by Jess Faraday
The betrayal hit Maria like a punch. She stared, speechless, as the chief inspector stepped over the wreckage, surveying the room like a conqueror. He glanced at Sophie, then, apparently satisfied, gestured her to the side with his pistol. Maria held her breath as his eyes passed over her, noting her presence as if she were another object in a newly acquired inventory. When he spoke, his tone held a note of disappointment.
“We meet again, Doctor. How I wish I had the time to finish what I started when you first came to our fair city.” He shrugged. “Ah, well, as the English say, ‘if A’s and An’s were pots and pans—’”
Maria’s heart stopped when Vautrin’s foul gaze landed on the inspector. Corbeau met his eyes and held them. The mutual animosity passing between them was palpable in the close atmosphere of the basement room. A sharp smile played around the chief inspector’s mouth. Maria balled her hands into fists as he chuckled beneath his breath, no doubt planning how he would dispose of Corbeau. Vautrin turned back to Sophie.
“Where is she? Where is the original Prophet?”
Maria’s fingers itched for the wrench in her pocket. But while Vautrin had been assessing the situation, three of his men had trickled into the room behind him. Two, like Vautrin, were armed. The third was carrying a metal container with a pump and nozzle, looking around the room with purpose. Not wanting to attract attention to the only weapon she was likely to get, Maria wiped her palms on her skirt, taking comfort from the cool metal concealed within its folds.
Then, slowly, incrementally, the air began to vibrate around them. The vibrations grew stronger, thrumming against Maria’s skin. The jars, broken glass, and bits of metal on the workbench began to rattle in sympathy. Vautrin looked panicked at first. Then, when Hermine gave a choked gasp, he turned to her, an unpleasant mixture of triumph and cruelty creeping over his face. “Well, Inspector,” he said, turning back to Corbeau. “I see you’ve found your missing heiress. And her kidnapper, too. Won’t your master Javert be proud of you?”
Heat rushed to Maria’s face. She felt another stab of betrayal, and inexplicable disappointment. Corbeau had been working for Javert all along. She had said she knew Maria had committed no crime, but Sophie had betrayed Hermine so easily. Would Corbeau betray her to Javert, if they managed to escape Vautrin?
“It’s too bad your honors will all be posthumous.” The man with the metal canister pointed the nozzle at a pile of rags and gave the pump-handle a push. The smell of kerosene cut through the air, acrid and sharp. Maria clutched the wrench through the fabric of her dress as the man continued around the room, dousing wood and fabric in the flammable oil. “The newspapers will tell of an unfortunate fire that took three lives: the tragic Madame Boucher, her villainous Gypsy captor, and the brave Sûreté agent who tried to save her. Are you getting this, Mademoiselle Martin? The story will be yours, exclusively.”
“Yes, Great Prophet.”
Maria looked over at the inspector. Corbeau looked pained, and not just from her injury. She felt Sophie’s betrayal as keenly as any of them. Hermine stirred in the corner. When she spoke, her voice was a disbelieving moan.
“Why?”
Vautrin’s man rewarded her with a splash of oil. Maria winced as Hermine sputtered and swiped at her face with her one good hand. Where was Joseph, Maria suddenly wondered. She didn’t dare hope he had escaped the building, but at least he’d escaped Vautrin’s attention. She allowed a brief spark of hope to dance in her mind, while she let her fingers dance over the wrench in her pocket.
*
“It’s to your master Javert that we all owe this fortuitous meeting. Go upstairs and watch the others,” he said to the man blocking the door. “This won’t take long.” He returned his attention to Madame Boucher. As he spoke, he gestured expansively with the pistol. “The prefect told me your organization was developing some weapon. That didn’t interest me, at least not at first. I saw opportunity—an opportunity that had eluded me to that point. I realize now that before then, the time simply wasn’t right. I had been trying to make things happen, when I should have been waiting for them to fall into place.
“When I heard Madame Boucher speak, I knew that the Lord was finally—finally—giving me the chance to fulfill the Church’s highest calling.”
“Caring for the vulnerable?” Corbeau asked. Speaking hurt. Vautrin regarded her with hatred, but then smiled maliciously.
