Chapter Thirty-four - Paris

 

Our journey back to Paris was instantaneous. We’d gathered Valerie and Charlie from the secret garden and then Clocked to the island in the Seine where we could leave them in safety. Archer, Ringo, and I convinced Connor to stay behind with them, more for his protection than theirs. He was done – emotionally wrung out, and there was a vacancy in his eyes I didn’t like. I was glad to see his Wolf when he Shifted and lay outside the door to the small shelter. I thought his Wolf might find the experiences we’d had a little less PTSD-inducing than the boy did.

I used my marker to draw a quick spiral inside the lean-to. If something happened to me, Valerie could get everyone back to 1554, where I knew she’d take care of them. I didn’t say any of that out loud, but I caught Valerie’s eye when I was done. She nodded once before turning away.

I had never seen Ringo just hold Charlie like he did when we left the island. He spoke quietly to her as Archer and I stood far enough away to give them privacy, and she had tears in her eyes when she ran back to Valerie. His expression was set into something impenetrable, and Archer clasped his arm with a quick show of support as we stepped into the small boat.

We were mostly silent on our way across the river and through the quiet streets to the Hôtel de Sens. Jehanne had been in full Joan of Arc battle mode when we left Orléans, so we wouldn’t be running into her wolves, and the only thing in front of us was the uncertainty of Wilder.

We stopped just before we entered the Marais.

“Weapons?” Archer said out loud what I’d been thinking. What were our assets against a Vampire?

I lifted the hem of my tunic to display my daggers strapped in their holsters to my upper thighs. I’d barely managed to retrieve them a couple of times, but they felt like old friends now.

Ringo lifted his sword from its scabbard, but didn’t remove it. There are cultures where a drawn blade has to be blooded, and I was feeling superstitious enough just then to be glad he hadn’t pulled it out all the way. Archer showed his own sword and a dagger at his belt, his eyes searching ours.

“Every weapon at our disposal.” There was no question mark at the end. We were down to the three of us and whatever steel we wielded, and it had to be enough.

I didn’t like going in at night, but it was the only way to have Archer next to me. Wilder was his nemesis even more than he was mine. And Ringo – he was in no matter what. He’d been wearing a grim expression since Archer was injured, and the scene with Charlie on the island wasn’t helping his mood. We were all exhausted, and the prospect of more violence was not something any of us looked forward to.

The street in front of the Hôtel de Sens was deserted, and the air was so still it felt like the city was holding its breath. The heavy wooden door was predictably locked, but Ringo looked up at the windows above us, flexed his fingers, and was up a wall before I could whisper the words he already knew.

“Be careful.”

I knew from the set of his mouth he heard me, and I knew he would be careful. I’d only said it to feel like I could somehow make a difference in his safety. Archer and I melted back into the shadows to wait, and he pulled my body in front of him so his voice was at my ear.

“Let me do this.” It hadn’t been more than a whisper, but his tone made me shiver. He meant Wilder, and Wilder was strong.

I nodded. “Let me back you up, though.”

He didn’t hesitate with his return nod, and it made me feel like he believed I was strong and capable enough to be at his back. That trust shot the smallest ray of light through my very heavy heart, and I pressed myself back against him. His arms came around me, and I closed my eyes for a second – just long enough to memorize the instant of contentment.

“Chhhttt!” Ringo’s whispered sound snapped us out of our moment of peace, and we both moved toward it instantly. A moment later we were inside the main hall of the Hôtel de Sens.

The space was huge and very gothic, with pointed spires and carved stone. It was completely devoid of the signs of habitation, though. No furniture or fixtures, just the built-in decorations of stone and plaster. Gargoyles looked down on us from the corners of the ceiling, and I seriously would not have been surprised if one of them had suddenly left its perch and climbed down the walls. A massive stone staircase spiraled up from the hall.

“Towers and bedrooms are upstairs. Public rooms down. Where do you want to search first?” Ringo spoke with authority, and I believed him.

