Читать книгу Son of the Shadows - Nancy Holder - Страница 13

Jean-Marc dragged Izzy through the bayou. She could barely keep up; when she stumbled over a tree root, he simply dragged her along behind him.

“Stop! Let me go!” she protested, scratching at the back of his hand with her fingernails as they splashed shin-deep in stinking black water. Smells roiled around her like living things—decay, blood, death—and she worked to plant her feet, fighting his momentum. But she kept sliding in the ooze, and he didn’t even seem to notice she was trying to fight him.

Then several figures darted from behind a cluster of trees hanging low over the water. They were seven, all men, wearing body armor emblazoned with the by-now familiar trio of flames on their breastplates. Their faces were smudged with smoke and blood, as if they were wearing masks, and the one in the middle looked familiar. Dark hair, dark eyes, very straight nose.

“Gardienne,” he said breathless, ducking his head. “Grâce à Jehanne, you are alive. We heard all that howling…”

She stared mutely as the other soldiers also lowered their heads. Submachine guns dangled around their necks. Behind them, to the left, to the right, projectiles impacted and gouged the earth. Water sloshed; herons burst out of the cypress trees and animals shrieked in panic.

“Michel,” Jean-Marc said. “La situation?”

The man—Michel—raised his head. “The Malchances panicked when they heard that Luc de Malchance was killed. We took the offensive and won back the mansion. They’re retreating and we are on them. They’re coming this way. But word has spread—a rumor only, I hope…” He took a deep breath, his dark eyes searching the woman’s. “Did Madame raise a demon?”

Her mouth dropped open. Had she heard him right?

Jean-Marc stepped in front of her. “There’s time for that later. We need to get her out of here.” He raised his hand and showed the other man—Michel—the Medusa. “The werewolves are with me. The bayou is ours. Your people can be my hostages or my allies.”

The men with Michel glanced at each other and put their hands to their Uzis, then looked at their leader for orders. He swiped the air, signaling them to back down.

“Our Gardienne is here,” Michel argued, looking straight at Izzy. Her stomach flipped. “She can speak for us.”

“Non,” Jean-Marc replied. “She cannot. She has sustained magical injuries and she is healing herself. I was her Regent, and I served your family well. Deal with me in that capacity.”

Michel raised a brow. “Madame, you are incapacitated?”

She caught a nuance in his use of the word “incapacitated,” and guessed that Jean-Marc’s authority rested on her answer. She didn’t know if she wanted him to speak for her. For this magical House of the Flames, of which she was the leader, so it seemed.

She didn’t like him. She didn’t trust him. But he was the devil she knew.

“I’d like Jean-Marc to speak for me,” she said, mentally crossing her fingers that she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.

Michel glowered at her. “I knew it. Half Malchance, conspiring to take over our family, and you’re probably allied with the House of the Shadows for battle strength. What did our dear Regent promise, that he would marry you? More half-breeds destroying centuries of tradition?”

“Take care, Michel de Bouvard,” Jean-Marc said, raising the Medusa and pointing it directly at Michel. “You are speaking treason. And you know I dealt harshly with traitors, when I wore the signet ring.”

His men stirred. The two farthest away grabbed their Uzis and aimed them at Jean-Marc. Another projectile shrieked through the sky and lit a canopy of trees across the water on fire. Michel ducked. Jean-Marc didn’t move at all. There was a second, closer. A third, closer still. In the firelight, Michel exhaled heavily and straightened.

“Where is the ring now?” Michel demanded, looking from him to Izzy.

“It is safe,” Jean-Marc replied, his arm never wavering. The contours of his catsuit highlighted corded muscles. He looked strong enough to keep the heavy weapon in place all night.

“No one saw this coming,” Michel said, sounding more lost than angry. “Our new Gardienne—our queen—the child of our deadliest enemies.” He studied her, as if the answers to his questions were written on her face. “Did you know what you were?” he asked in an agonized voice. “We welcomed you as our protector. Well, some of us did. I did. But then I saw the proof of your tainted blood. And this talk of raising a demon…”

She remembered nothing like that. She didn’t even know the name Malchance. She had no idea what a Gardienne was. The only things that were familiar were the logo of the triple flames, Michel’s face and Pat. And those only felt like ghosts of memories, and not memories themselves.

“She did not know what she was. You know that she didn’t,” Jean-Marc said. “Of all the Bouvards, you knew her best. She came here in ignorance. And she’s suffered for it. You are witnessing the results as we speak.”

