Rogue Spy

Seven

Cami jerked back. The cloud of snuff and hot pepper spread like a black exhalation, floating bright in the light from the windows, dark in the lines of shade. Devoir grabbed at her, blind and clumsy with pain. His fingers slipped in the folds of her cloak and she was free. After years of soft living, the old dance of attack and retreat still lived in her muscles.

He doubled over and fell to his knees, choking. She kicked his gun, clattering, across the stones.

Devoir was down. Another betrayal to mark on her slate. She was a Baldoni, after all.

The mélange de tabac—the snuff mixture—was a Caché weapon. On the sparring field of the Coach House they’d been trained to survive it. The Tuteurs would throw the powder suddenly and follow it with kicks and punches. “Get up. You are a soldier of France,” they’d say. “Fight like a soldier. Get up. Fight.”

Devoir always staggered up again. He’d been the toughest of them all.

He was tough now. He scrubbed his mouth and nose into his sleeve, snarling and cursing, his hat lost under the pews, his pale hair wild over his face. He didn’t rub his eyes. The Cachés taught each other these useful skills in whispers in the cold dormitory at night. Never touch your eyes.

She headed toward the blackmailer, who stood squinting in the gloom. His right hand was thrust deep into his coat pocket, almost certainly because he was carrying a gun there. She’d just as soon it stay pocketed. Men didn’t like to draw a gun and put it away without using it. There was an old Baldoni saying to that effect.

She rounded the last pew and put herself in the line of fire between that gun and Devoir. Not a tranquil place to be.

She went forward, making every step an interval, individual and distinct, hoping the blackmailer would avail himself of these moments to make wise choices. If he was experienced and controlled and intelligent—a professional, in short—they might avoid gunfire and death in the church today. That was a worthy goal in the great scheme of things.

Or the man might shoot her, reload in a brisk fashion, and then shoot Devoir. If she’d misjudged how important she was to this man’s long-term plans, she would be dead and never get to tell the lies she’d crafted. That would be a great pity because they were very good lies.

In the background, Devoir blundered against wooden pews that screeched and scraped. She could hear him panting, almost feel the pain of air pushing past a tight, burning throat. She didn’t look back to see whether he was up on his feet, being concerned with the important matter of not getting shot in the next little while.

In a minute or two, Devoir would retrieve his own pistol. She was almost sure Devoir wouldn’t shoot her. She had no such sanguine expectations of the man she walked toward.

Close up, the blackmailer was a fellow of pleasant features, brown hair, and washed-out, light-colored eyes. He was well groomed and well and comfortably dressed, even fashionable. Over it all, like a slick surface, he carried an air of conscious superiority. She placed him in his fifties, of an age to be one of the bitter dispossessed fanatics who’d ruled France during the Terror. A few of them had escaped the guillotine when Robespierre fell. Since he knew an uncomfortable lot about her, he was, or had been, Police Secrète. Maybe even one of the men who’d created the Coach House and pulled the strings of the Tuteurs. She might even have seen him, long ago in Paris, which would explain the uneasy twinge of recognition plucking at the back of her mind.

He eased a nasty little cuff pistol out of the pocket. She said, “Put that away. We have to get out of here. Now. Before his friends show up.”

“I told you to come alone.”

“In your informative letter. Yes. I didn’t bring him. He followed me.”

“Who is he?” He peered into the obscurity of the church.

She collected the last step that lay between them. “He’s an unforeseen complication and I’ve dealt with it. Get out of my way.”

He didn’t budge. He didn’t send the gun back into hiding. These were not good signs. He said, “Did you blind him? What did you use? Poison? Acid?” He had a surprisingly melodious voice.

“I employed methods sufficient for my purpose.” Let him think she was armed with poison. Always let an enemy overestimate one’s ruthlessness. “He won’t interfere again.”

He lifted the pistol and appraised it briefly. “I’ll make certain of that.” His voice was perfectly genial. His gaze, emotionless as the stare of a doll.

There are men who chill the blood when you glance into their eyes, passing them on the street. There are reptiles who walk in human form. Monsters with no soul looking out of their eyes. This was one of them. It amazed her that most people did not recognize them at once.

She said, “You’re wasting time and I have none to spare. The man is nothing.”

Nothing. She had called Devoir “nothing.”

The wind from the street blew in and skipped across her and lifted the smell of snuff from her clothes. For a vivid instant, she was back in the sparring field of the Coach House.

