She knew with every second the guards were getting closer. This wasn’t the time for discussion, neither patriotic nor philosophic. It was a time to take up arms.
“Hemust be handed over to the emperor’s guards,” Guillaume concluded.
She didn’t bother to tell him it was she they were after. As Jean-Paul and the stranger stepped forward, clearly intent on restraining them, she bent down and slid her pistol from its holster. Smoothly, she stood, leveling her gun at her former friends, only to realize Malcolm was doing the same. She hadn’t even seen him draw out his gun.
They glanced at one another, and he frowned.
“Don’t you think I can protect us?”
“I am not a useless female,” she said.
“I never said you were. But I’m the one who is on a mission.”
“I already told you I would help,” she reminded him, and then she waved her small pistol around, “so I am helping.”
Guillaume’s head, and those of the other men, were swiveling back and forth as she and Malcolm bickered.
“We have to go immediately,” he reminded her. “They’re after both of us now.”
She nodded. Keeping their guns trained on the three men, she and Malcolm circled them. As soon as they had skirted Guillaume’s blockade, they ran along the Port Saint Nicholas dock and up the short flight of steps at the other end.
“I’m impressed,” Malcolm called to her as they left the quay and ran across the Pont des Arts to get to the other bank.
“As am I,” she said. “I thought the Imperial Guards would have captured you by now.”
“I think I’ve just been insulted,” he intoned.
From the Quai Malaquais, Serena could still see her friends on the other side of the Seine, speaking with the guards.
“Let’s get away from the river,” Malcolm suggested.
“Where?” she asked.
“Not too far. I know a safe place. An associate lives nearby.”
“A friend?” she asked, hurrying to keep up.
“An associate,” he repeated.
“Another spy,” she confirmed. “English or French?”
He shrugged, saying nothing more. When they were a few blocks down from the river, Malcolm turned right onto the Rue des Marais, a quick left, right, left, and they finally turned right onto the Rue du Dragon.
“Here,” he said, grabbing her by the arm and swinging her into a doorway under the eaves. After rapping three times, he waited, and knocked thrice more before pushing the door open.
Malcolm drew her into a dim sitting room.
At first, Serena didn’t realize it was occupied. Then a heavy-set man, with his own weapon drawn rose from a chair in the dark corner.
“This is my associate,” Malcolm said. “And if you don’t knock properly at his door, he will blow a hole through you.”
The stranger gave a grimace, which Serena realized was a smile. “I might do so in any case,” he said. “To you,Anglais,but not to her.”
She realized he was the man from the catacombs, the one they’d rescued first.
“May I introduce Mademoiselle Renault,” Malcolm said, as if they were at a dinner party instead of fleeing for their lives.
“The vintner’s granddaughter,” Monsieur Versanne said. Then a moment later, “Where is your mother?”