Michel took a breath. “But—”

“You know she didn’t want to come. She didn’t even know that she was Gifted.”

“A ruse,” said one of Michel’s men—a tall man, his hand hovering beside a Glock in a holster.

How do I know the makes of their weapons?

“I’m surprised you were able to take back the mansion from the Malchances,” Jean-Marc continued, changing the subject again.

“What are you suggesting?” Michel snapped.

“You’re so weak,” Jean-Marc observed, “and the Malchances created that dampening field to make your magic ineffectual. They walked right in and took over. I can’t imagine how you turned the tables so easily.”

Michel bristled. “You don’t know everything about us, Devereaux.”

Jean-Marc raised a brow. “I know more than most,” Jean-Marc countered. The arm holding the Medusa was as steady as if it were made of marble. A muscle jumped in his cheek. His eyes blazed as he narrowed them, contempt and hatred dripping off him like poison.

“I know that your House is weak. Your magic is fragmented and unreliable.” Jean-Marc cocked his head, his eyes mere slits. “Have you perhaps allied yourselves with the Malchances? Did you make a deal—the House of the Flames could still stand, if you hunted down Isabelle de Bouvard and handed her over?”

She could feel the wrath surging through him, feel it, like icy heat. It stung her, physically. One of Michel’s soldiers—tall, thin—spat into the mud. He seemed unaware that Jean-Marc was about to explode like a live grenade.

“That would be a bargain your House would make.” Michel sneered. “The House of the Shadows, loyal to no one, waiting to see which way the battle goes so they can loot the bodies—”

Another mortar splashed into the bayou, shattering into a thousand purple flares that streaked straight at them in a collective cloud. This time, Michel and his soldiers whirled around and shot off their weapons, issuing streams of white light that crashed into the purple glow. The sky filled with a mushroom of white and purple, then lavender.

“Hostie!” one of them shouted as they shot again, and the light did not change.

Then Jean-Marc joined in, raising his hand toward the moon and lobbing off a huge mass of fire about the size of a basketball. An answering volley landed much closer, shaking the tree branches and wafting their collars of Spanish moss. Michel swore in French.

“Allons! Vite!” he shouted, ordering their retreat.

Without missing a beat, Jean-Marc bent down and scooped her into his arms, his empty left hand curling around her shoulder, his right hand, filled with her gun, positioned under her knees.

“Hey, put me down!” she protested as he bolted for the shadows, sloshing through the loamy earth toward the fetid bayou deep. She felt his muscular chest through her armor, the strength of his hands gripping her under her arms and knees—and the cold heat of his fury sizzling into her flesh.

He raped me, she thought, remembering those first few moments when she woke up and felt his hard length slipping from her body. Or did he? As he carried her out of the battle, her body reacted to his touch with sharp, undeniable hunger—despite their dire situation and her amnesia, despite everything. It was all she could do to keep her face averted as his hot breath panted against her cheek.

Michel caught up with him. He was free of burdens. He could shoot Jean-Marc and her in an instant.

“They’re coming,” Jean-Marc said. “They’ll take her if they find her. If you’re with us, tell me now.”

“And yet,” Michel replied sarcastically, holding his Uzi barrel with his left hand as he trotted beside Jean-Marc, “the bayou is yours.”

Before she realized what she was doing, she took a deep breath, held it as if she were preparing to recite lines someone else had written and spoke. “Fair warning—if you’ve turned against me, you’re in enemy territory, and you’re dead.” It was bravado, all for show, but it had its desired effect: the other man—Michel—gave his head a shake.

“Mais non. We are here precisely because we are loyal.”

Jean-Marc gazed down at her, blood smeared on his cheek, eyes glimmering with private amusement.

“Well done, Izzy from Brooklyn,” he said under his breath.

Whatever reply she might have made was lost as a hail of red light streaked toward them, screaming like Roman candles on the Fourth of July. Two of Michel’s men raised their Uzis and fired at it while Michel spread open his hands. White balls of fire rocketed from his palms against the cannonade.

Then incoming white light joined the fusillade of crimson and Jean-Marc swore under his breath, dashing beneath a thick canopy of trees just as they burst into flame. Blazing branches dropped like stones, hissing into the mud. She smelled charred leaves and saw sparks. A barrier of deep indigo flared around him and he zigzagged beyond that tree to another one, but the entire tree exploded in a shower of fiery wood chunks. They bounced off the shield of blue as he ran on.