“The towers.” I didn’t know why I was so certain, but Archer and Ringo didn’t question it.

“Let’s go.”

We took the stone steps two at a time, but our rubber soles stayed silent as we crept toward the closest corner of the mansion. The guys had fallen in line on either side of me, and because I felt like a bundle of twitchy nerves, I didn’t mind being in the middle.

The first tower room was empty of everything but a big carved crucifix hanging on the wall. The Jesus figure was practically as tall as me, and I suddenly got a really bad feeling seeing him hanging from that cross. I usually just looked at religious iconography as art, but this one landed with me differently, somehow. Like a sign of death instead of rebirth. I spun away from it and left the tower before Archer or Ringo could even ask about the look on my face.

I was halfway down the hall toward the other tower before they caught up with me, and Archer could tell something was off because he put a hand out to stop me.

“Wait. Use your spidey sense. Wilder’s a Monger, remember?”

My gut sense for Mongers had barely prickled the whole time we’d been in the fifteenth century, and considering we’d just been in a war, that was strange enough to seriously contemplate when we got home. But it meant I had stopped using it as an early warning signal, and Archer was right. If Wilder was around, I’d feel him like the onset of food poisoning. Uncomfortable for me, but almost certainly fatal for all of us if we walked in unaware.

Archer’s use of a superhero term for it lifted a fraction of my unease. I knew it was calculated to, and that made it even better. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the tendril of instinct that knew Mongers. I imagined it unfurling and reaching out like a tentacle, past the guys next to me, ahead into the closest rooms of the mansion.

I didn’t know if my sense worked like wifi – if thick walls blocked it – but I didn’t get anything at first. Then slowly, the beginnings of nausea began to curl around my guts, and with each step forward, it got stronger.

I looked at Archer and Ringo watching me intently, and I nodded. “Ahead of us.”

“Better than behind us, I guess.” Ringo mumbled it under his breath, but I knew the feeling.

The prickling in my guts got stronger, and I suddenly knew my daggers wouldn’t be enough. The swords that Archer and Ringo carried at their backs wouldn’t be enough. My father, Will Shaw, and his massive Lion, hadn’t been enough. Bishop Wilder was a tricky, vicious, break-all-the-rules Monger underneath the almost-impossible-to-kill Vampire. He was strong, intelligent, and calculating. And I was going in without all my weapons.

I turned to Ringo. “I need the Shifter bone.”

Neither of the guys moved for a second, as if even their breathing had stopped. Then Ringo reached under his shirt and pulled the leather cord over his head. The few glimpses I’d had of the ancient carved pendant had made my insides twist in fear and guilt, but I knew it wasn’t the bone that I was afraid of.

I hesitated just a fraction of a second, and I saw the smallest tremor in my hand as I reached for the necklace. Archer let out a breath as I pulled it on over my head and looked him in the eye.

“Every weapon at our disposal.”

“Can you control her?” I knew Archer’s worry was for me, not because he was afraid of my Cat.

“I don’t know. Hopefully I don’t have to find out.”

He nodded brusquely and we continued down the hall. Ringo gripped my shoulder lightly for a moment as he leaned in to whisper.

“I like yer Cat. I wouldn’t be sorry to see ‘er.”

His words of support helped lighten a little of the dread I carried at the idea of unleashing the Cougar again. Losing control of her was almost inevitable, and I had come to accept I was a proper control freak.

The door to the main tower room was unlocked, but I stopped Archer before he could open it all the way. The Monger-induced nausea had gotten worse, and I signaled that to the guys. They nodded understanding, and with battlefield sign language we worked out our positions going through the door.

Archer held up fingers – one, two, three – then burst through the tower door with me right behind and Ringo at my back.

We were in a small, dark annex that opened up to a bigger, high-ceilinged room. My first thought was that we’d entered Dr. Frankenstein’s weird kitchen. Instant flashes of glass beakers partly filled with blood, a goose carcass, partially plucked and hanging upside down over a pot, and a giant, walk-in-sized fireplace crackling with a fire hit my brain at the same moment as I saw someone bent over a body across the vast room.

