Panting, the old man gulped and dropped to the floor, slowing for an instant before he landed on his feet. "Demon…neutralized." He slid Lukrasus into his scabbard and eyed Victoria, gaze lingering on Ibenus still in her hands. "What happened?" he asked, tuning toward Allan and Gerhard.
She lowered the weapon and ran to Allan's side. "Someone shot them."
Max limped over. He scowled as he saw Gerhard's body, then turned and knelt beside Allan. His skinned and bleeding hands moved down to the tourniquet then up over his body. "We need to get them out. Prep a saline bag. Samantha?"
"I'm here," she said.
"I need you to call Alex. Tell him what happened. He will make the necessary arrangements and call back."
Victoria rifled through the trauma kit and removed one of the plump saline pouches and a coil of clear tubing. "What next?"
Schmidt accepted them and began to work. "Give him Ibenus."
"What?" Victoria asked.
"The sword. Put it in his hand. It will help."
Puzzled, yet somehow understanding, Victoria placed Ibenus on Allan's chest and set his right hand on the handle. "Here you are." Make him better, baby.
"Good." Schmidt peeled the plastic wrapper from the tube and affixed it to the bag. He worked with the calm, purposeful demeanor of a man who had performed this many times before.
"What do you need?" Victoria asked.
"There is a folding stretcher in one of the lockers. Bring it here."
She hurried back to the plastic tubs and wrestled out a blue canvas bundle with rigid poles rolled inside. "What now?"
Schmidt inserted a hypodermic needle into Allan's arm. "Assemble it."
Heart thumping in her ears, Victoria unfolded the stretcher, making sure the poles were sturdy.
"Iben…" Allan mumbled.
"She's here." Schmidt patted Allan's hand. "Victoria, help me."
Carefully, they rolled Allan on his side then scooted him onto the stretcher. Victoria strapped Allan down, Ibenus against him, as Schmidt inspected Gerhard's body.
"Where is Umatri?" the old man asked.
"I haven't seen him."
Schmidt rolled Gerhard over, peering beneath him. "It's gone. As is his gun."
"They must have taken them." Victoria lifted one end of the stretcher.
"Who?"
"Whoever shot them. Are you going to help me?"
Schmidt cursed something under his breath. He warily looked back at the doorway behind him, then took one of the handles that Victoria was holding up. Together they dragged Allan's body to the gap leading to the tunnel.
"Malcolm," Schmidt said. "Site is compromised. Exit at one of the manholes we passed. Call when you reach the surface. Be on your guard."
"Roger."
They pulled Allan through the gap and up the steps. Schmidt did what he could, but Victoria performed most of the work. Allan's breaths remained shallow. He mumbled a few incoherent words as they pulled him up onto the second ledge but she couldn't make them out.
Almost there, baby.
Finally, they managed to get him up into the train tunnel and out of the stink of rotten meat. Sam had backed the van up to the wrought iron gate, the open rear door butted against the gap in the bars. She ran out to meet them as Victoria and Schmidt started down the tunnel.
"Did you get a hold of Alex?" Schmidt asked.
"I did. He'll call back when it's ready." Sam took the lower end of the stretcher from him and together she and Victoria began running toward the van.
Still holding the front poles, Victoria ducked through the gap and climbed up into the open back. "Carefully. Carefully." She guided Allan to the space Sam had already cleared open. The larger trauma case was out against the wall.
"I'll get the gate." Sam squeezed around the van and ran to the chain link fence sealing off the drive.
Victoria looked back at Schmidt hurriedly limping up behind them. "Let's go!"
"Not yet," he panted. Now, in the light, the old man's extensive scrapes and even a purpling bruise along one cheekbone appeared worse than she'd initially thought. Tiny bead of blood dotted a red cut along his jaw.
"We have to get him to hospital."
"And tell them what?" Schmidt growled, crawling up into the vehicle. "No, we wait for Alex's call."