Werewolves howled. Submachine guns pulsed one-two-three, one-two-three.

I really hope, she thought, clinging to him, that I live long enough to find out what’s going on…and who I am.

“Damn them,” Jean-Marc grunted, as he raced through the bayou. His first priority was to protect Isabelle, but that kept him from the battle—and his help was sorely needed. He carried her through the burning forest, seeking escape routes, weaving magical spells to shield them both. He knew she had seen menace in his aura—the blackness that had invaded his soul—and so he guarded against enclosing her within its protective influence. He kept it thin against his own body like a coating of wax, flinching when the streaks of evil ran over him like a strangely pleasurable cut.

Then a bone-searing burst of magic pierced his aura and ripped through his armor, imbedding itself in his shoulder as if someone had sliced him open and pushed in a charcoal briquette. The pain sent him stumbling; it took him back to the place where Lillianne had taken his soul. The blackness rose up inside him—the fury of the indignity; the danger—her fault, she has ruined my life, I’ll kill her now—and he forced himself to ignore it and run on.

“You’re hurt,” she said, his blood spattering her forehead and cheeks.

Just drop her in the mud, a voice whispered. Be done with her.

He faltered. He knew he was badly wounded. He needed help.

“Heal me. You’re the Daughter of the Flames. You have that power.”

Her lush mouth worked as if he had told her the most unbelievable lie in the world. Then her lids flickered shut, her lashes brushing her cheeks. She grew still. He felt worse. After a few more seconds, she opened her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know how…I…I don’t remember….”

“Find your center. Try to focus. We have time.” He was lying to her again. “Allow yourself a moment, and it will come back to you.”

He pushed one leg forward but it wouldn’t bear his weight; his ankle gave way and he almost dropped her. The pain began shooting through his veins. He knew what was happening. He knew how long it would take. It would reach his heart in less than three minutes, and stop it from beating. He would drown in his own blood.

What would happen to her then?

“Isabelle, écoutes,” he said, and he could hear his words slurring. “You have the power. Somewhere. Find it. Now.”

She paled and shook her head, parted her lips to speak as a wall of flame erupted about forty meters ahead of them, cutting off that route. He glanced left, right; the world was blurring to blackness. Waves of cold, dark shame crashed over him, sucking his energy down to a black place; he was failing her, with his weakness and his slowness—I should have dodged that bullet—he was inept; he was a liar; he could no more protect her than that half-dead cowboy detective of hers.

Yet pride and anger kept him telling her that he was sorry, and a horrible, engulfing sorrow smothered his shame. He was going to die and all that could have been would never be.

By the Patron of my life, but I loved you. You were not for me—I would make your life so difficult if I took you as my woman. But I wanted to. I never told you that. I wanted to save you from what would happen next. From what I would bring to your bed…

And that speck of love filtered through the hard, flinted evil in the middle of his soul, and gave him a bit of peace as he continued to die. He rallied his strength, gazing down at her as she clung fearfully to him, his once-proud warrior queen reduced to confusion and terror…. He forced himself to keep moving, arrowing to the right, where he saw no flames, no smoke, no barrage of enemy magic. Moonlight filtered through the trees, promising a clearing.

Jean-Marc threw back his head and howled to the wolf pack. Come to me. Come now. His voice was packed with the urgency of one dying. I need help.

“Let me down,” she insisted, pushing on his hands. “You shouldn’t be carrying me.”

As his mind began to shut down, he couldn’t speak with words anymore. He didn’t know how to tell her that his hands were spasming and he couldn’t let go.

He lumbered past two live oaks, pushing through the streamers of Spanish moss swathed between their trunks as if the tree on the right were choking the life out of the tree on the left. Their leafy canopies shook as if with their own death throes. He pushed past them, staggering, and groaned aloud as silvery moonlight highlighted Isabelle’s dark cascades of curls.

“Jean-Marc!” she insisted, scrabbling out of his embrace, grabbing his arm to keep him upright as he contracted from the pain. He felt his protesting heartbeat, and he wove a spell of strength around himself as best he could.

My patron, the Grey King, I call on you, he thought. Save me, and I will be a faithful son. I will do whatever you ask. At least, keep me alive until I get her out of here.

