The Black Swan of Paris

by Karen Robards

  Her heart almost stopped. The hair stood up on the back of her neck. It was all she could do to keep the shock, horror, fear out of her face.

  She wasn’t sure she succeeded.

  “Genevieve,” he said. She could read nothing, nothing at all, in his tone.

  He looked just as he had before the bomb went off. Not so much as a hair was out of place. He’d been inside the Knight’s Hall; she’d seen him as she left.

  How had he escaped? Had something gone wrong? Were they all alive? Had the mission failed?

  Whatever the answers, she had to work now to save herself and her mother and sister.

  Act, she told herself. Act like you’ve never acted before.

  “Claus.” Her voice quavered pathetically. She looked—she hoped—thankful to see him. “Oh, Claus. I’m hurt, can you help me?”

  His eyes ran over her. The rapid progression of expressions on his face—concern for her, surprise, doubt—had her stomach twisting in fear.

  “The blood’s a false scent,” he said over his shoulder to his men. “Go back to the east turret and help them battle the fire. Save what you can.”

  “Jawohl.” The smartly snapped-off rejoinder was followed by the disappearance of the soldiers and the sound of multiple sets of boots retreating.

  Wagner came in and closed the door. “Let me bind up your arm,” he said almost tenderly, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket as he came toward her. “How did you hurt it?”

  “The explosion.” She took care not to call it a bomb—because how could she know it was a bomb?—as he dropped to one knee in front of her, took hold of her bleeding arm and started to wrap the handkerchief around it. “I was knocked to the ground. I—cut it on something.”

  “This happened while you were changing your costume?” He tied a knot to secure the makeshift bandage, then applied pressure with his hand on top of the handkerchief. The force of it made the cut throb rather than sting, which was worse.

  “Yes.” She would be relieved he wasn’t hurt, wouldn’t she? “I’m so happy you weren’t injured. What happened?”

  “A bomb was set off in the Knight’s Hall. By traitors who will, when we catch them, pay a terrible price. I regret to inform you that everyone who was in the hall at the time—your audience—is dead. My schloss is burning as we speak. Fortunately it is stone, and the fire can be contained.”

  “Oh!” He pressed on her cut with such force that she cried out and reflexively tried to jerk her arm away. He held her fast. His fingers dug into her flesh. Her eyes flew to his face. He suspected: there was no mistaking the import of that grip. Or the look in his eyes.

  He smiled at her. The dimples that made his smile so outwardly charming appeared.

  Cold fear twisted her stomach, dried her mouth. Her heart pounded so loudly she feared he would hear it.

  She was looking into the face of evil.

  “It might interest you to know that I thought you appeared pale during your last song.” His voice was silky. “When you took your bow and left, I followed you to see if you were all right. I went into that small room where you change your clothes. You weren’t there, but the door at the other end of the room was just closing. I thought you must have gone out through it, so I followed again. That’s when the bomb went off.”

  His free hand caught her chin, held it while he examined her face.

  “Who do you work for?” He hurled the question at her.

  Terror swirled in an icy tide inside her. She had to fight to keep it at bay.

  “What? No one! What are you talking about?” She looked pleadingly at him. “Claus—”

  “It’s you and Bonet, and that man of his—it’s all of you, isn’t it? Even the pretty blonde.” He came up off his knee, releasing her cut arm, looming over her, pushing his face so close to hers that she could feel his hot breath. “Who sent you to—” He broke off, staring at her. “Mein Gott, the eyes.”

  “Claus, you’re wrong, I’ve done nothing—”

  “What a fool I’ve been. How could I have been so blind? You’ve been tricking me all along, haven’t you? You’re a dirty bitch of a spy. Those are Lillian de Rocheford’s eyes.”

  That last was a howl of pure rage. He throttled her before she could react, wrapping both hands around her neck, pushing her down on the fainting couch, looming above her, squeezing, squeezing...

  Wildly she kicked and fought and clawed at his hands and gasped for air.

