Storm of Shadows (21 page)
Authors: Christina Dodd
Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #General
A trap. But why? Who had set it up? More important, how had they set it up? He’d left the hotel in a cab, then disappeared onto the streets. How had anyone managed to track him?
Were these men the Others?
Perhaps. But the Others had gifts of stealth and violence. They didn’t have to depend on knives, clubs, and fists.
Aaron could use his pistol, try to bully his way past these guys, but the use of firearms in a foreign country could land him in more trouble than he now faced. Or he could allow them to herd him down the dark, quiet street.
For most men, that would be a bad choice.
For him, it could be his salvation.
Pulling his pistol, he kept it close to his body and walked toward the line of small booths, closed for the night. When he heard the footsteps behind him close in, he sprinted toward a pile of a dozen black plastic garbage bags and the black hole of an alley beyond. He leaped to clear the bags, prepared to assume the form of darkness—and a blast of pain slammed into his right thigh.
That bastard with the knife had nailed him.
He landed on his feet. His right leg crumpled.
And they were on him. One club made contact with his cheek. His face broke open. The other smacked his chest. His breastbone cracked.
He fired the pistol, aiming toward the guy with the smile.
The guy screamed and spun backward.
Aaron caught a glimpse of him holding his uselessly swinging arm.
Another blow to the right thigh made Aaron scream as the knife in his thigh spiraled and tore flesh.
He fired again, knew he had missed when a bag of garbage blew, spewing rotting vegetables through the air.
Lights came on in the shop behind them.
The guy in the T-shirt kicked the pistol out of Aaron’s hand. Aaron’s trigger finger snapped.
In the distance, sirens shrieked.
“Hurry,” Aaron heard one mugger say. “Kill him. Get the book.”
How did they know?
“Then we’ll take the woman.”
No. Rosamund
.
.
One of the thugs lifted his club to smash Aaron’s skull.
Pulling the knife from his sleeve, Aaron lunged and gutted him.
More lights lit in more windows.
Aaron got his feet under him, rose and slashed at the remaining attackers with the bloody knife and ran toward the alley, concentrating on staying conscious long enough to get away and . . . vanish.
Rosamund woke as soon as the door to her room opened. Sleepily she sat up, groped for her glasses, put them on. Aaron stood in the doorway, a dark silhouette against the light in the corridor. “Did you return it?” she asked.
“I did.” His voice sounded funny. Strained, and he wasn’t enunciating as clearly as usual.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Why?”
“Just checking.”
“We’ll leave for Paris in the morning. Good night, Rosamund.”
“Good night, Aaron.”
He shut the door, and she stared at it.
Weird. He’d managed to get the security bar off again—from the outside. The man was obviously an enforcer, and if she had any sense, she’d be frightened of him.
But for some reason, she wasn’t. Because he was on her team. And he kissed well. And—Rosamund hugged herself with the pleasure of one more piece of the puzzle solved—he was taking her to Paris.
Paris! She was so excited, she wanted to celebrate. To sing or dance or . . .
Lance! She could text Lance! She was so excited, she could barely type the message into her cell phone.
On the path of the prophetess. Next, Paris!
Chapter 21
“W
hen my mother was alive, we lived abroad, and we used to travel all the time. We visited the pyramids of Egypt, bathed in the River Ganges, went on a dig in Guatemala, but never have I set foot in Paris.” Rosamund hung out the window, chattering every minute as the cab whipped from their hotel toward the fashion houses on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. “This is everything I ever imagined. It even smells like Paris!”
hen my mother was alive, we lived abroad, and we used to travel all the time. We visited the pyramids of Egypt, bathed in the River Ganges, went on a dig in Guatemala, but never have I set foot in Paris.” Rosamund hung out the window, chattering every minute as the cab whipped from their hotel toward the fashion houses on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. “This is everything I ever imagined. It even smells like Paris!”
“Does it?” Aaron couldn’t smell anything. His nose was swollen. His eyes were blackened. His jaw felt dislocated. He’d cut up the tablecloth in the Casablanca hotel room to tie around his thigh and staunch the bleeding, but the knife wound still really sucked. His chest hurt like a son of a bitch, and each breath slashed him with pain.
But . . . considering what had happened last night, he felt pretty good. Something weird was happening to him. Something he didn’t understand.
“When I was little, before my mother died, she would come in from the dig and say, ‘Elijah, let’s take Rosamund to Alaska’—or Hong Kong or Auckland—and off we’d go for a couple of weeks, or a month, or two months. Sometimes we’d stay in a hotel, sometimes we’d camp out, and sometimes we’d take the train. I was homeschooled, of course, so I studied every day, but I studied hard so I could go off with my parents and learn rock climbing or photography or scuba diving.” As the taxi cut a U-turn, Aaron hung on to her blouse to keep her from flying out of the cab. “It was a great life. In those days, my father taught me everything I could learn. He was happy then. He adored my mother so much, and when she died, he didn’t want me to know too much because I think he was afraid that I . . . Have I ever shown you a picture of my mother?”
“No, but I’d like to see one.”
Rosamund zipped open her travel pack, handed him her cell phone, a pen from the hotel in Casablanca, and Bala’s Glass, then finally reached her wallet. Flipping it open, she showed him a worn photo of her parents, standing in front of the Coliseum in Rome.
He almost didn’t recognize old Dr. Hall. The guy was younger, of course, but more important, he looked positively pleasant, which was quite a change from all the times Aaron had met with him.