"But—"
"No!" Schmidt's finger shot up. It was caked in blood and dust. "We wait for Alex. Now help me with him."
Max poured rubbing alcohol over his hands, washing away the grit and pulled on a pair of gloves. He'd removed a pair of angled medical shears when Sam yanked open the driver's door and climbed into the seat, phone pressed to her ear.
"All right." She tapped something into the dash-mounted GPS. "I have it," and she rattled off an address. "I'll call when we arrive." She hung up the phone and started the engine. "Let's go!"
Victoria braced Allan as the van jolted to a start. Gravel crunched and pelted the underside as the van took off.
Schmidt hunkered over Allan's mangled boot and began cutting it off. Blood poured out of it as if it were some living thing he was dissecting. The van's carpet greedily sopped it into a growing red stain. Finally, he peeled the boot open and Victoria gasped.
Splinters of bone crowned outward from a devastating hole through his ankle. Allan's wire binding had ceased most, but not all blood flow, as red streamed from the pulped mess.
"Can you save it?"
"We'll need to move the tourniquet closer," Schmidt said.
"Can you save his leg?" she asked, her voice high.
Tires squealed as the van took a hard left. Victoria caught the IV bag before it tumbled away. She held it up, making sure no kinks were in the tube.
"I do not know." He shook his head. "The doctor may be able to save it. I'm more concerned with his life."
The van took another hard turn.
"Samantha," Schmidt said, pausing his work to hold on. "Maintain the speed limit. We don't want police."
"Sorry."
"Where are we going?" Victoria asked.
The old man slit Allan's trousers up past his calf. The skin was terribly pale. "Alex made arrangements with someone who can help."
"Who?"
"Someone interested in antiques and with access to doctors." Schmidt reached into the kit and removed a bright blue tourniquet with a knurled metal rod. He frowned at the wound and looked up at Victoria, his pale eyes mournfully sincere. "You killed that demon with Ibenus, didn't you?"
"I had to."
He nodded, his gaze distant as if she'd confessed an entirely different question. "Hold the sword to him. Talk to him. Let him know she still loves him."
"But—"
"Do it! If you want to save his life. Let him know that he isn't alone now."
Understanding, Victoria held Allan's hand against Ibenus' grip. She pressed her cheek against his forehead and closed her eyes. Instantly, that strange sensation came to the surface and she felt herself being reknitted. It hadn't stopped since she'd last felt it, but had grown, crystallized into something far more intricate. Allan was still there, part of him now part of her. But that other entity was something greater than them both. Ancient. Powerful. Love.
"I'm here, Allan. I'm here with you."
Her essence seemed to flow and roll in an intoxicating weightlessness. She loved them both, Allan and Ibenus. And while she loved him more than she thought anyone could, her welling emotion toward the sword was beyond her comprehension. It was as a mother to her child, a child to her mother, and the special bond of lovers. This was no sword. It truly was an angel, an angel that loved her, loved them both.
"Ibenus is with us." She wasn't entirely sure if she spoke the words aloud. "She's here."
She. It seemed a strange word for the sword, for the angel. The way Victoria felt its arms around her, through her, there was nothing feminine to that touch. Ibenus was a he.
Allan gave a shivering gasp.<
br />
Victoria opened her eyes to see him staring back but his eyes were focused somewhere far away.
"Ibenus," he breathed, not moving his lips. He met her gaze for the briefest instant, then his eyes closed.
"Allan?" She squeezed his hand. "Baby?"
No response.
His forehead glistened with moisture. Victoria felt her cheeks and realized she was crying.
"Keep holding him." Schmidt said. "You are doing fine."
Closing her eyes, she pressed herself again against Allan's wet face. "We're here with you."
The van made a sudden shift, a lane change, and a car horn blared outside. Ignoring Schmidt's orders for Sam to drive safely, Victoria lost herself again in the sensation that she, Allan, and Ibenus were one.
I'm here, baby.
A voice responded in her mind. I hear you.
She clutched him tighter. Allan, I love you. There was no response but she could feel him.