“No, Inspector. Rooting out demons and the sinners who harbor them.” He turned to Madame Boucher. “At first I really did think you were a prophet. The way you spoke. Such passion. Such clarity of vision. You moved people. But you were weak. It was only a matter of time before your own demons overtook you. The others saw it too—at least after I pointed it out.”
“That wasn’t the goal,” Hermine said. “The goal was to help people—”
“Same thing, different words. You had your chance to do it your way, and you failed. Now your followers are my followers, and together, with the might of the King, the Church, and the police behind us, we’ll finish what the Inquisition started. But first.” His head swiveled toward Dr. Kalderash. Despite the heat that radiated from her wound, the gesture made Corbeau’s blood run cold. She wanted to jump up, to kick that vile expression off his face, or at least to put herself between them. “Where is the Left Hand of Justice?”
“It’s not here.”
“Liar.” He raised the pistol. “I know she brought you here to finish it.”
Kalderash’s mechanical Eye clicked and whirred—probably, Corbeau thought, as she scrambled for a plausible deception. Vautrin knew Hermine had brought the inventor there to work on the Arm. But he didn’t know Corbeau had the gossamer sheet of woven metal in her bag. Corbeau still wasn’t certain what the mesh did. But it was the secret—of this she was sure. Without it, the Left Hand of Justice wouldn’t function.
“What would you do with it?” Corbeau asked. Had to keep him talking while she figured out what to do. But what could she do, really? Just speaking shot waves of pain through her body. Kalderash had bound her shoulder so tightly her fingers had gone numb. Her knees trembled, but Vautrin didn’t seem to notice.
“Unfortunately, you won’t be around to witness that. Oh, it would have been sweet to finish you off with my bare hands.” He shrugged regretfully. “If only there were time.” He turned the gun back on Kalderash. The man with the kerosene canister mumbled under his breath. He must have finished his task. The fumes were thick in the stale basement air. Corbeau’s eyes and throat burned. Vautrin gave a sharp nod. “Gentlemen?”
Taking their cue, the other two men began to move toward the door. Vautrin tucked the pistol into his waistband, then reached into his coat pocket. As he brought out his tinderbox, he met Corbeau’s eyes.
“Such a shame you weren’t ultimately able to save the heiress, Inspector. You made a valiant attempt. But the fire consumed her so suddenly.”
He raised his hand to strike the flint. Then there came a sick, wet crunch. For a moment, Vautrin hung in the air, a surprised expression on his face. He crumpled to the ground, dark blood pooling around his shattered skull.
Sophie stood behind him, the metal bar in her hand. For a moment, she blinked at Corbeau, as if she had no idea how she’d found herself there. “I couldn’t let him hurt Hermine.” She turned to Madame Boucher. “Even if…even if you don’t want me anymore…I just couldn’t…”
Corbeau nodded, but Sophie wasn’t looking at her anymore. Corbeau watched as she went to Hermine’s side. A movement caught her eye.
“Soph!”
One of Vautrin’s men had found his way back inside. Seeing Vautrin, he swung his canister down toward Sophie’s head. Suddenly Joseph sprang from beneath a pile of canvas, flinging Corbeau’s phial of iron filings into the man’s face—just as she’d told him to. Then he flung a handful of screws and nuts onto the floor in his path. The man dropped the canister and fell to the ground, clawing at his eyes. Sophie rolled away, shielding Hermine with
her body.
“Where’s the other—” The words died in Corbeau’s throat as she saw the third man go for the tinderbox. Instinctively, she lunged toward him—a costly mistake. Her legs buckled beneath her and she pitched forward. As she hit the floor—the impact practically blinding her with pain—something rough brushed against her face. Dr. Kalderash streaked across the room—where had she been standing?—and brought the man down with one swift blow from her wrench. “Where’d you get that?”
Kalderash looked down at Corbeau with a mixture of self-consciousness and pride, and shrugged. “I’ve been in this situation before. More often than you’d care to know.”
