The Companion - Time For Eternity Part 21

"They knew my aunt." A lame explanation at best. She held out the coins.

She saw him decide as he fingered the coins. He marched her past cells full to overflowing with prisoners trying to find enough room to sleep. Loud snores, quiet voices, groans, and sobs echoed through the stone pa.s.sageway. "We put the families in cells around the courtyard, so we can keep an eye on 'em. Montmorency will let you in, if you grease his palm."

Francoise hurried to keep up with his long steps.

They came out into an open court, probably designed for prisoners' exercise. It was a bleak place made of stone, not a plant in sight, with cells around the perimeter. Guards patrolled along the cells and crisscrossed the yard, some carrying lamps held high.

Francoise heard several babies crying. She was finding it hard to swallow. The very thought of Emile and his father being sent to the guillotine made her ill.

"There." The guard pointed to a cell on the same side as they had entered the square about three cells down. He waved to a guard with epaulets and a burgeoning paunch. Francoise felt for her roulade.

"Lady wants to see St. Navarre." Her guard spoke low so others couldn't hear.

Francoise knew her cue. She pressed half of what remained of Avignon's coins into Montmorency's hand. "Please, sir, if you will."

Montmorency held a coin to the light and chuffed a laugh. "This way."

Francoise felt as though she were one of the wires in a harpsichord tightened to the breaking point as she clicked down the stones. What would she see? A family in distress or something more?

As the little procession of Montmorency, her, and her young guard drew near the cell, they saw another guard standing, frozen, looking inside.

"Devereaux," Montmorency called. But the guard did not answer. Montmorency broke into a trot, her guard right behind him.

Francoise hurried to keep up. All three saw a figure dressed entirely in black, a silk scarf up over the lower half of his face under his tricorn inside the cell. He had a man in a ragged shirt clutched to one side and a young boy in the crook of his left arm. The eyes of the man in black glowed an unearthly red.

"Quiet now if you can, though this will hurt you. Not your boy. He will feel nothing." The voice was a whispered baritone.

Henri.

"You there," Montmorency cried and fumbled for keys.

In the dim cell Francoise saw what seemed to be a blackness so black it was the essence of nothingness gather around the three figures. It whirled like a vortex. Her guard held his lamp high. Francoise gasped. The blackness didn't dissipate. It surged up. The sad-eyed man and the boy in Henri's embrace were wide-eyed with fear. Henri's red eyes pulsed and glowed.

And then the vortex ate them up. There was a strangled cry from the man, and ...

And they were gone.

Francoise gasped and clamped her hand over her own mouth to prevent her scream. Her brain refused to function. Her gaze bounced around the cell as though the figures were still there somehow, if she only looked harder.

What? He's actually doing this? The voice sounded as stunned as Francoise felt.

Montmorency found himself first and, with shaking hands, unlocked the door. The frozen guard, Devereaux, came to himself, looking around as if dazed.

"What ... what happened here?" her young guard whispered.

"Nothing," Devereaux said, smiling. "Just making my rounds."

"What was that?" Her young guard seemed to be asking himself more than anyone else. "It wasn't human."

Francoise's mouth was so dry she couldn't swallow. Not human.

Listen to them. Not human. The voice pressed her. Her head began to ache. Yet she could feel some uncertainty. The voice didn't want to believe Henri was rescuing prisoners.

"They've escaped," Montmorency announced. He too looked around the empty cell as though an entire family might somehow still be hidden there.

Devereaux blanched. "No!" He rushed into the cell, and was dumbfounded to see it empty. Other guards descended on the vacant cell from around the courtyard.

Francoise began to back away. She couldn't be seen here.

"How could you just stand and watch it?" Montmorency shouted.

"Watch what?" Devereaux was genuinely puzzled. "Did you move them?"

"You fool!"

Francoise looked around. A guard stood frozen before another cell across the courtyard. From here all she could see were two glowing red coals inside the cell. Red eyes.

She didn't point out what was happening. She didn't want Henri caught. Whatever he was. She couldn't think about that now.

She wouldn't think. She backed toward the archway where she and her guard had entered.

And smack into a large, florid-faced man. A huge hamlike fist locked around her upper arm.

"And what are you doing here, eh, mademoiselle?"

Montmorency shouted, "Another escape, Captain."

Just then a wail echoed from across the way. But the guards didn 't consider that out of the ordinary. Avignon was using the chaos in the courtyard to cover an escape in that cell with the frozen guard. And that was good-however he was doing it.

I never knew. The voice inside her was thoughtful.

The florid-faced captain dragged her with him as he surveyed the empty cell. His face was grim as he turned to her. "Why were you here, girl?" He looked around. "Who let her in?"

Her young guard shrugged and got a hard stare from Montmorency. He swallowed. "She give good money for a visit, Captain."