The guy across the room straightened at our entrance. He looked terrified. There was a pillow in one hand and a butcher knife in the other. He had just lifted the pillow from the head of the bed.

I was halfway across the room before I recognized Léon, the butcher from the island, and I almost stopped in my tracks. Almost.

Until I saw the boots on the floor by the bed, which was occupied.

I knew those boots. Doc Martens.

No. The word went flat in my brain. And then it spiked with understanding and I shouted, “No!”

Léon stared, wild-eyed and panicked, as I slammed past him to get to Tom.

Tom Landers stared up at me from the bed, his eyes wide and sightless.

“Tom! No … Tom.” I shook Tom, and then started pumping his heart with compression force as I pleaded with him to live.

“You can’t die. I just found you; you can’t die now. Tom!”

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!”

Wilder’s bellow sent my whole body into fight or flight, but I kept my hands pumping firmly on Tom’s heart and locked my knees so I couldn’t give in to instinct and run.

I didn’t turn around. I couldn’t look at Wilder. I barely saw Léon run. My eyes were locked on Tom’s, and I willed him to live. I bent down to give him mouth-to-mouth, pinching his nose and tilting back his chin like I’d been taught.

But his skin was already starting to cool, and there was no air coming from his nose and mouth. I put my ear directly on his heart. There was silence.

“I’m sorry, Tom. I’m so sorry.”

I felt the Cat inside me growl.

Rage poured into me like water in an empty vessel. The Cougar fed on it, used it to move and grow in strength. It was by the barest will I held my human form, even as the Cat inside me scented Archer and Léon’s terror.

Kill the butcher who did this. The Cat was growling and pacing under my human skin. She wanted blood. She wanted to wrap her teeth around necks and feel them snap like chicken bones. The rage that fueled her became a laser that I dialed down to a pinpoint beam of anger and hate, which I aimed at the true butcher, Bishop Wilder.

Everything in my brain slowed down as I turned to face the focus of my rage. Wilder must have grabbed Léon as he bolted for the door, because he was still in the annex holding the struggling young man in his hands. The fury on Wilder’s face when he looked at me hit me like a blow. His eyes were locked on mine when he broke Léon’s neck and threw his body away from him like a limp doll.

The body slid up against the far wall, and my brain registered something that looked like part of a spiral hiding in its shadows. An escape hatch for us, and for Wilder. No matter how much I hated the idea of killing Wilder, this had to end here – tonight.

“Hey! Silverback! You think you’re pretty badass with Seer and Clocker blood in you? But you didn’t See this, did you?” I taunted Wilder with my nastiest tone, the one mean girls saved for the kids they tormented.

Archer and Ringo had swords out and ready, and I went for my daggers. I needed Wilder to come into the tower. To not go for the spiral and Clock away.

“You know you want my Shifter blood. Why don’t you come and get me?”

He watched me through wary, glittering eyes. “Why? Why offer yourself up to me?” Wilder’s voice was pure menace, and my survival instincts were screaming at me to run.

“Because I don’t want you to leave.”

I could hear Archer’s exhale, but he stayed quiet and let me do my thing. I put my hands in the air and took a step forward from Tom’s body.

“Come to me,” Wilder hissed.

“I’m tired, not stupid.”

Wilder’s eyes flicked to Archer and his sword, then back to me. “Neither am I.”

“Right. Okay, tell you what. I’ll put a little of my blood in this flask over here. If you come in, you can have it. If you leave, I’ll give it to Archer.”

This time it was Archer who hissed, but I didn’t look at him. My eyes were locked on Wilder’s, and I could tell the idea that Archer could have what he wanted chapped him.

“What do you gain by giving me your blood?”

“A shot at killing you.”

A grin sliced his face. “You can’t kill me.”

“Fine, they’ll kill you. I just want it done now. I’m sick of chasing you all over time. Here, look.” I took one of my daggers out and sliced into a little vein in my wrist. A sense of calm certainty settled around me, and I trusted my instincts.