  There was none. No air to be had. He was too strong. She wheezed, bucked, struggled, beat at him with her fists. His face, the room, everything started to blur.

  He wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t make him let go. He was crushing her windpipe, choking the life out of her.

  “You will tell me—ah!”

  He gave a short, pained cry. His face contorted as he released her neck at last. Even as she sucked in a great, shuddering, life-saving breath he tried to straighten and reached a clawing hand behind his back.

  Then he pitched forward to lie motionless beside her. A knife—the knife—stuck out of his back. She stared in shock at the bright yellow handle quivering between his shoulder blades.

  Lillian stood over him, her poor injured face alight with hatred.

  “Bastard,” she said, and spat on the corpse.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “He would have killed me,” Genevieve concluded her account of what had happened to Max as they descended the last flight of narrow, curving stone stairs that led to the cable car staging area. “My mother saved my life.”

  Having reached her room only a minute or so after Wagner’s death, Max, his cane long gone, was carrying Emmy, who’d fainted in the wardrobe from, presumably, blood loss. Emmy was conscious again, but the urgent need to escape meant that they couldn’t wait around for her to recover enough to walk reliably. According to Max, Berthe had gone directly from the dungeons to assist Otto in case he should need it, so it was just the four of them. Genevieve had her arm around Lillian, who could walk only a short distance without support and was having trouble negotiating the stairs. The smell of burning was strong now even on the lower floors, and gray wisps of smoke were starting to float along even the most remote hallways and stairwells. The sounds of the fire formed a galvanizing backdrop for all the commotion associated with the aftermath of the explosion: shouts, running feet, crashes and bangs from inside the schloss itself, and, outside, the wail of multiple sirens.

  Fire trucks, certainly. Police? Ambulances? Would security even let them up the mountain?

  What was there to secure now that all the principals were dead?

  “Thank God you were there, Baroness,” Max said. “I was delayed. I would have been too late.”

  “It’s not the first time I’ve killed an evil bastard.” Lillian’s voice was grim. “Or the first time I’ve killed for my daughters, for that matter.”

  Genevieve’s eyes widened at that, but there was no time for questions. They were at the bottom of the stairs.

  Max said, “Through that door. Quickly.”

  The door he indicated led outside onto a narrow walkway protected by a parapet. As Genevieve shoved through the door and emerged out into the night, the cold wind whipped at her. They were, she saw, at the very base of the schloss. Looking down was a mistake: the drop was staggering. In front of her, at the end of the vertigo-inducing stone path, the slate roof and open sides of the staging area waited. A cable car was already—

  With a sense of shock she realized that the reason she was seeing everything so clearly was because the night was lit up with a pulsating orange glow. And the reason for that was the fire raging in the castle above them. The east turret blazed like a torch against the night-black sky. Hot ashes and glowing red sparks swirled downward on the wind. A rising column of dense smoke bisected the pale face of the moon.

  “The moon’s
out,” she said to Max, who was right behind her, stepping as carefully as she was along the walkway. The parapet protecting them from falling hundreds of feet was only knee-high. One wrong step, one too-strong gust of wind and it would be easy to topple over.

  “Here’s hoping we’ve got our ride home.” Max’s reply confirmed what she’d thought. If they could get off the mountain, now that the moon was out, there was at least a chance that a Lysander might be down there somewhere, waiting.

  “Hurry, hurry.” Berthe rushed out of the staging area toward them. Emmy, who’d been carrying Berthe’s coat, tossed it to her. Berthe shoved into it—everyone else wore theirs, and in addition they’d taken the time to bundle Lillian into a pair of Genevieve’s trousers and a sweater; the cable cars were open on the sides and the ride down the mountain would be freezing, with no guarantee about what would be waiting for them at the end—and grabbed Lillian on her other side. Together they were able to hustle her into the staging area at a near run, with Max right behind them.