"We're here!" Sam called.
The van slowed and stopped. The electric whine of the driver's side window and a stranger asked something in French.
"Monsieur Daigneau?" Sam asked.
"You Max?"
"I am Max," Schmidt said.
Victoria looked up to see a narrow-faced man peering over Samantha's shoulder.
His gaze casually scanned the van, passing over her, pausing on Allan, then locked on Max. "Good." He withdrew from the window. "Back it up to the door."
Sam pulled the van forward, then turned and reversed the vehicle carefully back. It creaked, then popped gently up a curb before slowing to a stop.
Low, hurried voices sounded outside. Victoria licked her lips, about to ask what was going on, then the rear door clicked and swung open.
The lean-faced man stood beside a stocky guy with a neatly trimmed two-day beard that made the dimple in his chin look like a black dot. Behind them a dark-skinned man wrestled a long cardboard box that might have once carried a refrigerator out from the open door of a building.
Beardy's eyes moved to Schmidt's holster, sword, and then to Ibenus. He lifted the front of his shirt just enough to show the black of a pistol in his waistband. "No weapons."
Schmidt nodded. "Of course."
The man returned the nod, lowered his shirt, then motioned to the guy with the box. Taking one end, he climbed inside, pushing past Schmidt. One side of the box was open, the top and bottom ends were partially cut out and reinforced on the inside with black tape. He motioned Victoria to move and, once she'd leaned away, taking Ibenus with her, the man set the box over Allan, completely covering him.
"Un. Deux. Trois," Beardy said, then he and the dark-skinned man, who looked to be Greek, lifted the stretcher and carried Allan out, across the short gap to the door and into the building.
Victoria started after them, but the lean-faced man stepped in her way. "No weapons."
Clenching her teeth, Victoria looked down at Ibenus.
"She'll be safe," Schmidt said, seeming to read her mind. "Sam will take care of the swords."
She didn't want to leave Ibenus…but Allan.
"She'll be safe." Schmidt repeated as he pulled off the shoulder rig. "Go." Velcro scritched as he peeled open his bulletproof vest.
Drawing a breath, Victoria set Ibenus behind her, away from this stranger, and hurried out after Allan. She followed them up a flight of wooden stairs and down a short hall lined with frosted glass doors reminiscent of an old-style office building. The door at the end swung open to reveal a small room with plastic draped across the windows and covering the floor. At its center, a woman in a paper surgeon's mask stood beside a long table hidden beneath a sea green cloth. An array of gleaming tools filled a rolling tray behind her along with several electronic devices.
Snapping a gesture to the table, the woman barked something in French.
A young man in a rubber apron strode out from a bathroom, pulling on a pair of latex gloves.
The men set Allan on to the table and pulled away the box.
The woman shooed them back, then looked up at Victoria. "Qui es-tu?"
"I'm with him."
"Then shut the door and stay out of the way."
Chapter Seventeen
Parisians prided themselves on their summer climate, considering air-conditioning a frivolous and pointless creation meant for those living elsewhere. On those rare days that temperatures soared above thirty degrees celcius, the solution was to simply open a window. Unfortunately for Victoria, the windows of Daigneau's old office building were currently shut and hidden beneath drawn shades or draped plastic. Safe from prying eyes, yet sticky with the trapped heat.
She dabbed her neck as Malcolm and Chaya pored over a tunnel map. Sam sat at her computer, loading the footage from memory cards of the freshly retrieved repeater cameras and synching it with the audio. The smell of sweat, antibiotic cleaners, and coffee filled the empty four-room suite. The coffee pot had been working non-stop since their arrival.
Their single fan was humming away in Allan's room directly behind her. She desperately wanted to go back in there. What if he awoke to find himself alone in an unfamiliar room, a strange bed, tubes in his arms, and a plaster cast capping the stump where his left foot used to be? No. She had to be there when he awoke. She needed to console him, let him know that nothing had changed between them, and confess her sins. She was to blame for all of this.
