Hard Breaker Page 17

  Rose led the way toward the Place du Carrousel, then down the central path toward the Avenue du Général Lemonnier. A trickle of other figures moved in the same direction, and the reason became clear when Ivy spotted signs for parking in that direction.

  The trio did not chat as they reached the entrance to the underground garage. No matter the uneasy truce among them, no one could call them friends, or even casual acquaintances. Walking beside Ivy, Baen tensed and went on high alert as they entered the confined space. “Where are we going?”

  “I said to my car,” Rose replied calmly, pulling a ring of keys from her coat pocket. “Don’t worry, I am only on the second level. We will be out of here quickly.”

  Baen’s grunt indicated he still didn’t like having to follow this stranger into what amounted to an enormous modern dungeon. He really didn’t want to cut their contact much slack.

  Rose rolled her eyes. “If you still do not trust me, Guardian, you and your Warden may wait by the exit gate, but you will have to be quick to enter my vehicle. The parking hosts here dislike anyone who slows down their queues.”

  He nodded stiffly. “I would prefer that.”

  “Then look for a silver Renault with myself behind the wheel.” She drew something from her pocket and held it out to him. “You should wear this.”

  Ivy saw a chain of silver coiled beside a small oval amulet with an engraved picture of some sort. It looked like the kind of saint’s medallion many Catholics wore, like a Saint Christopher’s medal for protection of travelers. Baen, she noticed, eyed it suspiciously.

  “What is that?”

  Rose heaved a sigh. “It is a talisman. It carries a spell to conceal magic from curious eyes. I wear it whenever I have to move among large crowds in case the nocturnis lurk among them. However, at the moment, your power serves as a larger beacon than mine. A Guardian is something even the lowliest pawn of the Order could hardly miss, unless you take this to help you blend in. I know you do not trust me, Guardian, but you can see this is made of pure silver. No one corrupt enough to intend you real harm would allow it anywhere near her bare skin. Now, take it.”

  Baen reluctantly let her drop the amulet in his hand, but he didn’t put it on. Seeming satisfied, Rose turned on her heel. “I will return in a moment. Remember, a silver Renault Clio.”

  Ivy watched the woman descend into the garage and urged Baen to walk toward the ramp where cars exited from the parking area. When they found a spot to wait, she looked up at his dark expression and nudged him. “You really should relax,” she said. “I think she seems fine. I don’t get any of the icky vibes off her I usually do around the nocturnis. What’s making you so suspicious?”

  He didn’t reply, just shook his head and kept his eyes on their surroundings. Quite the conversationalist he was today. Practically the only times he had spoken to her since she woke up to find him already up and dressed and pacing their small hotel room had been to issue orders or to offer the briefest possible replies to her questions. If she had thought their encounters the night before had meant something to him, she’d have been feeling seriously hurt by now.

  Good thing she knew better. If he had already forgotten about the hottest sex in the history of everything, then they were on the same page. She certainly wasn’t thinking about it.

  No, sir. Not even a little.

  And that was a good thing, because not thinking about sex or Baen or sex with Baen meant that she wasn’t at all taken by surprise when a tiny silver bullet of a car peeled around the last corner before the parking garage’s exit and plowed straight through the gate arm blocking the driveway. The passenger door of the vehicle popped open and Rose appeared in the gap leaning over and shouting frantically.

  “Entrez! Vite! Vite! Ils nous ont trouvés!”

  Even Ivy understood that much. Get in! Quick! Hurry! They’ve found us!

  She didn’t give Baen time to protest or think up a reason why this was a trap, she flew to the car, pushed the passenger seat forward and squeezed herself into the hatchback’s tiny backseat. “Come on! Let’s go!”

  Cursing in a dead language, Baen followed, clearly not pleased but just as clearly unwilling to let Ivy go anywhere without him.