The pain in her arm had gone from an explosive burn to a heavy numbness that wrapped her body and squeezed the breath from her chest. Gasping, Corbeau rested her cheek against the dirt floor. The dizzying smells of kerosene, packed earth, and blood filled her nostrils. Her pulse pounded in her ears. A scuffle caught her attention, and she turned her head. Through the spots dancing in front of her eyes, she made out a figure in the doorway.
“Inspector!” Javert sounded entirely too cheerful for the situation he was stepping into—or the prone bodies he was stepping over. “Lying down on the job? Well, it seems you have the situation under control, at any rate.” Corbeau groaned. “Come on, then, pick yourself up. We’ve got a long night ahead of us if we’re going to come up with a report that explains all this.”
*
“You could have shown up sooner,” Corbeau mumbled, as two of Javert’s strapping men carried her out on a stretcher toward his waiting fiacre. For the first time in months, the stars were poking holes through the black cloth of the sky. The situation was a tangled mess, but she had no doubt Javert would weave a tidy story and deliver it on a silver platter to His Majesty before the doctors had even finished stitching her up.
“And rob you of the case that will make your career?” Javert smiled. “Does it hurt as much as it looks?”
Corbeau made a noncommittal noise. Joseph had quietly slipped her a few tablets from her bag. They hadn’t done much to dull the pain, but they had made her care less about it. The cold night air was bracing.
“You’re lucky Vautrin picked tonight to betray Madame Boucher, or we wouldn’t have known to come at all.”
Through the gauzy veil of pain and drugs, she watched others attend to Madame Boucher and Sophie.
“Madame is injured.”
“It’s a broken arm, Inspector. She’ll mend.”
Physically, probably. But then what? Sophie would land on her feet. She always did. But Madame? Would she rebuild her organization and continue her work in the slums? Would she return to her well-appointed house and retire behind the curtains of privilege? Would she and Sophie come back together, their union made stronger by having survived this ordeal? Or would she remember how Sophie had betrayed her at the last moment? Corbeau hoped it would be the former, for both of their sakes, but she’d seen too much in her life to put a lot of stock in hope.
They stopped to watch as Javert’s men helped Madame Boucher to a police carriage. Javert’s own stood behind it in its unblemished splendor. As the men bearing her lifted her on the count of three, Corbeau asked, “What about—”
“Mademoiselle Fournier and Monsieur Bertrand?” He gestured with his chin toward where they were standing, speaking to a pair of officers that Corbeau vaguely recognized. “Unharmed. Apparently Madame Boucher was hiding them from Vautrin. He’s dead, by the way. Any idea how that happened?”
“None.” Corbeau closed her eyes. The cold November wind blew across her face. She shivered, but the wind felt good against her hot, hot skin. Ugly Jacques would be off her back and probably more kindly disposed, should she need his services in the future. She hoped she wouldn’t. “But what about Dr. Kalderash?”
“Dr. Kalderash?” Javert said, as if he’d never heard the name before. He made an exaggerated frown and rubbed his chin. “Was she there?”
Corbeau cracked an eye open. “You didn’t see her?”
Javert turned his frown to her. She searched his face, but the mask was as impenetrable as ever. “I’m not saying that she wasn’t there, Inspector. I’m saying that I didn’t see her. When I came in, the only thing I could see was that you had rescued Madame Boucher and several others, at great cost to yourself. There will definitely be a commendation in it for you. But as for Dr. Kalderash…” He shrugged.
Corbeau closed her eyes and exhaled heavily. He refused to elaborate, but his answer would have to do for now. Javert had been standing in the doorway. There was no way he could have failed to see Dr. Kalderash, and no way she could have escaped without his knowledge.
He had let her go.
Javert’s men slid her inside the carriage, onto the floor, which had been thoughtfully laid with a blanket. It was scratchy and thin, and she could feel the floorboards through it, but she was grateful for the thought nonetheless.
“One last thing, Inspector,” Javert said. He was looking down from the doorway of the carriage, his face upside down above Corbeau’s. “I don’t suppose you found a working prototype?”
“No.”
