Time for Eternity (34 page)

Dreadful.

The only way any crates will get out of this warehouse is if the army takes them out.

Françoise stopped in mid-step. She sucked in a breath. “You’re a genius, Frankie,” she whispered under her breath. She could feel Frankie turning over the idea as well.

Mais bien sûr.
Françoise could practically feel Frankie grin. She hurried forward.

“Please, good messieurs, may I pass to take Monsieur Jennings his supper?”

“Locked up tight, he is.” The older of the two guards had a paunch bursting two buttons on his uniform. That was quite an achievement in these troubled times when food was scarce. From inside the warehouse she heard the faint pounding of hammers and the creak of wood.

“Well, well, what have we here?” The man with a saber scar on his right cheek lifted the white linen cloth that covered her tray.

“Cassoulet,” he murmured reverently.

“Oui.
Prepared by Pierre Dufond, the chef of the Duc d’Avignon himself. And bread of course, fresh from the oven.” The guard lifted the lid of the other brown glazed dish. “Haricot verts. With fresh butter and almonds.”

The guards looked as though they might drool onto the tray.

“One man can’t eat all that,” the heavy one said.

She glanced over her shoulder. Other guards were strolling across the street. “Enough to share with you two, but perhaps not for everyone.” The two guards frowned at their compatriots. “I shall take the smaller pot of cassoulet and half a loaf, and give you the rest as a … gratuity for opening the door.”

“Done,” said Saber Scar.

The heavyset one pulled one of the great wooden doors open. “Don’t even think you’re getting any of our due,” he said to the two lounging up.

“Share and share, ye know,” one of the newcomers said. The conversation took a decidedly belligerent turn.

Françoise bent, took her bowl and loaf, and slipped inside while their attention was on keeping what they’d coerced from her.

Inside, the warehouse was dark. As when she had been here before with Avignon, crates and barrels loomed in the shadows.

The smell of tar and brandy and dust was everywhere. Ahead, several pools of light illuminated the desk she remembered from the night Madame LaFleur had died. Three men in their shirtsleeves were knocking together crates.

Jennings looked up from where he was directing some others to bring bundled stacks of planks from the back. “Mademoiselle!

What brings you here?” He hurried forward.

“You know they are watching the house and this place, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Yes,” he said, glancing back at the crates, worried. Then he took the tray from her with a question in his eyes.

“Pierre’s cassoulet. My pretext for coming. Most went for a bribe to the guards.” As he set it on the desk she decided she had no time to be roundabout. “I know about the special cargo you have behind the back wall. He told me.

Jennings looked wary.

“They’ll be watching any barges, and they’d open any crates and barrels you tried to load.” He’d thought of that. She could see it in his eyes. He was building crates for human cargo because it was the only thing he knew to do. “The only way these crates are getting out of this warehouse is if the army takes them out.”

“And how will we arrange that?” His disbelief was obvious.

“I think Avignon can arrange it.”

He frowned. “He’s in a cell in the Conciergerie.”

“But he has a frequent visitor. Madame Croûte. Who, if she thinks about it, would want the contents of this warehouse very much, especially since she is bent on killing the goose that lays these golden eggs. This will be the last clutch.”

“You’ve seen him?”

She nodded, her mouth grim. “He’s trying to hold out until the ship arrives in Le Havre and the barge can get down the Seine.

But it won’t serve.” She didn’t want to dwell on why not.

The English had more restraint than the French, and while Gaston had asked about Henri, Jennings did not. “But once she has the crates, they’ll be under as tight a guard as they are here.”

Françoise smiled. “But then she’ll have no reason to guard this empty warehouse.”

Jennings’s eyes widened. “So we don’t move them in the crates at all?”

“They’ll be on the lookout for Avignon’s barges. Can you find another boat?”

Jennings frowned again. “Several skiffs would be better. Draw less attention. Maybe we can meet up with the
Maiden Voyage
in the Channel. If we get to Le Havre before it arrives. ” He’d gotten a gleam in his eye. “We’ll break through the wall to the warehouse just to the south, bring them out there. But there are a lot of people behind that wall.”

