Joanna Bourne - The Black Hawk

Maggie put her hand out toward Owl. “How can I take your sister and leave you behind? Do you think I wouldn’t welcome you? Come with us.”

Hell. Hell and damn. That wasn’t going to happen. If Owl wasn’t on the rolls of the Police Secrète, she reported to somebody who was.

He didn’t stay to listen while Doyle told Maggie why Owl couldn’t come to England. Lots of things to do that didn’t involve watching that. The load on the donkeys had to be shifted and balanced and tacked down to take account of a new bag. He had to make a place for Séverine to ride.

They talked. He tried not to listen too much. After a while, Owl came over, walking like a marionette, stiff and awkward. She lifted the bag to where he’d made a place for it. “I have packed clothing for her. Things she will need. Her . . . doll.”

“Some people wouldn’t leave this to the last minute. The kid’s going to make them conspicuous.” He wasn’t gentle. Owl didn’t want to break down in front of Séverine. She was close to doing that.

“What is more inconspicuous than a child? Would anyone suspect a family traveling across the countryside with a small child? No and no. Everyone should take an infant or two with them upon their missions.”

He shrugged and made a clicking with his lips, which was one of those French noises he was practicing.

“She is a better companion than you, in fact, because she has been trained to keep her mouth closed and follow orders, which you have not.”

He’d made her angry. Good. She didn’t look as dead inside. “I follow orders.” He hauled out the blankets, rolled them, and tied them on the donkey, making a sort of half-moon shape where Séverine could ride. “It’s that hair of hers. Might as well attach a red flag. That has to . . . Here.” He took a string of leather and went to braid up the sprat’s hair and tie it. “That’s better. But she’s dressed too well. You should dirty her up. Put some mud on her.”

“I am pleased to know she will not be in your hands, Citoyen’Awker.”

That was enough prodding to get her spine stiff. To let her blink back tears. She walked with Maggie, saying good-bye to Séverine without saying it. Touching her sister’s back once.

Last thing, before she left, she handed over their real name. DeCabrillac. Their father was a count, which it was just as well he hadn’t known when he was shoving her arse out of his way back in the Coach House.

When Owl left, she walked away fast and didn’t look back.

Doyle motioned him over. “I wish I could take that girl with me. It’s a shame and a sin sending her back into that shambles.”

Nothing much to say to that.

Doyle said, “She’s going to be dangerous in a few years. On their side.”

“She’s dangerous already.”

“You go follow her. Make sure she gets back to that damned brothel safely.”

No hardship. He would have done it anyway.

He found her two streets away, sitting on a doorstep, her head in her hands. She didn’t look up to see who it was that stopped in front of her. Probably she recognized his boots.

He said, “We can go get her back if that’s what you want.”

That was a lie. He wasn’t going to take the sprat away from Maggie. Owl had done the right thing, and she knew it.

“You know very well there is no going back.” She took her hands away from her face and put them together on her knees, a pair of fists, facing each other.

“Just so you understand.”

“I have kept her safe for more than two years. Clean and cared for and well fed. That is not a small thing to do. I was eleven when I started.”

“You took care of her fine.”

“I taught her the letters. And to speak some German and English.” Her fists tightened in her lap. “Babette is teaching her . . . Babette was teaching her to cook.”

“Useful stuff.”

“It has never been right, never, that the child of my father should grow up in a brothel.”

“I can see that.”

“She is not safe in Paris. There could be fighting again. Any disaster at all. If I am killed, there might be no one left to protect her. I have to send her away.”

He sat down beside her, one step up, so it’d be like he was taller. She needed somebody taller, and he wasn’t yet. There was plenty of room on the step, but he sat close and put his arm across her shoulder. “I know.”

“There is no one better on this earth than Marguerite to care for her. Séverine will be safe in England. They will have a house for her where everything is pleasant and . . . English. With a dog.”

“Doyle likes dogs. Big ones.” Not the right thing to say. “And little ones. He’ll get her a . . .” He didn’t know a damn thing about gentlemen’s dogs. He knew about alley dogs and fighting dogs. “. . . hound.”

She wasn’t paying attention. “It is not possible for me to be with her. You understand that. I will never, never, never permit it that someone points to her and calls her ‘sister of the whore.’ I will not let that happen.”