  To be honest, she wasn’t entirely certain how he managed to shoehorn himself into the front passenger seat of the minuscule subcompact that Rose drove, but as soon as he had both feet inside, the Frenchwoman punched the gas and sent the car careening onto the busy street. Baen managed to haul the door shut and brace his hand against the dash as an alarm sounded behind them and a man in a rumpled uniform jumped out of the attendant’s box waving his arms, shouting for them to stop, and yelling for the police. Rose didn’t even glance backward.

  But Ivy did. She turned sideways along the backseat to see a larger, dark-colored SUV follow them out of the garage at somewhere approaching the speed of light. At least, that’s what it seemed like, especially as she found herself tossed back and forth across the rear of the car.

  Lord have mercy, but Rose Houbranche drove through the busy streets of Paris like she was trying to qualify for Nascar. Ivy fumbled around for a seat belt and managed to strap herself in just in time to get nearly choked when the car took a corner on two wheels (and she only assumed they managed to keep that many on the ground because she didn’t die right then and there).

  Baen roared out a command to be careful, and Rose shouted back in a stream of words that Ivy was positive Madame Plude had never included in her high school curriculum. The loud voices combined with the squealing of rubber on pavement, the revving engines, and the blare of sirens to leave Ivy almost deaf. She’d never been so disoriented in her life, and it didn’t help that every time Rose jerked the wheel to cut around some poor unsuspecting Parisian driver, Ivy’s stomach leaped into her throat and threatened to finish the jump right into her lap. Because covering herself in her own vomit was just what would make this situation even better.

  “What in the name of the Light is going on?” Baen managed to make himself heard over the chaos, which was good, because Ivy wanted to know the same thing. “If you want to kill us, you could choose a quicker method.”

  “Ça suffit, Gardien!” Rose snapped. “I try to save you and your Warden, not to mention myself. The nocturnis waited in the garage. Without the charm I gave to you, they spotted me immédiatement. I drive like this because we must put them off our trail, because we cannot risk them discovering the location of our safe house. Too many lives will be in danger. Now, you will be quiet while I try to keep us all alive.”

  Ivy dug her fingers into the car’s upholstery and tried to pretend she was in a movie, something with Matt Damon or the Marvel Avengers. If she thought of herself as a spy or a superhero—you know, the kind of person who survived a high-speed crash and climbed from the wreckage to walk calmly but determinedly into the sunset—then maybe she wouldn’t picture herself ending up a bloody smear on the French pavement.

  Hey, a girl was entitled to her fantasies.

  She glanced out the rear window again. Her heart raced when she saw the SUV had dropped back several car lengths, the bigger vehicle finding itself at a clear disadvantage once Rose had turned off the main avenues onto the much narrower yet still crowded streets leading away from the hubs of tourist activities.

  “They’re falling back. We might be able to lose them.”

  “Let us hope.”

  Rose took another corner too quickly, sending Ivy’s head knocking into the car window and making her grunt. Damn, that had hurt.

  Baen glanced back at her, looking angry enough to breathe fire. Could Guardians breathe fire? Ivy had no idea, but she figured if anyone could manage, it would be Baen.

  “Are you all right, little one?” he demanded. “Are you hurt?”

  She reached up to touch the point of impact and winced when her fingertips brushed a quickly forming knot. Fortunately, though, when she pulled them away, they came away clean. At least she wasn’t bleeding. Maybe there real
ly was a bright side. “I’m fine. It’s just a bump.”

  One that took another hit as the car screeched around another corner.

  “Be careful!” Baen bellowed, turning a furious glare on their driver. “If you have caused Ivy serious injury, I will rip you apart, Warden or no.”

  “Calmez-vous. She said it’s just a bump. Isn’t that better than falling into the hands of the Order?”

  Ivy cupped her head carefully and looked behind them again. Rose had pulled back onto a larger road and there was no sign left of the dark SUV. “Hey, I think we lost them.”

  Finally stepping on the brake, Rose slowed the car to a reasonable (read: sane) rate of speed and merged with the flow of traffic. “I think so, too, but if you would continue to watch, it would be a great help.”

  “No problem.” It would give her something to think about besides her quickly brewing headache. Damn, that glass was hard.