He felt something move inside his being, a presence, a force, and he knew it was the Grey King. All faithful Devereauxes revered their patron, who was himself a demon. Those with strong Gifts, like Jean-Marc and Alain, were able to call on him directly. Hours before, the Grey King had appeared in the bayou and destroyed the demon Izzy had called—a fierce, fanged female creature with glowing, almond-shaped eyes and necklaces of skulls around her neck.

There will be a price, the Grey King informed Jean-Marc. A high one.

I will pay it gladly, Jean-Marc replied, if it keeps her safe.

Then it is done.

The presence receded, and Jean-Marc felt a solitary moment of fear. His patron was just, but he could also be merciless. Sometimes he moved in ways Jean-Marc couldn’t understand.

Yet, in the clearing, he saw a miracle: the werewolves’ crazy, black Cajun van. The passenger panel was slid back, revealing the garish interior studded with voodoo jujus of silver and brass, the strings of chicken’s feet and glittering mirrors and ankhs. And more wonderful, the Femme Blanche Andre had brought to heal Caresse poked her head out of the van. She took one look at Jean-Marc and hopped out, racing toward him. Another Femme Blanche peered out at them but remained inside the vehicle. So they had two. Magnifique.

I thank you, my patron, he thought, even though, of course, the patroness of the House of the Flames was Joan of Arc, and these women were her acolytes. He might have more properly thanked her, but he didn’t. He was certain that his patron had brought the van to him.

The window on the driver’s side rolled down, revealing Andre, now dressed in a plaid shirt. He threw open the door and leaped out, racing toward Isabelle and Jean-Marc, reaching out his arms.

“You’ve been hit. Denise, vite!” he bellowed.

“I’m coming,” said the Femme Blanche, unable to keep pace with the burly Cajun werewolf. “Sir, give the Gardienne to Andre.”

“We’ve got three Femmes Blanches now. They saved Caresse,” Andre said, jerking his head toward the Femme Blanche named Denise. “They can spare some time for you. Lucienne! Sara! Come now! Ils sont Jean-Marc de Devereaux et la Gardienne!”

“Bon,” Jean-Marc said, relieved to his soul that Caresse was better. Then his legs gave way as the ground rushed up.

It would be a relief to die—he hurt so badly—but he heard Isabelle cry out, “Take care of him. Then have someone come with me. I’m going back for…for…him!”

Jean-Marc’s mind was fragmenting; the kaleidoscope bits shattered and reformed into the face of Pat Kittrell. Leave him there, he thought, jealous rage mingling with battle-hardened common sense. I won’t risk your life for his.

“Her lover,” Jean-Marc gasped. “You know, that man from New York. The detective. Also, there are Bouvards loyal to her. Michel is with us. They should be found.”

With Isabelle in his arms, Andre turned to the Femme Blanche. “Goddamn it, fix him!” he shouted. “Alain!” He looked past Jean-Marc. “We gotta find la jolie’s boyfriend.”

“The Bouvard special ops are circling back to get some vehicles,” Alain reported. His voice dropped as he came around, staring in horror at Jean-Marc. “Mon cousin, what has happened?”

Then the two cousins spoke telepathically, which was a blessing, because Jean-Mark could no longer make his mouth work.

Je regret. I couldn’t stop myself from attacking you. I have been poisoned. I’m going to die with filth in my soul. I’ll go to a place where I can harm no one…

With a gasp, Alain slung his arm under Jean-Marc’s and half carried him toward the van.

Non, he protested. You will not die, Jean-Marc. You cannot die, and especially not in this condition.

The Femme Blanche named Denise approached and dropped her veil over her face. She raised her hand, glowing with white healing energy, and placed it directly over Jean-Marc’s wound. Fire as from a white-hot poker blazed from her palm into the ravaged sinews of his bicep, searing down to the bone; he hissed and doubled over. His cousin lowered him to the ground as Denise knelt, steadfastly poured healing magic into his body.

“Let it happen, let it be,” she murmured aloud to him in French. He knew it took her supreme effort to speak while she was working and he dipped his head, the closest he could come to a nod.

The second Femme Blanche from the van joined them, placing her palm over her sister’s. Then a third. Jean-Marc detected no change in his death throes. Perhaps he was too far gone, even for Bouvard healing magic.

“You have to find him.” Isabelle’s voice carried over the pain and a fresh round of mortar fire. “I won’t leave without him.”

His drowning heart sank; he was dying, but her thoughts were of Pat. Jean-Marc tried to tell himself that she probably didn’t realize how little time he had left. Magical wounds often appeared less severe than they actually were.