“Well, now it won’t. You’ve done what you had to.”

She gave up on trying not to cry. She put her face against him and shook. She kept it muffled on his shirt. There wasn’t a damn thing he could say.

1818 Meeks Street, London

THEY WAITED BY HER BED, DRINKING TEA, THEN coffee as it got later. For a few hours, Hawker thought she’d escaped the poison. After sunset, he knew she hadn’t.

It came over her like cold mist lying down on a hill. The restless, nervous, pained movements stopped. She lay on the bed in a limp, unnatural stillness. Her breathing changed. Caught. Ratcheted. Became shallow gasps. She was dying, and there was nothing he could do.

A shudder. Then another shudder ran through her. A strangled sound in her throat.

He put his hand on her chest. This isn’t happening. I won’t let this happen.

He heard Luke’s footsteps in the hall. At last.

Luke dropped his medical bag by the door. Strode to the foot of the bed. He stripped the blankets off her in a single motion.

“She can’t breathe,” Doyle said. “It’s getting worse.”

“Tremor? Jerking in her muscles? Stiffness in her neck? Her back?”

“Not that.” Doyle pulled the cover the rest of the way off.

Luke felt the muscles of her calf. Hooked her ankle up and flexed her foot back and forth. Ran his finger along the bottom of her foot. “Not responsive. Paralysis.”

Her lips had gone blue. Panicked, half-conscious, she convulsed, trying to suck air in. She gurgled ugly, shallow pants.

Slowly, painfully, horribly, she was suffocating before his eyes. And she couldn’t move.

“Help her, damn it.”

“There’s nothing I can do,” Luke snapped. “Her muscles aren’t working. Not even any reflexes. The diaphragm can’t—”

She needed air. He’d give her air. He opened her mouth with his fingers and blew air inside her, hard.

It puffed back out. He blew in again.

Luke said, “Do that.” He leaned over to look in her face. “Do that again.”

The air was getting inside her. She was less desperate.

“There’s a Frenchman.” Luke ran his hands over Justine’s ribs, feeling them expand with the air. “Frenchman. Can’t remember his name. Wrote a monograph. Lay her down.” He put the heels of his hands below her breasts and pressed down all his weight. Air whistled out of her. “Blow in again.”

She was trying to breathe. Hawker did it for her.

“This Frenchman talked about doing this for drowning men.” Luke pushed down. Her breath whooshed out. The bed sagged. “I didn’t think it would work.”

The air had to get out of her, before he could put more in. They needed a hard surface. “The bed’s too soft. Get her down on the floor.”

She flopped on the rug like a rag doll. He knelt at her head.

“She’s bleeding under the bandage,” Doyle said. “Bleeding bad.”

“Then stop it,” he snapped. He gave her air.

“More. More,” Luke said. “Enough.” He waited a beat. Shoved downward on her chest. “Good. Again. Let me know when you start to feel light-headed.”

Another breath into her. “Damned if I’ll let you die.” He knelt beside her and breathed for her.

They took turns keeping her alive. Past midnight, she started taking in air on her own. When she got reliable at it, they lifted her back to the bed and set chairs around it. They just sat there, staring at each other, exhausted and relieved.

At three in the morning, the fever began.

* * *

SHE felt so hot. Her arm ached, sharply. Pain radiated through her body, into her chest. Pain had been in the dreams with her.

She was on her back, naked and damp. Her skin crawled with heat. Itchy with the heat. The light coming in the window said it was dawn. Still raining.

Someone had followed her in the rain and stabbed her. She had never been careless. Her attacker must be very, very good.

“It was one man. I didn’t see his face. Just a glimpse.” Her throat was dry. She made almost no sound. “Water.”

“Don’t move. I’ll help you drink.”

“. . . Papers.”

“Safe. Downstairs. We’re drying them out. Drink this.” She ached hollowly, as if a bell of pain clanged in her chest. He put an arm behind her and let her drink. Then she was flat again, looking up at the ceiling. He looped her hair around his hand and laid it to the side on the pillow, out of the way.

There was no square foot in the hallways of her body that did not hurt. The covers were hot. Stifling. It was too much trouble to move. Easier to just be too hot. She closed her eyes.