She should have told him when she realized she was in love. But no, she led them straight into TommyD's trap at the apartments. Now Luc was in hiding, Gerhard dead, the man she loved was maimed, and to top it off, Ibenus had chosen her as his new protector.
What little sleep she'd managed had been sporadic, plagued by nightmares and paranoia that Allan had woken afraid and alone. The only calm she'd found was in cleaning Ibenus. It was almost meditative, carefully brushing the dust and dried blood. She felt like a curator restoring a masterpiece painting, each removed fleck revealing another facet of hidden beauty. Once finished, and she could see her golden brown reflection in the perfectly polished bronze, she did it again.
Allan had tried to verbalize what a weapon bond meant but she hadn't believed it. Naively, she'd thought of it the way some people might obsess over a treasured heirloom or automobile, valuable, but most certainly inanimate. But there was no possible way that Allan, or anyone, could articulate the sheer magnitude of what it truly was. She understood now and, in that, the gravity of Allan's loss was that much more tragic. He'd lost more than a limb. Losing Ibenus… She had to be there when he awoke. She squeezed the sword resting across her lap. Ibenus had to be there when his eyes opened.
Master Schmidt and Orlovski had left immediately after Allan's surgery to take Gerhard's body back to Belgium. Malcolm's order was that no one could be near Allan without a holy weapon, and leaving Ibenus with him while he was unconscious was out of the question. A demon had bitten him and, even though Victoria had slain it, Allan was to be treated cautiously until they could prove he wasn't possessed.
Monsieur Daigneau, their unseen host that Master Turgen had bribed with a set of eighteenth century porcelain, had given them full run of the building until Allan was ready to leave. Doctor Laroux, the woman who had sawed off Allan's foot, was their only visitor. The woman's perpetual scowl could have been carved in stone. Whatever circumstances led her to being the personal physician to a Paris mobster had evidently left her wearing that eternal frown like a hideous scar. She came by every few hours to check on her patient and was never in the room without an escort armed with a holy weapon. The doctor never asked about the swords. Not asking questions probably came with the job.
"All right." Sam finger-massaged her forehead as she looked up with tired, dark-rimmed eyes. She rotated the laptop around so the screen faced the room. "It's ready."
Malcolm and Chaya quit their work and turned, neither of them sitting. Not willing to leave earshot of Allan's room, Victoria straightened for a bett
er view.
Sam slid the cursor past footage of the knights setting up the first camera in the Ready Room. "Since we set up the cameras as motion controlled, it's real easy to mark when anything happened." The first camera went dark. Shortly after another window appeared, playing footage of the second camera being set up. Then the third, followed by the fourth, where Allan and Malcolm's teams split up. The screen was now divided into four quadrants.
"Okay," Sam said. "Just after fourteen hundred hours was the first radio silence. Ten minutes later, camera one flipped on." She clicked the slide bar and green appeared in the first quadrant. She clicked it again, expanding it until it filled the screen. A man in night vision goggles stood in the door. Despite his masked eyes, the familiar light-colored beard and narrow cheeks only verified what Victoria had already guessed.
"TommyD," she growled.
Malcolm nodded quietly, his jaw tight.
Chaya pointed at the screen. "There. Radio jammer at his belt."
They'd already guessed that, too. Once a jammer was in range of one repeater, the repeater merely boosted the jammed signal, creating a chain reaction for every radio on the network.
TommyD walked into the room, the eyestalk tubes of his goggles tracking around. He stepped off screen to where the lockers were, then returned, scanned the room again, and left through the north entrance he'd come from and down the east passage. A few minutes later, Victoria jumped as Schmidt's voice came through the speakers, breaking the silence.
"…should be there."
"So after Mal swaps camera one," Sam continued, fast forwarding, "we have some time before the next silence. Shortly after that, he comes back into the staging area."
As she said it, camera one came back on and TommyD wandered past. Two minutes after leaving the frame, the camera flipped off.
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