Dream Thief, page 16
It would not be pleasant, perhaps for the rest of his lifetime. However long that ended up being.
“I would like to take you into custody properly, Marie-Rose,” he continued. “Then ask you to open the portal that we have moved away from, that we might find a way back to Marseilles, or at least someplace outside of Russia where we might be safer while we sort things out.”
“You would trust me?” he asked, surprised.
“If I didn’t think you could be redeemed, you’d have never woken up,” he told her starkly. “You wouldn't even be the first beautiful woman I’d killed this year.”
Her shudder went deeper, but again, deadly honesty was called for. If she had nothing to live for, she struck him as the kind of woman who would do as much damage as she could before she went down.
His kind of woman.
All the greater the pity.
Today.
Tomorrow would dawn with new opportunities, for those willing to seek them.
And he hoped that she might.
“Derlyth,” Digby called suddenly. “Trouble.”
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Augustus turned his head and saw what it was the good Captain had spied.
Trouble, indeed.
Two vehicles, not cutting cross-country, but perhaps driving down an abandoned road that had once served this manor. Before someone had burned it down.
The lead was a staff car, though it currently had the top down and appeared to be crammed full of soldiers. The trail was a cargo truck. Augustus presumed more troops.
And for them to arrive here in such massive force suggested that someone had been listening to that portal. Or had felt it open like a bell.
Not local, or the demonling would have found them. Probably a garrison down in the nearest village sending a patrol.
And coming directly this way at high speed.
Worse, the fields, while overgrown, provided no cover at all save lying flat and hoping to be missed.
Impossible, if someone had already sent hounds.
Augustus could have escaped thus. It was the presence of three others that complicated things.
He turned back to Marie-Rose and pulled her roughly to her feet, then removed her blindfold.
She blinked rapidly and gasped, but that was as much the emotional whiplash of the last few minutes as the imminent arrival of armed men.
They had his knife and Digby’s gun between them. Augustus could already see rifles in hands, a few pointed his direction, though no shots had been fired as yet.
Augustus pointed while looking into her eyes.
“I would like to escape those men,” he said. “I would like your help in the doing, because if I opened that portal myself, it would put us in Moscow. I’d rather not, all things considered.”
“Will you release me later if I help?” she asked.
“No,” he replied bluntly. “Nor would I lie to you now then turn around and betray you later. I will see you brought to an English justice, but that is as a threat to the common peace rather than a mass murderer, because as far as I know, you have only threatened His Majesty’s family, not acted. A fine distinction, but not a lethal one.”
“Because you’ve killed beautiful women already this year?” she asked.
“That one was demon possessed,” he countered. “And had unleashed a giant, insectile beast into the sewers of London. These two helped me hunt it down and kill it, because again, it was a threat to innocent lives.”
“Paladin?” she asked.
“Good and evil exist, Marie-Rose,” he growled. “We may each only serve one master on that topic. I have made my choice. What will you seek?”
Further conversation was cut off as the yahoos in the staff car had stopped the vehicle and opened fire.
Random chaos ensued, as those men had greater enthusiasm than skill, but that would not remain the case for long. In every farming village there was going to be at least one lad who knew how to shoot a rifle accurately enough to kill wolves and hunt deer.
“Move,” he ordered, waving the others into motion.
Digby, bless his soul, raised the Webley and fired a single shot. And struck the radiator of the truck.
The driver jammed on his brakes as the front end was engulfed in a mist of steam.
Exactly as Captain Digby has intended.
Augustus drew Marie-Rose with him, as Lady Claudette was already moving towards the stone circle without awaiting an invitation. Digby brought up the rear as the soldiers over there began to boil out of the truck like angry ants, shooting somewhat haphazardly as yet.
An officer in the staff car began yelling orders for their capture. And to prevent them from getting to the stone.
Someone had warned the man what was here.
Augustus made a note to slip back into Russia at some point, perhaps via British India and then Tibet, to locate whatever metaphysician might have been present in Irkutsk this morning to have caused such troubles now.
The orichalcum knife came out. He stopped Marie-Rose in order to slip it along her bonds and cut them free. The blade wasn’t all that sharp, though it had a nice point, but he pushed a hint of power into it sufficient to cut an equal amount of metal.
It parted and fell. He bent to pick it up and heard a cry amidst all the gunshots
Augustus looked up and saw the blood already spreading on Marie-Rose’s chest. The surprise on her face, followed by the pain.
Then the knowledge.
“Go,” she said, blood already starting to come out of her mouth as she spoke.
She stumbled and he held her up. Digby fired a shot then caught her on the far side. They carried her to the center of the stone.
Marie-Rose looked at him with wonder in her eyes, then a smile as she made a gesture. He felt the portal open.
Around them, the fire had slackened, but it was picking up again.
Derlyth might have gone ahead and sold his soul right then, were the right demon to walk along with a Faustian bargain, but he’d never been all that good at the healing arts. And she looked like she was already dead, merely hanging on to flesh by a willpower he could only approach on his good days.