  Above them, the battle to save the schloss raged. The hungry stretch of the flames, the roar and crackle of the fire, the shouts of those fighting it, the whirlwind of heat, the burning smell, and what looked and sounded like a battalion’s worth of soldiers rushing around made for a terrifying and terrifyingly beautiful tableau.

  It would take just one sharp-eyed soldier to look around and see a cable car descending the mountain.

  “There it is,” Lillian breathed as the end of the platform came into view. Otto, his white hair blowing in the wind that blew through the open-sided structure, bundled to his teeth in a coat and scarf, stood there beckoning them on.

  A cable car waited, its sides and top bright blue, attached to the cable by a long metal pincer known as a grip. It held six people, standing room only. There were four cars on this circuit, and whether setting this one in motion would get all of them going Genevieve didn’t know. This close, she could hear the rumbling motor. Only the sounds of the fire had kept it from being heard beyond the staging area.

  “Get in.” Otto’s voice was urgent. He stood by a giant lever, ready, she assumed, to throw it as soon as they were on board.

  Two bodies sprawled on the floor near one wall. Soldiers: they must have been guarding the cable cars. Otto must have had to kill them. So inured to death was she now that she felt barely a twinge.

  Between them, she and Berthe got Lillian into the car, their feet clattering on the metal floor. It felt flimsy, with a series of struts holding up the curved roof and a lot of open air in between. Max, with Emmy’s arm wrapped around his neck, was right behind them.

  Genevieve looked back in time to see Otto shove the lever forward. The car lurched and lifted, floating above the platform as it headed toward the edge, its side-located door still open. A small, bright explosion in the general vicinity of the lever—“He blew the mechanism so no one can stop us,” Max explained in response to her alarmed look—was instantly followed by Otto bolting after the now rapidly moving car. His intention was clearly to leap on board before it cleared the platform and launched itself out into the night.

  A group of soldiers burst out of the schloss, through the door they’d just exited onto the walkway that led to the staging area, weapons in hand.

  Loud shots rent the air as they fired at Otto, the cable car and everyone in it.

  “Stop! Stop the car!” they yelled, rushing toward the staging area.

  Otto dropped, rolled and came up firing a weapon of his own at the soldiers. Two were cut down immediately, toppling over the parapet with hoarse cries. The others—four—dropped to the ground, sheltering behind the low stone wall.

  “Otto! Come on,” Max shouted, depositing Emmy on the floor beside Lillian with more haste than care. They’d all hunkered down below the car’s metal wall when the gunfire had started. Looking back, she saw Otto glance toward them at Max’s shout, then race after the car, snapping off shots behind him as he ran.

  Pulling a pistol out of his pocket, using the car’s wall as a shield, Max provided cover fire.

  “Stop him! Stop him!” Firing back, the soldiers did a hunched-over run toward the staging area. Like the others, Genevieve was nearly knocked off her feet as the car reached the end of the platform and swung out into space, rising toward the first of the pylons. Otto ran toward the edge of the platform, but it was too late, the cable car was away, he would be left behind—

  The soldiers fired relentlessly.

  “Jump!” Max bellowed, snapping off more shots before thrusting the gun into his pocket. Otto did, pocketing his own weapon as he hurled himself after the car.

  He caught the edge, grabbing on with both hands, his weight tilting the car as his body hung unsupported over the terrifying emptiness below.

  Max leaped toward him.

  As the gunfire continued, Otto cried out, let go.

  Max snatched at him, caught his wrist, held on. The cable car climbed, lurching terrifyingly as it reached the pylon and progressed past it, then started its downward slide.

  “Give me your other hand.” Reaching down, Max tried to catch Otto’s flailing hand. When he didn’t succeed, he locked both hands around the one wrist he already held.