  “I think it is time you answered some more questions.” Baen managed to keep from shouting now that they were back to moving like normal people and not members of the Grand Prix racing circuit, but that didn’t mean he sounded any happier than he had at his loudest. “We might not have reached your safe house, but I think we can be certain that we will not be overheard in here. Correct?”

  Rose shrugged and glanced in her mirrors as she changed lanes to follow the road away from the center of the city. “As certain as we can be anywhere, I suppose.”

  “Good.” The Guardian paused and drew a slow breath. When he spoke again, his gravelly voice vibrated with carefully controlled anger. “Tell me exactly what happened back there. How could the Order have known where to find us? Unless you led them to the meeting that you arranged.”

  Ivy couldn’t see Rose’s face, but she saw the way the other woman’s shoulders tensed and her fingers tightened on the steering wheel.

  “I took every precaution against discovery,” the Frenchwoman said, “but no, I cannot be absolutely certain it was enough. The nocturnis keep the city under close watch these days. If anyone with any magic catches their attention, they make certain to investigate. It is why it has become so important—and so difficult—to keep them away from the safe house. We maintain the secrecy of that location at all costs.”

  “This safe house. It is where the surviving Wardens have been gathered?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that the wisest decision? If the Order has been hunting down members of the Guild, perhaps they would be better off divided into small groups.”

  “We tried that.” Rose’s tone was flat and hard. “We lost three clusters that way. Almost two dozen Wardens. Smaller groups might be easier to hide, but if they are discovered, they become too vulnerable. The smallest mistake can lead the Order to a hiding spot, and at that point, they concentrate all their resources on it until we are wiped out. We found it wiser to stick together and concentrate on concealing one location rather than many. Strength in numbers, is that correct? Especially now that the nocturnis are summoning stronger and stronger playthings. They have killed so many of us that hunting down those who survive had become a game to them.”

  “Maybe they should just download Angry Birds Star Wars or Hitman on their iPhones like everyone else,” Ivy muttered.

  “If only, n’est-ce pas?” Rose snorted. “Unfortunately, they seem determined to play with us instead.”

  Baen pressed on. “If all the Guild’s survivors are gathered together now, should they not have come up with a way to put a stop to such attacks against them? All of that knowledge and magic in one place should make you strong enough for that.”

  The woman scoffed. “I see you still have much to learn about the current situation, Guardian. What makes you think we have enough survivors to do more than simply keep ourselves concealed? And why should you expect that the strongest and best-trained members of the Guild were not the first ones singled out by the nocturnis for extermination? We have been left with mostly apprentices, the unskilled, or the poorly trained.” She glanced in the rearview mirror. “What about you, Ivy? Did you notice that any of the Wardens you sent here had magic to spare?”

  Ivy thought about that. By the time she had lured them out of hiding, most of the Wardens she had met had been too afraid to light a birthday candle with magic, let alone handle any major spellwork. Not that she blamed them. They had all lived in fear for their lives and had known that using their talents was the surest way to draw attention from the very forces they had gone underground to escape.

  “Not really. I mean, I didn’t exactly sit down for long, heartfelt conversations with any of them. We never had that kind of time. But they all seemed essentially the same—members of the Guild, but with no particular official position beyond that.”

  Rose nodded. “Exactly. I have tried to encourage the few well-trained Wardens among us to lead the others in looking for ways to fight, but it is a slow process, and the need to maintain secrecy only adds to the burden.” She paused and drew in a deep breath before blowing it out in a quick, heavy exhalation. “There are just so few of us left.”

  “How many?”

  Rose looked away from the road just long enough to catch Baen’s gaze. From her position in the backseat, Ivy could see the strain and sadness in the other woman’s profile.

  “At the safe house? Sixty-two. Including myself, and now Ivy, as well.”

  That made Ivy go cold. Sixty-two Wardens survived? Out of a Guild membership Uncle George had once numbered over two thousand? How was that possible? Even padding the number with the others that Ash and Drum had told them about yesterday, that meant that less than five percent of all the Wardens on Earth had survived the massacres and the assassinations organized by the Order of Eternal Darkness.