Lady Claudette vanished. Digby fired a third shot, or perhaps a fourth, it was hard to tell.
Marie-Rose collapsed and Augustus felt her spirit flee.
So close, so sudden, then gone.
He caught her, held her weight that seemed so diminished from merely a moment ago, then shoved Digby through the portal before stepping after him a moment later.
He would not leave Marie-Rose Guérin behind, to be buried in a pauper’s grave, but there was nothing more he could do for her now.
Chapter
Thirty-Four
Augustus studied the shadowed surroundings. Recognized them as that first place Marie-Rose had fled to from her hotel room, minutes or years ago. It was hard to tell time.
Lady Claudette was there. Digby as well. It was still night and felt like Marseilles. Smelled like it. The stars felt right.
Marie-Rose suddenly weighed more than he could hold, and Augustus went to his knees with her in his arms.
Had it only been a day ago that she’d walked into that cafe to dance with him? Felt like an eternity had passed. All those damned miles that had seen them to the far side of Russia and a meeting with her doom.
Already, she grew cold. Perhaps she had decided to surrender herself rather than facing time in a hospital before eventually ending in a cell?
He did not know.
Could never know at this point and that was the damnable part.
Already he missed her.
Augustus took a deep breath and tightened the reins around the rage that threatened to boil over like a nest of Mexican fire ants. Now was not the time for retribution.
It would come, but it would be done with the icy precision of premeditation when he struck.
“Can you…?” Lady Claudette began but stuttered to nothing as Augustus laid Marie-Rose flat on the ground.
“No,” he said simply.
Something in his voice, because she stepped close. Knelt next to him with arms around his shoulders, even though neither of them were particularly tactile people. She simply provided the anchor upon which his sanity rode out the storm.
Time passed, though he could not judge it.
Augustus Dexter Derlyth returned to himself from wherever that grief had carried him and drew a breath to the bottom of his dark, angry soul.
He rose, turning to Digby.
“Fire your remaining rounds in such a way that nobody can be harmed, but someone will hear the noise and summon the gendarme,” he instructed the big man.
Lady Claudette had risen with him, one arm still hooked around his, lest the slightest breeze carry him away.
Digby studied him for a moment, then nodded, firing two shots into the nearby slope of a dirt wall, where hopefully they would never be found. Nor would they likely poison the soil irrevocably, considering the material contents of those bullets.
Sure enough, lights came on in the nearby buildings.
“Someone call the police!” Augustus yelled in French at the top of his lungs.
A whistle answered, so perhaps at least one thing would go right this evening.
If that.
He turned to his companions.
“We were walking and got lost, blundering on our way to a club,” he instructed them. “A group of bandits attempted to rob us. In the fracas, one of them shot Marie-Rose and killed her. All of them fled. You did not get a good view upon which to base a description. There may have been four of them, you cannot be sure. Let me answer questions, because I will likely be twisting minds to have them believe the story I wish to tell. Questions?”
Both shook their heads.
Augustus nodded. He knelt and closed her eyes for the last time. It might have been possible to thread that needle. To save her. Creators of however many worlds knew that he had tried. Would have moved mountains.
And in the end, wasn’t that the only thing you could say?
I tried.
And he had.
Perhaps he had succeeded, because she could have dropped them in Moscow. Or anywhere else.
This was Marseilles. He knew the smell after this long.
Idly, Augustus wondered if there was someone he might notify in Paris of her death. Lady Claudette had confirmed the mother dead at a young age, and the father more recently. No siblings. Perhaps cousins. Or a husband? Lover?
Friends?
Marie-Rose Guérin was gone.
It was the end of her story.
Not his.
Chapter
Thirty-Five
Augustus sat across the desk and scowled at Clayborne. The summons had returned him to that same door near Whitehall. That same chap guarding the front. The same cast of ruffians nearby watching.
Augustus held his temper.
Barely.
Keeping it from fraying worse now was the focus of his intent.
Clayborne seemed to appreciate how thin the ice was, as he even smiled quietly and studied Augustus, the perfectly clean desk between them like ramparts in a siege.
“There have been certain questions raised, Derlyth,” the man began in a hesitant tone.
Augustus let his scowl speak volumes in the silence.
“In your report, you note that you killed her,” Clayborne continued. “However, in the itinerary, the person responsible appears to be a nameless Russian soldier, somewhere near Irkutsk where we had no previous record of a stepping circle scribed.”
“And?”
“Which is correct, Derlyth?”
“I killed her, Clayborne,” Augustus replied grimly. “Yes, someone else pulled the trigger. Yes, somewhere in Irkutsk is a metaphysician with whom I shall have cross words at some point. But I killed Marie-Rose. I brought her to that point. Had I not bent over in that moment to collect her bindings, that bullet may have passed through me before killing her. I might have even been close to convincing her to return to London with me, to be a prisoner for a while, while we worked on her rehabilitation. She is dead because of me. That is what you hired me for, isn’t it?”