  Genevieve and Berthe both rushed to help. The cable car was descending now, moving fast, closely following the snow-covered terrain. A last jut of land remained before it would launch out over what looked, to Genevieve’s frightened eyes, like a thousand-meter-deep abyss. Terrified that Otto’s weight would pull Max over the side, Genevieve locked her arms around his hips and held on, hoping that adding her weight to his would make a difference. Berthe leaned over the side, trying to grab hold of any part of Otto that she could.

  The sound of shots being fired made Genevieve flinch and Berthe pull back.

  “They can’t hit us. We’re too far away now,” Max yelled.

  Looking back toward the staging area, Genevieve saw that two soldiers had somehow made it onto the structure’s tile roof. Clearly visible in the orange glow, they were pointing their weapons down. From the direction of the white flashes leaving their muzzles, they weren’t firing at the car but at—she gasped as she realized—the heart-stoppingly slender cable supporting the car.

  “They’re trying to shoot through the cable,” she cried.

  A steady stream of curses fell from Max’s lips. She could feel his muscles bunch as he strained to haul Otto up and into the car. In only a few meters, they would be launched out over the abyss.

  A thud, accompanied by the sudden rocking of the car, made Genevieve glance around. Her heart leaped with fear as she saw a soldier clinging to the other side of the car. He must have slid down to the spit of land, leaped up and grabbed hold as the car passed over him.

  She’d no more than registered his presence than she heard a metallic clink and he let go, disappearing from view.

  Blinking in incomprehension, she looked down at the floor of the car where the small metal object he’d dropped rolled.

  “Grenade!” Berthe shrieked. Genevieve had no time to even register what was happening before Berthe cast herself facedown onto the floor—and a tremendous boom lifted the car and her body.

  “Berthe!” Genevieve screamed.

  Knocked into violent motion just as it lurched out over the seemingly bottomless abyss, the car tilted terrifyingly. Everyone screamed.

  “Jesus Christ, the pincer grip’s come off the cable,” Otto yelled as the car came down again, then went back up the other way.

  “Hold on tight,” Max roared over his shoulder. Sick with fear, Genevieve held on to him for dear life as the car rocked up into a wild, out-of-control swing that gained momentum as it came down again. For a seemingly endless moment at the top of the next arc, the car lay almost on its side in the air. Genevieve’s heart shot into her throat as she found herself staring down into the sheer black drop below. If she had
n’t been clinging to Max, she thought she might have fallen out. Emmy and Lillian, wrapped up together, their nails scraping metal as they scrabbled for any handhold they could find, screamed hysterically.

  Berthe, still on her stomach, motionless since the explosion of the grenade, slid over the wall and into the void.

  “Berthe.” Torn from Genevieve’s throat, it was an agonized cry.

  For what felt like an endless moment, Genevieve watched her fall into the bottomless blackness like a bird shot out of the sky.

  Vivi. Pierre. The memories slammed into her. Her heart set up an endless shriek. She was paralyzed with horror, hurled back into the past.

  “Maman!” The voice was Emmy’s, raised in a terrified cry. Genevieve saw her sister, clinging to a roof strut, trying to keep their mother from sliding over the edge.

  “Maman!” The past shattered in an instant. Hurling herself toward them, Genevieve grabbed her mother and the roof strut and held on.

  The car swung the other way. She was flung to the floor with Emmy and Lillian. The three of them hung on, clinging together, and then when the car rocked up again, less wildly this time, a compulsive glance down into the vast emptiness below revealed nothing but dark.

  Berthe was gone.

  Heart pulsing with horror and grief, she said a silent prayer.

  Max managed to pull Otto inside. Both men dropped to the floor, Max panting and Otto chalk white even in the gloom. His eyes fluttered. His lips parted, trembled.

  The swinging slowed, but the car continued to rock erratically. It was tilted now, unstable, swaying with every gust of wind.

  “What just happened?” Emmy’s voice was tight with strain.

  “Is this thing going to fall?” Genevieve added. They were all breathing hard. She could feel her mother trembling.

  “No,” Max said. But she knew him well enough to know that beneath the strong denial he wasn’t quite so sure.