  God help them.

  Silence descended oppressively on the car. Ivy was still trying to wrap her head around the concept of the near annihilation of an organization that had previously stood strong across millennia. Rose seemed tense and depressed, as if she expected her passengers to blame her for the extent of the carnage, and Baen brooded and seethed in his corner, his fists clenching and unclenching in his lap as he struggled to digest the situation into which he had woken.

  Talk about a nasty shock. If Ivy were him, she would have wondered if she’d gotten everything backward and she’d actually fallen back asleep into her worst nightmare.

  Eventually, Rose shifted restlessly and said, “What do you think now? Would you like to return to the city and take the next flight back to London?”

  Ivy almost laughed. “Considering what happened before we left, I’m wondering if Antarctica is nice this time of year.”

  “No.”

  Baen pressed his palms flat against the fabric of his jeans and shook his head. He had his gaze fixed on the road ahead of them, the sea of darkness illuminated only by their headlights and the succession of streetlights lining the roadway. It was as if he could see their enemy gathering its army out there, and he refused to show them weakness.

  Ivy hated to break it to him, but if they had killed ninety-five percent of the Wardens in the world, she was pretty sure the Order knew how weak they were. They were probably yukking it up right that very moment.

  “No, it is important that we know the truth,” he continued. “An honest assessment of our resources is the first step to developing a strategy for victory.”

  Rose shuddered, her breath catching on a sob, and Ivy found herself shocked to see a huge crack appear in the other woman’s chic, tough façade. Her shoulders slumped and her grip on the steering wheel turned white-knuckled. “Merci Dieu. Then you will stand and fight with us?”

  Baen turned his offended expression on their driver. “I am a Guardian. Of course I will fight against the Darkness. It is my purpose and my duty. I will not abandon my honor in the face of any odds.”

  “Je m’excuse, Gardien,” she murmured. “Of course you would not. This has simply been a very difficult time. We have been afraid that we would not fin
d you, and our chances against the Seven, even with all of the Guardians risen, are still not good. It is … stressful.”

  Ivy figured that was an understatement. Then she reviewed the other woman’s words and frowned. “Wait, what do you mean? All the Guardian aren’t risen yet. You know that, right?”

  Rose glanced back in the mirror. “You were isolated in England, but I can tell you that other Guardians have been waking for a long time now. Most are in North America, but now that you are here, I hope to convince them to join us as soon as possible.”

  “Then you do know about the others.”

  Confusion made Ivy feel a twinge of the same distrust Baen had displayed when they first met this woman. Why had she not mentioned her awareness of the other Guardians before now? Why had she not said anything when Ivy had first alerted her to Baen’s existence? Yes, they had to be circumspect over e-mail. Those communications were too easy to hack, but an oblique reference would have been appropriate, wouldn’t it?

  Ivy shifted until she could see part of Rose’s face in the rearview mirror. “If you’ve known that five other Guardians were awake before Baen, then you also know they’ve been searching for the others and for surviving Wardens, but you haven’t contacted them, because they’ve never heard of you. What gives?”

  “Gives?” Rose frowned, then shook her head. “If you mean to ask me for an explanation, it was not the right time. Yes, I saw the overtures the others put out on the Internet, but to contact them too early would only have placed everyone in even greater danger than they already faced. I had to wait.”

  “For what?”

  “Until all the pieces were in place.”

  Baen glowered at the woman. “What is that supposed to mean?” he snarled, the tip of a fang peeking out to betray his emotions.

  Rose turned the car off the road and onto a narrow, unpaved lane. Ivy sat up straighter, suddenly feeling very uneasy. They had driven for forty minutes or so by now, and as long as they had stayed on well-marked asphalt, Ivy hadn’t thought much of it. Now, she realized they had traveled into the countryside where there were few lights and no other vehicles in sight. Had Baen been right to distrust the stranger who claimed to be on their side?