Elizabeth Hall he easily recognized, although he’d never met her—she looked like a slightly older, more tanned version of Rosamund.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” Rosamund asked wistfully.
“She certainly is.” Obviously, Rosamund didn’t have a clue how much they resembled each other.
As Rosamund loaded her stuff back in her pack, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“To meet my friend Philippe.”
“You’ve got friends here? Great! He can tell us the best places to eat.”
“You’re in Paris,” Aaron told her. “All the places are the best places to eat.”
“I’m so happy!” She flung her arms around his neck.
The cab careened to the curb and slammed to a stop.
At the impact, Aaron grunted.
“I’m sorry.” Pulling back, Rosamund touched his bruised cheek. “Are you sure you’re all right? You really hurt yourself running to catch that bus. You should go to a doctor.”
He kept his arms around her. “Yes, and you should kiss me and make me better.” Because he didn’t understand it, yet as long as he was close to her, he could almost feel his bones knitting, his flesh healing.
He thought she would laugh at his teasing.
She didn’t. Instead, with almost injured dignity, she pulled herself free.
“Ici!”
the cabbie said, and stuck out his hand for the fare.
the cabbie said, and stuck out his hand for the fare.
As Aaron paid, Rosamund climbed out of the taxi and stood on the sidewalk, staring up and down the street. He joined her, and she asked, “Does your friend work around here? Because this is where Paris haute couture originates.”
“I know.” Taking her arm, he limped with her toward the tall brass and glass doors. Two uniformed doormen held them open, and Aaron and Rosamund entered the grand lobby of Philippe’s Salon.
The lobby was bold whites and pale pinks, velvet cushions and polished woods. The air was cool and fresh with Philippe’s signature perfume. Tall models with long legs, dressed in black tops, minuscule black skirts, and five-inch spike heels, strode up to them to offer refreshments, to take their coats, and to show them to seats before a fake fire made of red silk strips fluttering in a fan’s breeze.
Rosamund refused coffee, tea, and champagne, huddled in a chair, and looked miserable. When the models disappeared behind the gauzy curtains that separated the dressing area from the lobby, she whispered, “What are we doing here?”
“Philippe is the biggest gossip and snoop in Paris, and he has a photographic memory.” Aaron eyed Rosamund and wondered what Philippe would do when he caught sight of her in the dress she’d bought in Casablanca, the one that looked like the upholstery on his couch at home, and her Birkenstocks. “He’ll know who has whatever memoirs the prophetess left behind in her sojourn here.”
“Oh.” Rosamund went limp with relief. “So we can find out and get out of here.”
Rosamund Hall was the only woman Aaron knew who could sit in a Paris salon and talk about leaving as soon as possible.
“Aaron.
Mon ami
!
”
Philippe rushed from the back room, arms spread wide, straight pins stuck in his blue cotton shirt and a pair of scissors in a holster on his belt.
Mon ami
!
”
Philippe rushed from the back room, arms spread wide, straight pins stuck in his blue cotton shirt and a pair of scissors in a holster on his belt.
“Philippe. You old fraud!” Aaron embraced him with affection. “Knock it off with the French. You know you’re from Boise, Idaho.”
“
Oui
, but Boise is from the French
les bois
, meaning the woods,” Philippe trilled, “so I am French by birth.”
Oui
, but Boise is from the French
les bois
, meaning the woods,” Philippe trilled, “so I am French by birth.”
“If that made any sense, you’d be a tree by birth, too.”
“You were always too smart for me.” Philippe cupped his hands around Aaron’s head and looked into his eyes. In a totally different tone, one that only carried to Aaron’s ears, he asked, “Who kicked the shit out of you?”
“Four guys jumped me last night in Casablanca and tried to kill me.”
“I wish I’d been there.”
“I wish you had been, too.” Because a gay man growing up in Boise, Idaho, learned to fight, and fight dirty.
“Did you make them sorry?”
“A couple of them.”
“How about some first aid?”
“I could use a sterile gauze wrap for my leg.”
“I can get you that. And maybe some antibiotics?”
“
Bon
.”
Bon
.”
Philippe laughed, as Aaron intended.
Then Aaron said, “But first, let me introduce you to my partner, Dr. Rosamund Hall.”
Philippe turned, and magically he was the gay fashion designer once more. “Darling, you have come to the right place. We will be everything you ever wanted from a Paris salon!”
“I never wanted to be in a Paris salon,” Rosamund said, eyes wide.
“Oh, dear, dear, dear, dear. That’s awful!” Philippe threw his arms up into the air in an excess of horror. “You’ll give me a complex!”
If possible, Rosamund looked even more dismayed.
“Come back to my office and we’ll talk.” With a swish, he led the way to the back.
Aaron took Rosamund’s hand and helped her to her feet. “It’s okay,” he said soothingly. “He does the drama queen act for effect, but he’s a genius, a top-notch designer, and rich as Hades.”
“And I’m cute as all get-out, too!” Philippe called. Leading them through the pink and white showroom and into his office, he shut the door behind them. Contrary to every other part of the salon, his office was dark paneled walls, a serviceable desk, a killer computer, and rows of file cabinets.
“Sit down.” He waved them toward chairs in front of his desk. “After you called, Aaron, I did a little checking around. The man you want is Louis Fournier.”
Aaron groaned. “No, I really don’t.”
“Yes, you really do. He’s a fanatical collector of pre- World War One manuscripts, scrolls, and codices, and just a few weeks ago he acquired the journal of one Sacmis, the prophetess of Casablanca.”
Rosamund clasped her hands in delight. “You’re sure of this?”
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