The captain was holding her arm so tightly he would leave bruises. "I'll wager she did." He jerked her around. "What have you to do with all this?"

"Nothing," she managed.

"We'll see about that." He pushed her ahead of him. She stumbled, and put out her hands to break her fall.

Everything slowed. On her hands and knees, she brought her palm up. It was sc.r.a.ped. Blood welled.

It's only a sc.r.a.pe, she thought.

It's the d.a.m.ning of your soul, the voice shrieked. The beginning of the end that has no end. Listen to me, you little s.h.i.t.

Now you have no choice. You have to kill him, or ... or run away this very night and never see him again as long as you live.

Was the voice changing its mind about killing Henri?

The world started moving again. The captain was jerking her up. He dragged her back down through the archway to the guardhouse. The prisoners, wakened by the brouhaha, pressed against the bars. This was what a madhouse must be, though she had never seen one.

"Just you sit here," the captain said, pushing her into a chair.

A shriek echoed down the corridors.

"d.a.m.n," the captain muttered. The guards dashed back the way she and the captain had come, leaving Francoise, quite surprisingly ... alone.

She blinked, looked around at the card game left scattered on a table, the remains of a meat pie, several flagons of ale, some coats and cloaks, and two pairs of boots standing forlornly in the corner of the guardroom.

Then she got up and ran into the street. Where to go? She had nowhere else besides number sixteen.

If he isn't what I thought ... if he has honor and courage ... The voice paused as though mulling over this new situation.

Then he'll never let you go. If you escape him he'll come after you in some misguided act of kindness and responsibility.

And then he'll make you something you can't live with, even if it's accidental. So there's nothing for it. Get back to number sixteen and kill him.

"I'm not killing anyone." And she couldn't leave number sixteen. She had nowhere else to go. She put her hands over her ears as she ran but it didn't help. Her head ached so that she could hardly see her way.

No choice, girlfriend.

She ran until she was exhausted, then walked and ran again. She was running to the house of a man who could raise the darkness and disappear, who had red eyes, who was not human.

She wouldn't kill Henri. Of course she wouldn't. But he wasn't human and he was a danger to her in a way that would change her forever. So she had to kill him.

Either way, her only path was to the Place Royale.

Sixteen.

Jean opened the door. Francoise stumbled into the house, gasping for breath.

"Mademoiselle," Jean said anxiously, leading her to a chair. "What is wrong?"

What wasn't wrong?

Get the leather bag, the voice ordered. You must save yourself. There's not much time.

She pushed herself off the chair, trembling in every limb. Jean looked horrified. She ran her hands through her curls. "When the duc arrives-"

"But his grace is already here." Jean looked surprised. "He is in the library."

She blinked at the footman. How could he have gotten here ahead of her? He wouldn't dare to use his carriage.

Get the leather bag! the voice shouted inside her.

She gathered herself and pushed the voice down. She wasn't going to kill anybody. No. She should confront him. He had a right to defend himself. She'd tell him she knew he'd been at the prison. With red eyes. And whirling darkness.

Fear threatened to close her throat.

She pushed it down again. There was an explanation. There had to be. A monster wouldn 't be rescuing families from the guillotine. And you couldn't kill a person just to prevent some imagined future misdeed.

Even the voice's resolution wavered.

She gulped and stilled her breathing.

"May I bring you something?" Jean was concerned.

She shook her head. "I'll join his grace in the library." Her head began to pound.

Don't go in there. This must be it. It happened in the library, even though last time I never went to the Conciergerie tonight. Let me control!

For pity's sake, the voice wasn't even making sense. Something inside her was struggling to get out. It was almost as frightening as seeing Henri tonight with red eyes as he was engulfed in whirling darkness. It felt as though she were two people in one body.

Pain shot through her temples as she trembled before the library door. She must be going mad.

"I'm stronger than that," she whispered. "I'm in control."

She pushed open the door.

He swirled brandy in a delicate crystal snifter. This time the grate he was staring into was lighted. It was cool tonight. The threatening feeling in the air might have been from that feeling of electric energy that presaged a storm. Or it might have been from Henri, or the fact that something inside her might want her to commit murder.

He glanced up. As usual, he was impeccable, not a hair out of place. His eyes were black, unfathomable. She couldn't see the silver flecks that floated in them from here. She realized how little she knew of him. He must be a pampered son in a long line of pampered sons. Then why was there such pain behind his insouciance?

She shook herself, trying to make the headache subside. "You were at the prison tonight."

He gave no sign of consternation or surprise. He just waited.

"You've been rescuing them."

He managed a chuckle. "I don't know what you thought you saw-"

"I heard your voice. It was you. Or are you referring to the red eyes and the whirling blackness? What was that?"

"Your imagination, obviously."

"I didn't imagine anything. You are either going to explain who ... or what you are, or ..."

"Or what?" His shoulders sagged.

Threatening a man who wasn't human? Ridiculous.