She took a casual step to the left. “I didn’t feel you following me from Braddy Square. You remain an expert at being invisible.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m going to pay dearly for sending that letter. The funny thing is, I meant it for the best. I’ve stumbled into something the Service needs to be warned about. And two old women are in danger. I was afraid of being killed and taking my knowledge with me across the River Styx.” She edged left again, luring his attention away from the door and whoever was coming here to meet her. Nicely done.
On the training field at the Coach House, they’d been matched for fighting sometimes. They’d signaled cues to each other for the next strike, the next feint, planning a game of attack and defense, keeping the Tuteurs happy with a showy fight, making sure neither of them hurt or got hurt.
They were studying each other now, giving no signals. No clues.
She shifted position along the wall and he matched her, step for step.
“So.” She retreated a little. Retreated again. “The Tuteurs put you into Meeks Street. Does the British Service know you’re a French spy?”
“I told them I’m Caché.” They’ve known for a couple of weeks now. No reason to tell her how long and well he’d lied to them.
“That’s unfortunate.” She caught her lower lip in her teeth. Hard white teeth making a dent in a soft lip. “I’d hoped to talk my way out of this encounter by threatening you with exposure.”
“Not that easy.” He took a step that ate into the space she’d made between them, driving her left again. Now the sun was in her eyes. His advantage.
“I could tell you how loyal I am to England. Would that convince you to walk out of here and stop making trouble for me?”
“I’ll let you sort out your various loyalties at Meeks Street.” He wished he didn’t have to take her there. But Vérité hadn’t been playing patty-cake for the last ten years. That ingenious mind had been busy. She’d been acquiring English codes, for one thing.
“My problem”—she gestured, inviting his attention to her problem—“is that you may not have become English. You could have remained loyal to France. A Caché from the Coach House, placed in the belly of the British Service, would be the most valuable agent France could have in England. You may be Police Secrète.”
“I’m not.”
“You’d deny it, of course, to lull me into a false sense of security.”
“It isn’t working, is it?”
They’d ended any pretense. Now they circled each other openly in the narrow confines of the aisle between the pews and wall.
Her voice remained calm, her step fluid. “If you’ve become English, you will arrest me. If you’re still French, we’ve mislaid our recognition signs and you must extinguish me ruthlessly and hide my body under one of these uncomfortable benches. Unless I kill you first. Or we might kill each other like a pair of cocks in an ill-managed cockfight.”
“Nobody’s going to kill anyone.” He made it an order.
They faced each other in the empty church, each of them judging the distance between them. It was the length of a single lunge with a knife or a blow with the fist. It was inescapable death from a fired pistol. This was a fighting distance that left no room for retreat or defense. Advantage would go to whoever was first to attack.
Neither of them attacked. Nothing simple was happening here. Nothing straightforward.
She stilled. The lines of her drab clothing hung quiet. The strength of her determination glowed vivid as fire inside her skin. She could have been a candle lit in this churchy gloom.
That was the way she always looked when she fought. Doubly alive. Daring the world to aim a blow in her direction. Dodging it quick as an animal when it came.
The child he’d known had been skinny as a whip, vibrating with energy, her arms and legs too long for her body, her features too big for her face. Now all the disparate, unsettled, unfinished parts of her had come together. Then, she’d been dangerous. Now she was deadly.
But her voice was full of laughter, same as always. “What do they call you at Meeks Street? Not Devoir. George? Clarence? Percival?”
“Thomas Paxton. Pax.”
“Pax.” She mumbled the syllable around her mouth, tasting it. “Latin for peace. It seems an odd name for a spy.”
“I’ve always thought so. I don’t want to fight you, Vérité.”
“We agree, then. And I’m Cami. I’ve been Cami for a long time now.”
A thread of recognition spun from the name “Cami.” He couldn’t grab hold of it. “Will you come with me to Meeks Street? Come quietly? I don’t want to hurt you, Cami.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, either.”
Slowly, she ventured a single small step into the space that lay between them. And then the next step. She kept her hands in his sight, held before her, unthreatening. She said, “I’m sad for the memory of an old friendship, lost forever. I owe you a tremendous debt from those days in the Coach House.” They were very close now. Hesitantly, as if her hand made the decision all by itself, she reached toward him. “I come from a family that never forgets debts. I wish . . .”
“There is no debt.”
She touched his cheek. It shocked like a spark from cat fur. She whispered, “I wish . . .”
An awareness of Vérité as a woman had been hovering in his muscles and blood since he’d walked into the church. He’d pushed it away. Ignored it. Denied it.
Now it crashed over him like a hot wave. Heat everywhere. On his skin. Pooled in his groin. Hunger for her became a massive tug, as if his heart were being pulled from his body.
He was used to mastering his emotions. Making himself cold. But he was angry when he snapped out and manacled her wrist and held it away so she wasn’t touching him.
He said, “No.” Just the one word dropped between them.
She stared at him with eyes like dark jewels. “I wish we hadn’t met again.”
“So do I.”
“I would have liked to remember the boy I knew once upon a time.”
Her hair fell in rings that gleamed like polished ebony. How would it feel to fit his fingers into those curls? They’d just fit.
She didn’t try to free herself. That was the worst of it. This close to him, where he could feel her breath on him, she didn’t fight to get away.
He said, “I haven’t become a fool . . . Cami.” Deliberately, he used the name of a stranger, one that didn’t belong to the girl he’d known. “Step back a bit.”
“You think I wish to seduce you?” A wry smile. “Even my great folly doesn’t stretch that—”
The door of the church creaked open. A man stood framed by the doorway, backed by a dazzle of daylight. A middle-aged man, taller than most, strong featured, with brown hair cropped short. He held himself very straight, very proud.
It can’t be. Before the name formed in his mind, before he recognized, before he believed, he felt coldly sick in his belly.
It was a trick of light. It was imagination. Madness. He whispered, “No.”
The bastard had died six years ago, burned with a dozen others in the house on rue Jacob. What was left of the charred body had been identified beyond doubt from old scars. Men came from all over Paris to see the monster thrown into the lime pits.
He said, “You’re dead.” Could he kill a nightmare? He let go of Vérité. Pulled his gun.
Her cloak swirled a sharp confusion. Metal glinted in her hand. She tossed a dark cloud in his face. Her fist slammed into his belly.
He gasped. And the air was red agony. Fire in his lungs. Hot knives in his eyes.
His gun clattered at his feet. He grabbed for Vérité and felt her slip beyond his reach. He staggered and fell to his knees on the cold stone.
He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see. He groped on the floor, trying to find his gun.
Blackness and pain, endlessly, everywhere. Worlds of it. No air anywhere. Damn. I’m going to die.