“Can you get them into the boats without anyone noticing?”

“We’ll have to.” He shrugged. He shot her a sharp look. “Any way to get Avignon out?”

“I’ll take care of that. Just you mind your cargo. ” She looked around. It was strange to think there were people crammed in behind that back brick wall, silent and fearful.

She shot him a smile she hoped was confident. “Time for me to go.” She glanced to the cassoulet. “Enjoy your dinner.”

I thought that went rather well.

Françoise was hurrying down the quay toward the Conciergerie on the north end of the Ile de la Cité. “If he can get boats on such short notice. If Robespierre does not arrest him. If he can get them out without anyone noticing … too many ifs.”

My, aren’t we Little Miss Sunshine? What a glass-half-empty kind of girl.

Françoise knew what she meant, surprisingly, perhaps because she now shared experience with Frankie. “I am more optimistic than you are,” she protested. “You never saw the good in Henri. You still think I should kill him or abandon him if he escapes. That is not a ‘Miss Sunshine’ girl either.”

Because that may be the only way to prevent becoming like him.

“Was it so horrible?”

You know how lonely it was.

“You didn’t let yourself be close to anyone.”

Whoa. Bad me. Just because they’d fear me if they knew what I was. And don’t forget that they’d age and die, and hate
me either for abandoning them or because I didn’t age with them … How shallow of me to let that stand in the way of a
relationship.

Françoise tried another tack. “But you weren’t horrible, and neither is Henri.”

I killed people.

“Not after you knew how to take less blood more frequently.”

That was his fault. He left me there, not knowing anything.
Frankie’s distress was palpable.

“You said yourself there’s a real possibility he couldn’t come to you. Donna said he was guillotined about this time.”

The thought of the guillotine shot through both of them and revulsion shuddered up from someplace so ancient and elemental that it would not be suppressed.

“How could they guillotine a vampire?”
they thought together.

Donna said they could do it if he was injured too badly, or if his strength was sapped by being burned in the sunlight. I
don’t know how it happened the first time.

“But we know one way they might be able to do it now. They could drug him with the drugs you brought back.”

God forgive me.

Françoise turned. They had to get back to the house and pour those bottles out before the drug could be used on Henri.

Hurry.

Françoise slipped behind a tree in the Place Royale park. She wanted to cry but Frankie wouldn’t let her. Gendarmes swarmed in front of number sixteen. Their torches lit the night. How many servants had gotten out? Now she couldn’t even approach to find out.

They’ll find the morphine in the shampoo bottles.

It made sense. It was the path of time when Henri had been guillotined trying to come true, even though somehow Frankie had bent time enough that Henri hadn’t made Françoise vampire the way it had happened before.

Maybe we can’t change the part where he dies.

“Well, we are certainly going to try,” Françoise breathed. There wasn’t much time. Françoise slid through the night with all the practice of Frankie’s two hundred years of experience. Only when she reached the other end of the park did she start to run.

Henri shimmered into the cell again. The warehouse had one more family of four. It had been a joy to take them out under the nose of Madame Croûte, though it had taken almost all his strength to transport four times in one night. But he had seen all the troops around the warehouse. What good to get them there when there was no way to get them out? He hadn ’t even seen Jennings, just deposited the children behind the wall and gone back for the parents before the guards or Croûte could realize what had happened.

No guards loitered outside his cell now. No point when it was supposed to be empty. They’d be back soon. It had been nearly an hour. He just hoped his compulsion on Croûte worked on a mind that was so bent. But she’d be back too in a few moments and he could give her a refresher course.

What he wanted was Françoise. One touch. That would sustain him.

But he didn’t want that. He wanted her out of Paris. Out of his life. Out of danger.

He heard steps down the hall. Several. Voices. Guards. Was Croûte back so soon? She would be very angry now that she knew another family had escaped.

Dread warred with relief as he saw Françoise appear. With her halo of golden curls flaring with light from the torches, she looked like an angel.