It had been one of the very bad days. The Tuteur had thrown the snuff mélange in her face and beaten her till she collapsed in the mud. They called this training, but its purpose was to break her spirit.

When the Tuteurs put their coats on and left, Devoir took her up into his arms and carried her to the pump. He held her head tight against his belly through the cold, drenching shock of bucket after bucket the others drew from the pump. His muscles were hard as a wall and warm under her cheek. His fingers, careful, parted her eyelids and he dribbled water across. He said, “Open your eyes, Vérité. You have to do this.”

The pain and helplessness didn’t break her because Devoir was there. For her. For all of them. The Tuteurs had never understood Devoir.

Today, ten years later, she betrayed him. “The man is nothing,” she repeated. “Get out of my way.”

The blackmailer’s eyes went from her to the dark of the church. “He’s seen me.” His gun leveled past her, toward Devoir.

“Dozens of men saw you walk in here. They’re watching you through the door this minute, wondering who we are and why we’re standing here. I intend to become less conspicuous.” She jostled his gun aside and pushed past.

If she wanted to kill a blackmailer, she could do it now. She could draw knife from sheath, press it to his kidney as she passed, and slip it home. It would rid the world of some moderate amount of evil. But it wouldn’t protect the Fluffy Aunts from this man’s colleagues. It wouldn’t lead her to Camille Besançon.

She let the moment for murder pass. One does not seize all opportunities.

At the door, she said, “Shoot him, slit his throat, smother him with a pillow. Please yourself. I leave you to deal with the corpse and these interested onlookers.”

“Don’t turn your back on me.”

She ignored him. She wrapped her cloak tight and strode off, taking his attention with her, out of the church. Before she got to the iron pickets that separated the sacred of the church from the profane of the street traffic, her blackmailer abandoned the church and followed her.

Devoir would not die today.

Through the roaring in his ears, Pax heard Vérité talking to the Merchant at the door of the church. He couldn’t catch the words over the noise he made strangling on his own breath.

That son of a bitch wouldn’t hesitate to shoot her. Death was nothing to him. One death or twenty. The Merchant sowed it wholesale.

Gasping, sweeping his hands in circles on the cold stone, he found his gun. Took up the dark, familiar shape.

Air knifed his throat and raked in his lungs. He grabbed the end of the pew. Pulled himself to his feet. He forced his eyes open to splinters of shattered color and indescribable pain. The doorway was an empty rectangle of agonizing light.

He staggered toward it.

They were gone. Vérité and the monster. The Merchant was out there somewhere. Alive. Loose in London. Had to find him. Had to—

Someone ran toward him, a dark shape against the light. His fingers were so clumsy it took both hands to cock the gun.

“It’s me,” Hawker said. “Don’t shoot. Where are you hit?”

“Not . . . Not hit.” He choked. He couldn’t get the words out. He pointed the gun to the ground and let it hang loose in his hand. It wasn’t doing him any good.

“Bloody hell.” Hawker pulled him forward, down the steps. Three steps. “She threw something in your eyes. Gods in hell. Your eyes.”

“Follow him. The man . . .” Words were fire and ground glass in his throat. “Go after him.”

“Right.”

The stones of the path tripped him. Hawk was under his arm, keeping him from falling.

“Water. Ten more steps. Hang on.” Hawk dragged him the last of the way, pushed him to his knees, and thrust his head into the horse trough.

He breathed water. Came up gasping. “Follow him.”

“She’s poisoned you. That bloody bitch of a woman did this to you.”

“You have to—” Coughing racked him. Twisted his lungs inside out. “The man. Go after him. Now!”

“One of my priorities has always been doing what you tell me.” Hawker raised his voice. “I need a bucket here.”

“He’s . . . French spy. Important.”

“Keeping you alive is important.”

“Kill him.” The explosion of coughing was a poker of hot iron in his lungs. He dropped the pistol, shut his arms tight around the pain in his chest, and spoke through fire and vitriol. “Find him. Kill him.”

“I’ll just do that. Kill him out of hand. Damn. And they say I’m bloodthirsty.” Hawk was talking to somebody in the crowd, giving orders. Saying, “Here’s money,” and “Take care of him.”

Hawk’s hand clasped his shoulder. “I’ll be back. If she’s blinded you, I’ll cut her fucking eyes out.”

He’ll do it. He had to say this. Had to get it out before Hawker left. “Don’t hurt her! An order. That’s an order.”

A dark shape blocked the hideously bright light. Hawk stood over him one last minute. “Hurt doesn’t begin to describe it.”