Storm of Shadows

by Christina Dodd

  “You came up from the most dire poverty, yet now you live with a bunch of people in a huge mansion in New York City. You apparently have no job, but you dress in designer clothes. You get people to give me texts when they should not. . . .” She hated to say it, but she was morally obliged to confront him. “I know what you do for a living!”

  “What?”

  “You make people an offer they can’t refuse.”

  Aaron’s mouth moved, but nothing came out.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” she demanded. “You threaten people so they give you what you want!”

  He appeared to be thinking before he spoke. “I do not threaten anyone, but I do what is necessary in the performance of my duty.”

  “I can’t believe it.” She stared at him accusingly. “You’re the Godfather!”

  The corner of his mouth twitched over and over, as if he were fighting profanity—or a smile. “Are you willing to study this text regardless of how I obtained it?”

  She shouldn’t consent to work with Aaron. She knew she shouldn’t. He was immoral, and if she collaborated with him, then by extension, she was immoral, too.

  But . . . she looked down at the carefully bound book with its yellowed paper, felt the desperation and worry that leeched from the increasingly hurried writing, and knew the intense curiosity of a researcher who held a precious manuscript within her hands. “Will you return it when I’m done?”

  “I promise I will.”

  “Give me a half hour, and I’ll tell you what we need to know.”

  Chapter 20

  Rosamund sat propped against the pillows on her bed and read the last page of the journal aloud. “ ‘Sacmis is gone, sold to the French king’s agent. May the curse upon us now lift.’ ”

  At those words, the hair rose on the back of Aaron’s neck, the warnings from Hamidallah and Mubeen echoed in his mind, and he knew they needed to get out of here.

  “The French king.” She absentmindedly rubbed the binding with one gloved finger. “I wonder which one?”

  “Louis the Sixteenth.” He snatched the book away from Rosamund, wrapping it in the cheesecloth and taking care not to touch it with his bare hands.

  “If you believe in the curse, I suppose that’s right.” Laughing quietly, she pulled off her gloves. “But you can hardly blame the French Revolution on the prophetess.”

  “I can blame his beheading on her. The royal family should have fled France. What prophecy did she give them that they stayed?”

  Rosamund grew serious. “You don’t like Sacmis very much, do you?”

  “I don’t have to believe in witches to know there are people in this world who enjoy making other people suffer.” He didn’t know what was making his instincts riot. Maybe Dr. Al-Ruwaili had realized his book was gone. Maybe their activities today in the medina had attracted the attention of the Casablanca police. Or maybe Sacmis was everything she claimed to be—a witch, a seer, and a hovering and constantly malicious spirit. And one of the Others? “I think a prophetess who produces only evil visions is dabbling in the occult.”

  “There’s no such thing as the occult,” she said automatically.

  “There’s no such thing as a prophetess, either, but we’re busting our butts chasing her. Now.” He took Rosamund’s hands. “I’m taking the text back. It’s two ten in the morning. Make sure you put the security bar on the door after I leave.”

  “I will, although if you can get in, I don’t really understand the point.” She rubbed her eyes like a tired, cranky child.

  “I’m a very special person.” That feeling of urgency increased. “Promise you won’t let anyone but me through that door.” When she would have answered smartly, he put his finger on her lips. “Promise.”

  She pushed his hand away. “I promise.”

  He kissed her, a swift, warm kiss that tasted of surprise on her part. “I wish I could linger, but this cursed thing has to go back.” He smoothed his fingers across her lips.

  For one moment, she looked at him as if he were a god of the Indian nations. Then her interest withered. “Any knothole in a tree,” she said.

  “What?” What did that mean?

  She lay down, pulled the covers up to her chin, and turned her back to him.

  He did not understand her.

  Hell, he didn’t understand women in general, but he didn’t understand Rosamund in particular, and no matter how warmly tempting she looked, her eyes heavy and her hair rumpled from sleep, right now he didn’t have time to figure her out.

  He checked his weapons, the knives and the pistol, then took the stairway down to the lobby, took a taxi to within five blocks of Hassan II Ain Chok University. There he stepped onto the lonely streets and assumed the dark mist of his other self. He wrapped himself around the book, shielding it from anyone who might be watching. Driven by that awareness of looming trouble, he hurried to the university. Slipping into the library, he returned the blighted book.

  The security alarm never went off. The cameras never caught sight of him. Dr. Al-Ruwaili would never be any the wiser.

  Next he hit the night-clad streets, intent on getting back to the hotel and Rosamund. It was three in the morning, no time to be wandering around a strange city alone. Yet he had no choice; a taxi was nowhere in sight.

  He was tired. After three city blocks, his gift failed him, returning him to normal form. He gathered his strength, once again became a mist in the night, and walked another block before his disguise wavered and collapsed. But surely by now he was far enough away from the scene of the crime.

  But the smell of danger grew stronger.

  Rosamund. Was Rosamund secure? He needed to return to Rosamund.

  Taking a breath, he hurried through a market filled with shuttered stalls, toward the heart of Casablanca where the lights still shone and he could catch a ride.

  He and Rosamund both felt certain they were on the track of the right prophecy. He, especially, noted the prophetess’s oblique references to the Chosen Ones and the Others, to a battle that would begin in the New World with an explosion and could be averted . . . somehow.

  But they hadn’t found the right text yet, so the trip to Casablanca had been both a success and a failure. When he got back to the hotel, he would have to e-mail the Chosen Ones and tell them. . . . Footsteps. He heard footsteps behind him. A man’s tread.

  His heart picked up speed. He picked up speed.

  The footsteps followed at his exact pace.

  He slowed.

  The footsteps slowed.

  He came to a corner, stopped, and turned.

  In the light of the stars, he saw a man—young, wiry, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He held a knife loosely in his right hand, and continued steadily toward Aaron.

  Aaron looked to the left.

  Two men in djellabas, their eyes fixed on him, walked toward him. Both were holding clubs.

  Not good, Aaron. Not good at all.

  He turned to walk the direction he had been going.

  Another man, in jeans and a T-shirt, moved toward him, fists clenched, smiling with the pleasure of the kill.

  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 bag
s 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

  “When 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.

  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.

  “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.”