Or perhaps because her memory was gone and her Gift was dormant—her magical power can’t be gone; that is impossible—she no longer felt the incredible electricity between them. As his body began to quit, he could feel her, sense her, practically taste her. He almost managed a chuckle as his shaft hardened in response to her. I’m a dog, he thought wryly.

I’m a man.

A shrill whistling thrummed through his bones—incoming!—and he signaled to Andre to get Isabelle to the van. He was nearly blind now, as death came, but he could see her arms and legs flailing as Andre carried her around to the other side of the van. Then he lost sight of her as the Femmes Blanches intensified their magic and Alain chanted in the Old Language beneath his breath, praying to the patron of the House of the Shadows, the Grey King, to care for his devoted son.

He almost blacked out; nearly came to. Shadows wove around him as Alain eased him into the panel van. It was bulging to capacity—battle gear, wafting white robes, sweat, blood, dirt. And the sharp musk of werewolves, changed back to human, but with their natures wrapped around them like invisible pelts.

As soon as Andre gunned the engine and the vehicle roared into motion, a magical burst slammed into the ground where it had sat, rocking the chassis back and forth on its wheels. Two seconds later, and it would have landed squarely on top of the van.

Jean-Marc concentrated on Alain’s voice as his cousin magically willed him to live. He heard Andre arguing with someone over the roar of the battle and the engine. It was Isabelle, who was screaming at him to get Pat.

“It’s too dangerous, chérie,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“If it was someone you loved…” she retorted, obviously not thinking clearly. Because it had been Caresse, and she herself had not only shot her, but refused to help her in favor of Pat. Jean-Marc inhaled the scent of werewolf musk and Caresse’s spicy perfume, knowing she was nearby in the van. He tried to lift his head to find her, see how she was doing. He tried to send out healing thoughts, but that was not his Gift.

“Shh, don’t move,” Alain insisted. And then in thought, Are you in much pain? Alain ticked a worried glance at the veiled Femmes Blanches seated on the floor beside Jean-Marc. They had all lowered their veils to keep out distractions as they worked on him. The palm of the one closest was pressed against his shoulder, cauterizing his wound, or so it seemed to Jean-Marc. If anything, the pain intensified. But he had been trained from birth to be the master of his behavior, and so he forbade himself to writhe or cry out. What she did, she did to heal him.

Without answering, Jean-Marc slid his gaze down his body, finding the second Femme Blanche at his side and the third crouched at his feet, knees pressed against her chest beneath her dress. The three women were holding hands, transferring healing energy like a conduit through themselves to him.

“Caresse,” he whispered. “New Orleans PD. Unsouled.”

“She is stable. We have him. It is your turn,” Alain said.

The van bounded and bounced along, all the shiny metal objects shimmying and shaking. The Femme Blanche held on tight to his shoulder, grinding her fingertips painfully into torn muscles as if for purchase; he doubted she realized what she was doing.

A thunderous roar like a sonic boom jerked him out of his languor. The vehicle rocked hard to the right, sending everyone sliding, including Alain, the Femme Blanches and him. Next it ground to a halt and the panel door slid back. The noise outside was deafening.

He tried to sit up. With a fierce expletive, Alain held him down; then he saw a flash of facial features as three uniformed Bouvard special ops carried Pat Kittrell between them. Pat’s head was thrown back, his mouth was slack, the flesh of his silhouetted face gray and mottled. He looked as if he had been dead for a week.

They handed him in, other figures scrambling to help. The panel slammed shut. In the front seat, Isabelle called out to him. Jean-Marc dimly heard the sounds of movement and arguing: she was trying to climb over her seat to Pat.

Pat was laid down beside Jean-Marc. Jean-Marc turned his head and studied the brave man who had flown blind into this hell storm for love of his woman. Jean-Marc willed him to live.

Non, Alain told him telepathically. Stop exerting yourself. And then, Sleep.

I have to protect her, Jean-Marc replied. And he is part of her. It was so much easier to communicate without speaking. I have to…not sleep…I have to keep him from dying….

You have to not die yourself, Alain retorted. Or I’ll have risked your wrath for nothing.

I’ll take my wrath to the grave, Jean-Marc promised him, and use it to haunt you forever. I will never forgive you for what you did.

Alain grunted. And yet, I would do it again. Such is the nature of my loyalty, and my love for you, cousin. You would do the same, would you not? For Isabelle?