He regarded her for a moment, as if trying to decide whether to probe further. Then he smiled. “I didn’t think so. My men searched her rooms thoroughly but didn’t uncover either the plans or the conductive fabric. Yes, conductive,” he responded before she could ask the question. “The metal forms an interface between the device’s trigger mechanisms and the wearer’s spiritual energy field—the same energy that, in high concentration, causes such trouble for people like poor Madame Boucher. The Left Hand of Justice would have been the first weapon controlled entirely by the wearer’s intention. Pity. Perhaps we can discuss it further when you’re feeling more yourself.”
I knew it, Corbeau thought. She laughed weakly. Javert’s frown deepened.
“With all due respect, Monsieur,” she heard Joseph say from his dark corner of the carriage, “I think the inspector’s been through enough for today.”
Javert turned his scowl toward the boy. But then he nodded. “I agree. We’ll discuss this later, Inspector. Driver, to the Hôtel-Dieu.”
The door clicked carefully shut above her head. She heard the prefect’s boots step backward on the uneven pavement. She would really have to have a look at the canvas sleeve Dr. Kalderash had used to bind her shoulder. She looked forward to testing the very functional-looking mechanisms attached to it with the gossamer woven metal in her shoulder bag. Corbeau laughed again, but the pills had rendered the sound fuzzy and weak. Joseph looked down with concern. Corbeau winked.
Above them, the driver snapped his whip above the horses’ heads. With a lurch, the carriage began to roll.
Epilogue
By February, Paris had begun to stir beneath its thick, gray blankets of snow and cloud. The wind had lost its bite, and a festive feeling was in the air, as the entire city looked forward to the approach of spring.
It had been a long winter for Corbeau. Recovery had been arduous, painful, and incomplete. But halfway between the bitter end of January and the first rays of the March sun, her day of decision arrived. Wrapping herself tightly in her coat and scarf, she locked her apartment tight, scraped together a few sous, and indulged in a cab ride to the Conciergerie.
The building looked as imposing as ever beneath its cover of snow—snow now hard from melting and refreezing over the course of each day, rather than soft, fresh fall. Icicles hung at intervals along the roof, their sides diminished, slick, and dripping in the midmorning sun. As she approached the entrance, she walked gingerly. The packed snow had melted the day before, and the pavement was treacherous with ice.
“Inspector!” Laveau called as he recognized her. He seemed happy to see her, and relieved. His face fell, though, when he registered her careful gait and her arm still bound to her side rather than filling the left sleeve of her coat. “Not quite back in fighting form yet?”
“It’ll take time. You heard w
hat happened.”
“All of Paris heard what happened. A lot of people think you’re dead.”
“Only my enemies, I hope. How’s the family?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Fed. Housed. Still, I’d give my firstborn to be back chasing ghosts. Not that I’m complaining,” he added, glancing around warily. “Listen, Inspector, I’d invite you inside where it’s warm, but we’re on tight security after—”
“It’s all right, Laveau.” Prefect Javert materialized beside the young man. He must have caught sight of her through a window and come outside to meet her, though she hadn’t heard or seen his approach. He wasn’t wearing a coat, and as fine as his jacket was, it was no match for the chill. He blew on his hands and rubbed them together. “Inspector, I’ve been expecting you for some weeks, now. Won’t you come inside?”
“Thank you.”
She followed Javert through the arched entryway. This time the guard didn’t even look up from his scandal sheet when she passed by. They continued into the interior of the building, their boot-steps echoing off the stone walls and high, buttressed ceilings, winding through a series of ever-narrower passages until Corbeau wouldn’t have been able to find her way out without a trail of bread crumbs. At last they came to a small door at the end of a long, dim hallway. Javert took out a key and unlocked the door.
His office at the Conciergerie looked much the same as the one at his home, minus the statues and expensive wine. It was tidy. Priestly. The walls not lined with bookshelves were papered with mounted maps annotated in his neat hand and stuck with pins and ribbons. The furniture was plain but well made. A small Persian carpet lay beneath the desk and chairs, the only visible concession to comfort. Corbeau doubted his Majesty had issued the rug.
“Welcome back, Inspector. Please sit.”
Corbeau glanced at the dark wood chair. “I’ll stand. This won’t take long.”