Clayborne recoiled slightly at the vehemence in his voice. The vitriol. Augustus took a breath and worked on Mr. Yun’s mental exercises.
Focus, lest he burn this entire, damned house down. Possibly with him still in it.
Augustus wasn’t sure if the fire might not hurt him at this point. Clayborne hadn’t pushed hard enough for them to find out.
“We asked you to remove a potential threat to the Crown,” Clayborne enunciated carefully.
“She’s dead,” he snarled. “I’m not sure how much more safe I can make His Majesty’s family at this point. Perhaps there are a few rituals that might allow you to call her spirit back from whatever hell people like us end up in, and you can ask her, though I expect you would need to travel to southern Siberia to locate the blood you’d need for it. I can provide you the coordinates, if you so choose.”
More recoils. Man across the desk finally understanding that Augustus’s legendary self-control might be close to breaking. With nothing that might protect him from that storm. Any of them.
“You are certain that Marie-Rose Guérin is the infamous dream thief known as Jean-Marie Lachance?” Clayborne asked carefully.
“Images of Perrin have been shown to a few associates I was able to locate in Paris,” Augustus replied. “They confirm the likeness. And the power in the mask was sufficient to make the transformation seem realistic.”
“The mask was not listed in the items returned to the family when they claimed her body,” Clayborne offered, turning the conversation to perhaps the vector he had originally intended, from the look in the man’s eyes. “What became of it?”
“I unraveled it, then burned the cloth,” Augustus replied. “It cannot ever be used again, and nobody will be later tempted towards any manner of hooliganism with it. That was why I spent those weeks in Paris. Tracking down Marie-Rose and making sure that her secrets died with her. And that nobody else could ever be Jean-Marie Lachance again.”
“Then this situation is over?” Clayborne asked.
“This case, for lack of a better term, has been brought to conclusion, yes,” Augustus replied sourly. “At least as far as HM’s government need worry.”
“You are not satisfied?” Clayborne asked, somewhat surprised.
“I owe a few people midnight visits,” Augustus said in a low voice of dread and doom. “If someone perhaps leaves a clue behind that a dream thief named Lachance did the deed, contact me for confirmation before hiring some other hound, unless you wish that one dead in a ditch somewhere.”
“What are you going to do?” Clayborne asked carefully.
“Nothing in the British Isles,” Augustus snapped. “It will occur in France, most likely, though I have not confirmed that. Possibly Switzerland. And Siberia. Nothing Whitehall needs concern themselves with, other than to be extremely surprised when it happens and not press too deeply later for answers your soul and conscience might be better off not knowing. Am I clear on the topic?”
Clayborne studied him for a long moment, then nodded.
Augustus rose, picking up his hat from the door handle and his walking stick. He bowed sufficient to the man and saw himself out without another word.
He didn’t have many words in him at present that weren’t screams of unbridled rage.
Augustus walked into sunlight, headed west toward Hyde Park and Buckingham.
He found Lady Claudette and Digby at a coffee shop waiting. Patiently but with concern on their faces.
“It is done,” he offered as he sat.
Lady Claudette reached across the table and squeezed his hand. Digby nodded companionably.
“I’m just sorry I never got to meet her,” Lady Claudette offered. “Especially after we started interviewing friends in Paris. She seems to have been a most amazing woman.”
“Most amazing,” Augustus agreed.
“Could she have been redeemed?” Digby asked with a delicacy most would not expect from such a giant of a man.
“One hopes, my friend,” Augustus replied. “I think she was close, but there would have been inevitable backsliding. It is no longer a question worth pursuing, because she did right by us at that one moment when she could have fully embraced evil. For that, I shall thus remember her.”
“And the trips you have planned to Switzerland and the Low Countries?” Lady Claudette asked in a quiet voice.
“Whitehall has been warned that Lachance might yet strike again,” Augustus noted dryly.
“You spoke to her of the importance of protecting the innocent,” Digby spoke up, ever the paladin.
“The ones I have in mind are the rabblerousers, Captain,” Augustus said. “The ones that started the sorts of riots and altercations that saw men like Jean-Paul Guérin killed. Children born to privilege have little choice in the matter, same as children born to dockers or factory workers. They are all innocent, until they actively chose to embrace whatever evil they might find in life. The men I have in mind have made their decisions. They get to live with the consequences.”
Lady Claudette opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again. Youngest daughter of a duke. And one of the most fabulously wealthy ones at that.
She would never want.
The same could not be said for others. A thief who steals a loaf of bread when the alternative is starvation is not evil. If anything, the society that reduced a man to such choices is the evil one.
And Augustus had a deep understanding of the various kings of France named Louis. They had gotten what they deserved, as had so many of their ruling class. Both Cromwell and William and Mary had broken the ancient traditions in England and the Union. The monarchy might yet fade to nothingness, though Augustus supposed that it might take a second Great War to accomplish the end of the Empire itself. And all the other empires out there. Perhaps a World War, drawing in all corners and shattering the old ways. Such things seemed still in the offing.