“Saira! Don’t!” Archer’s tone sounded a little panicky, and I remembered it had been a couple of days since he’d been able to refuel. The sight of my blood must have made him a little nuts.

I held my wrist over one of the empty beakers and let the blood drip down into it. I mouthed “sorry” to Archer, and then turned my attention back to Wilder. His gaze was trapped by the blood, and he actually licked his lips. Gross.

A second later he was moving toward me, and then everything happened at once. Archer and Ringo thrust swords at Wilder, who dodged them both with too much ease. He was still coming at me, so I hurled my dagger at his chest. Wilder looked excited when he caught it in mid-air. It was an impossible catch, and I realized he had already fed on Tom’s blood and was using Tom’s fugue Sight to See the strikes a moment before they happened.

Archer knew it, too. “Get back!” Archer shouted at me. He lunged at Wilder’s back, forcing him to spin and face the attack. My dagger in Wilder’s hand was enough to block Archer’s blade and keep it from descending on him. The two Vampires were locked, face-to-face, by their weapons.

Ringo dove forward suddenly and buried his sword in Wilder’s femoral artery, skewering it from behind with so much force that the blade emerged from the front. Wilder roared, but he didn’t drop the dagger, and the next moment he swung his thigh up and embedded the sword point in Archer’s stomach.

The wound was deep, and Archer paled instantly. He staggered back, off the blade, and for a fraction of a second his body looked like it was riddled with gashes and cuts, his skin blue with bruises. It was as if every wound from his Tower of London fall and from the battle with de Rais appeared for a moment and then faded as the gash closed.

Wilder stared at Archer, as stunned as I was, for the space of a breath, and then he ripped Ringo’s sword out of his thigh and lunged again. Archer was barely able to spin out of range, and I could see his chest rise and fall with the effort.

The Cat screamed at me to let her out, let her protect her mate, but her rage was so fierce I was terrified I’d never get her back under control. My hands were already headed toward my remaining dagger when Ringo shouted at me.

“Saira! Move!” I dove to the side as Wilder changed direction and launched directly at me. I flung a dagger at him before I hit the floor, and miraculously, it stuck in his arm. I staggered back with the flash of awareness I suddenly had that Wilder’s soul was completely without light. He paused, and for just a second, I saw the blood from his thigh wound bloom again. Then he yanked the dagger out, and whipped it at Archer in a move that surprised us both. My last dagger stuck in Archer’s collarbone, and I heard a sharp crack.

Archer stumbled back again with the same flash of wound memory. He had to drop his sword to reach up and pull my dagger out, and Wilder changed direction again to lunge at him.

“No!” Ringo flung two glass beakers in rapid succession, hitting Wilder in the head with the first one. He batted the second one away with a growl.

“I’m going to break you next, boy.” The menace in his voice sent a bolt of horror through me. Not only the threat against Ringo, but the fact that his plan for violence seemed focused on Archer first.

Wilder picked up his sword, and in two strides was in front of Archer. He plunged the sword into Archer’s stomach, and I screamed. My legs felt frozen for one horrible second as Archer’s eyes widened and every single wound I’d ever seen him sustain, and even some I hadn’t seen, bloomed on his body. The sword was stuck so deep it had gone through him and pinned him to the wood paneling of the wall.

Before I had even taken one step, Ringo was flying at Wilder with a glass carafe in each hand. He smashed one against Wilder’s head, but it didn’t break – the glass was too thick. It knocked Wilder back for a second though, just enough time for Ringo to crash the bottle against the stone floor, break the end off it, and shove it into Wilder’s neck.

Wilder instantly paled, and the wounds in his thigh and arm began to bleed again. He stumbled when Ringo twisted the bottle, and I used that distraction to race to Archer. I needed both hands to pull the sword out of his gut, and every injury I’d ever seen him take still blazed on his face and body until the sword was out.