She hurried in then turned on the guards who had accompanied her. “Go. You promised.”

They looked shocked that he was inside the locked cell, though free of his manacles. “Your funeral, Mademoiselle. That brute is not human.” One of them opened the cell as the other held loaded pistols on Henri. “Croûte will be back any minute. Either he gets you or she will.” They locked her in with him.

Françoise stood, coiled, as the footsteps strode away, then flung herself forward, stopping only inches from his chest. “Oh, Henri, are you all right?” She scanned his body.

“I’m well,” he said. Better for seeing her. But she shouldn’t be here. “I told you to go to Jennings.” He wanted to hold her. But he held himself rigid instead.

She moved a lock of hair away from his face. Her touch was gentle. “I’ve been to Jennings. That’s why I came. We don’t have much time, Henri. They are searching the house. I’m not sure Gaston got all the staff out.”

“Looking for the drug.” He smiled grimly. “She can’t make me take it. I hope she can’t really torture my staff. I used my power on her mind. But I’m not certain of that.”

She glanced behind her to be sure the guards weren’t lurking. Then she moved in and stood on tiptoe to whisper. “The only way your cargo will leave the warehouse is if they stop guarding it. She’ll want all that lace and brandy and salt, won’t she?”

He blinked at her.

“If she takes all your goods, why guard the warehouse?”

The girl had a plan. And it was not a bad plan.

“Only you can plant the idea in her little avaricious brain. Jennings is getting skiffs ready. He ’ll take them out through the warehouse next door after the goods are gone. It’s risky.”

“Better than nothing. If the families get out, I’ll see to my staff. There are fewer of them …”

At that moment the murmurs of the guards down the hall stopped. Boot heels clicked.

“What are you doing out here?” Croûte’s voice accosting the guards.

Damnation. There were few choices. He couldn’t let the Croûte woman find Françoise here. He grabbed her and drew her into his naked body.

“Why guard an empty cell?” The guards were trying to delay Croûte. That was good.

“Don’t be afraid. And try not to scream.”

Companion!
The power welled up his veins like slow sludge. But the room went red. He had enough. Barely. He called for more. As he held Françoise, a feeling of lightness enveloped him. Where to go? The answer surprised him. Dare he? The whirling darkness was already at their knees. Françoise looked up at him with frightened blue eyes. She was biting her lip. It might just stop the scream.

“Good girl.” He smiled in reassurance and thought about the boudoir he knew so well.

The room went black. Françoise emitted a gurgling sound of suppressed pain.

Red wallpaper flocked with fleur-de-lis popped into life around them. “Are you all right?” he whispered, as she turned in his arms. He saw her gather herself. She nodded.

“I knew what to expect.”

Of course she couldn’t have known that. He glanced around. Marianne Vercheroux had turned on the little upholstered stool that sat before her dressing table and was peering into the corner. He had chosen a shadowed area near the dressing room, as though they might have just walked in instead of appearing in a whirl of darkness. There was little explanation he could offer for the fact that he was naked.

“Marianne, you must take care of her until I can come for her.” He pushed Françoise into the center of the room. “A day, no more.”

“Henri?” Marianne stood, wide-eyed. “How did you get in? What … what’s happened … ?”

“No time, Marianne. I must get back. I have a job to do. Just keep her safe, will you?”

He felt for the dressing room door behind him. Françoise turned those big eyes on him. They were so wise and sad, it startled him. He glanced to Marianne Vercheroux. He willed her to do as he asked but he dared not use his power. He had need of every drop he had. She lifted her brows, then sighed, sad, accepting. She nodded. Henri allowed himself a half -smile as he shut the dressing room door. Before it could even click shut the blackness whirled up around him.

Françoise stared after the closing door. She wanted to run to him, to tell him not to go back there. What if Madame Croûte had the drug? Could that woman give it to him against his will? Henri thought not. But he might be wrong. And then she could send him to the guillotine.

He knew that. But he would not leave those families in the lurch. And she herself had given him a task. Her eyes filled.