’d first gotten started as an artifact hunter. When my treasure hunting had resulted in me crossing paths with a retired Catholic priest who worked at the church, I’d expected that I’d use the man only for information and guidance and then be on my way. Instead, he’d gradually opened my eyes to the harrowing truth about the lives of Connected children, particularly in Europe, where superstitions about magic and psychic ability ran deep and long.
It was Father Jerome who’d set me on the path to helping protect those children, a path that had gradually led me to pitching my services to bigger and bigger clients (and reaping larger and larger payouts), all in the service of paying for the care and protection of the most vulnerable members of the Connected community. Along the way, Father Jerome and I had become fast friends.
Right up until he’d been killed because of me.
I pursed my lips tightly, steeling myself against the unwanted tears that always threatened when I thought of the priest. Since his death months earlier, I’d done my level best not to think about him at all, which was both unfair and cowardly of me. The upside of all that cowardice, however, was that I was able to focus on my job. People who got too close to me inevitably got hurt. It was all too easy to fall into a deep well of guilt if I thought about that list too long, so I elected not to. Far better to push everyone away than put them at risk of illness, injury or even death—and for what? For nothing, other than their eventual bad luck in knowing me.