Archer fell back against the wall, and slowly the old wounds began to seal themselves closed. But it wasn’t happening fast enough, and too much blood was still pouring out of the hole in his middle. His eyes had gone glassy.

“Archer!”

He didn’t respond, and suddenly Ringo went flying backwards to hit the far wall with a CRACK. Wilder stalked past us, intent on getting to Ringo. I tried to get the sword up to stop him, but he barely even looked at me as he ripped the sword out of my hand and flung it across the room.

I turned back to Archer, frantic now. “He’s going to kill Ringo.”

The blood from his guts began to pool under him, and I realized if he bled out, he wouldn’t be able to heal at all. He needed blood, and in a moment of pure instinct, I put my still-oozing wrist up to his mouth. “Drink!”

He tried to turn his head but I forced it back so he could see my eyes. “Drink, damn it! Ringo and I need you!”

“Not from you!” He was so angry that it came out somewhere between a shout and a growl. “I can’t … contaminate you.” There was a silent plea in his eyes, but I wasn’t letting this go. I grabbed the beaker I’d dripped my blood into and held it up to his mouth. The blood rolled thickly down the sides and touched his closed mouth before some instinct made him open his lips.

I looked up then, terrified to see what was happening to Ringo. It was worse than I could have imagined. Ringo was nearly unconscious from being thrown against the wall, and Wilder had picked him up with one arm. He was either going to throw him again and kill him, or he was going to drink from him and kill him.

“Hey! I thought you wanted Shifter blood!” My voice was hoarse from all the tears I was going to cry if we made it past this night.

And then the Cat exploded. Let go of me!

So, I did.

My Cougar bounded across the room and rammed into Wilder with full force. He staggered and didn’t go down, but he did drop Ringo. He’s mine! She was so angry that Wilder had dared hurt one of her people, she trembled with rage.

Wilder was steady again, and he’d grabbed a sword. There was a manic gleam in his eyes, and he looked at me like my Cat was the prize he’d been waiting for.

“I should have tasted your father when he was the Lion. It would have made this a proper hunt.”

If I could have spoken the words out loud, I would have told him exactly into which dark cavity that idea could be inserted.

He advanced on my Cat, gripping the sword in one hand and holding the other out as if he wanted to catch her by the collar. Take him down. Make him sorry he hurt my people. I felt a surge of strength and realized I was calling the shots. My Cat was urging, but she wasn’t the driving force anymore. I could see Archer beginning to move again, and I needed to get Wilder away from both him and Ringo. So I pushed back to make her retreat further into the room.

What are you doing? She was growling at me, and I could feel her will pushing at mine. I dug deep under her stubbornness and found my own will to defy her. We can’t use our teeth on him, I told her. And claws aren’t enough to kill him. The most we can do is distract him while Archer gets Ringo out of the way. We need another Vampire to take him down.

I need no help to kill. She sounded like a know-it-all brat, so I laughed at her, even as I made her leap up to the top of the book case as Archer picked Ringo up and moved him. I could feel her confusion at my laughter, but I wasn’t going to argue anymore. Wilder was getting ready to hurl the sword at me like a spear, and I had to choose my landing. I had maybe a half second to plan my move.

The sword left Wilder’s hand, and I jumped.

I could feel the hilt of the weapon pass under me as I rebounded off the heavy wooden arms of the big chandelier. The mid-air trajectory change was the only move he hadn’t expected, and it gave me the chance to throw my weight at his side before we both tumbled to the ground.

Nice move. The Cat sounded impressed, and I had the tiniest moment of pride that I’d surprised her. But Wilder was up a second later, totally pissed I’d caught him off-guard.

“You will pay for that!”

The Cat and I both slunk backwards at the venom in his voice. I knew Archer would be back, and the only way we were going to take Wilder down was by surprise, so I drew him back into the annex to make the surprise quicker. I didn’t expect the leap though. Wilder moved so fast I couldn’t get out of the way, and his fingers dug into my sides with a vise grip.

“Now you’re mine.” His growl was feral, and for the first time in all my acquaintance with Vampires, I saw fangs.

Descending.

At. Me.

Crap.

BAM! CRASH!

Two explosions happened at once. Archer hurtled into the annex with the power and speed of an angry bull … and something came crashing out of the spiral behind me?

Archer slammed into me and I hit the wall with a bone-breaking snap. My Cat retreated instantly. The shimmer of Shifting left behind prickly pain, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the scene in front of me.

Archer and Wilder were in a tangle on the stone floor. There was rage in Wilder’s eyes and fury in Archer’s. But it was pure hatred that lit Tom Landers from the inside.

Tom.

I looked over at the bed where Tom’s suffocated body had lain only a few minutes ago.

It was gone.

And he was here.

Barefoot?

The brain in shock is a fascinating thing. That Tom’s bare feet registered at all would have made me question sanity in anyone else, but in that moment, it seemed like the oddest part of the whole scene.

In a glance, Tom took in the scene. Wilder and Archer were the biggest things in the room, then he found me, and finally, his eyes landed on Léon. He must have tripped over the body as he came through the spiral.

Wait. What?

Tom came through the spiral.

Tom could Clock.

With a primal cry of Léon’s name, he launched himself into the mass of limbs that was the battling Vampires. I tried desperately, and failed completely, to follow the trade of blows and bites, punches and kicks that were being rained down in that tangle of men.

It became clear, though, that Tom was the freshest. He came back from hits like they meant nothing and healed from blows that would have crippled me. Wilder was slower to heal, and Archer was holding himself defensively – staying away from the worst of the battering, but still getting some heavy hits in on Wilder.

Archer and Tom began to work together. Tom was fueled by something filled with pain and hatred, and he seemed unaware of his own injuries. Archer was clearly the more experienced fighter, and he conserved his strength for the blows that would do the most damage.

But none of them had blades, or were close enough to get one, and a beating was not going to stop Wilder forever.

My body hurt. A lot. But the searing agony was layered under pure fear. I knew I was naked from Shifting, but that had about as much importance in the scheme of things as Tom’s bare feet did. The only vulnerability I felt about being nude was it would be easier for flying Vampire blood to hit one of my open gashes. But for this to end, I needed to find a blade, and I had to do it without making myself a target for Wilder.

My eyes scanned the annex looking for anything sharp enough to slice, but all the weapons were scattered in the main room. Finally, I spotted Léon’s butcher knife, partially hidden under his fallen body. The knife had been in his hand when he smothered Tom with the pillow. I didn’t have the energy to wonder about any of it.

I dragged myself around the edge of the room to where Léon’s body lay in an odd, twisted heap. Whatever his future might have been was wiped out in a night of encounters with people who shouldn’t have been in this time or this place. I thought I might have felt bad for Léon once, but now I couldn’t feel anything that wasn’t fear or hate or love. If it wasn’t primal, I didn’t feel it.

I reached under Léon’s body for the knife, but suddenly Tom was there, panting angrily. “Don’t touch him!”

I flinched from the fierceness of his tone, but I reached the butcher knife and pulled it out from under Léon. “Here.”

Tom’s glare would have been a worrying thing if I’d had any capacity left for worry. He snatched it out of my hand and turned to charge back into combat. But Wilder was headed right for us, and his eyes were locked on the spiral.

“Don’t let him go!”

Tom moved in front of the wall, and Wilder stared at him like he was only just now realizing who Tom was. “You were dead. The worthless Jew killed you.” Wilder’s gaze flicked to the dead boy on the floor. I saw what looked like a smile crack the corner of Tom’s mouth before it disappeared in his rage.

“I’m going to kill you for what you did to him.”

Wilder suddenly tried to push Tom out of the way, but Tom seemed to anticipate his exact move. He blocked the hand with one arm, and then brought the other one around in a backhanded sweep. That was the hand with the knife, and in that one motion, Wilder’s head went from connected to, to just resting on his shoulders.

His eyes widened, and his knees buckled.

I turned away as Wilder’s body fell.