Eric Lustbader - The Testament

"Come on!" he yelled at Camille. "I can't get any closer!" Jenny could be under his wheels in a heartbeat.

Already kneeling on the seat, Camille now stretched her torso out the window. Balancing her hips on the bottom of the window frame, she reached out and grabbed hold of the Mercedes's door handle. Jenny was directly below her, cocooned so thoroughly in the raincoat she couldn't see her face. She pulled the handle once, cursed mightily, tugged again.

"Now!" Bravo cried.

Camille jiggled the chrome handle and the door unlatched partway, but the same law of physics that kept Jenny's body close to the Mercedes was making it difficult to open the door.

"Camille! For the love of God!"

With a tremendous effort, she wrenched the door open. Abruptly released, Jenny's body rolled across the rain-streaked blacktop. Her face was bone white, and Bravo couldn't tell whether or not she was breathing.

He stood on the brakes so that the Citroe"n screeched to a halt. Camille threw the door open, gathered Jenny up. Even before Camille swung the door shut, Bravo had accelerated.

All at once, they were upon the gas pumps. Bravo turned the wheel hard to the left, and the Citroe"n's tires squealed in protest as it fishtailed. People were screaming and running in every direction. Bravo turned into the skid, then accelerated sharply. The car leapt forward like a racehorse at the opening gun. Just behind them, the grille of the Mercedes slammed into the nearest pump, taking it right off its foundation. Gas spewed upward, and with a great sucking whoosh and a fierce burst of heat, the car and the station went up in a nightmare fireball full of twisted metal shards and greasy black smoke.

A great fist rocked the Citroe"n so severely it threatened to roll over. Then a piece of metal, black and twisted, struck the sedan as it was about to reenter the A11, and Bravo was forced to steer in a white-knuckle stagger, barely missing two cars as he entered the traffic stream, until he had the car under full control again.

"How is she?" he asked anxiously as he made his way through the maze of traffic.

"She's unconscious, that much is certain." Camille was using her hands to feel for a pulse. "She's alive. Her heartbeat is strong."

"Thank God," Bravo breathed. The police hadn't arrived yet so far as he could see, but it wouldn't be long, he knew, until they did. In the rearview mirror the greasy fireball was finally subsiding, but now the flames could be seen licking upward into the rain-laden sky.

"Hand me my phone. It's there right beside you," Bravo said, a bit out of breath as he drove. "I have a call to finish."

"My love, how are you?" Camille asked.

When he took the cell phone from her, his hand was trembling visibly.

Several miles on, Camille made him pull over, and they switched positions. Bravo walked on stiff legs around the back of the Citroe"n. He bent down, extracted part of the Mercedes from the Citroe"n and with a muffled cry hurled it away. He climbed into the back seat, settling Jenny's limp form beside him, her head cradled in his lap. He gently drew wisps of hair off her cheek. In the process, his fingertips caressed the soft flesh behind her ear.

In the rearview mirror, Camille noted how his hand lingered on Jenny, how his gaze had a faraway look. At length, she said softly, "My love, please close the door. We must move on."

In a half daze, Bravo complied. His gaze returned to Jenny, his thoughts as dim and nebulous as the fog that had crept in on the heels of the rain.

"Bravo," Camille said in that quiet voice that never failed to command attention, "the Mercedes had a German license plate."

"I saw," he said automatically.

"We must now consider the possibility that we are wrong and Jordan is right."

She drove quickly and efficiently to a hotel that lay on the landward side of the causeway that stretched out to Mont St. Michel like an entreating hand. It was here that, over the centuries, pilgrims came from all over to worship at the monastery of the Archangel St. Michael, whose statue rose from the pinnacle of the medieval stone abbey at the top of the rocky islet, five hundred feet above the English Channel.

Bravo felt the way those ancient seekers must have felt when they arrived here-exhausted, sick at heart, in need of a miracle. He held Jenny closer to him as Camille got out and went into the hotel. They'd need a miracle, he thought, to get rooms here at the height of summer.

He watched her returning, walking purposefully toward him, a small smile on her face.

"Come, my love," she said as she opened his door. "Our rooms are waiting for us."

The room was clean and neat. It was modern and anonymous, but owing to its position on the third floor its picture window overlooked the channel and the magnificent sight of the Marvel, as Mont St. Michel was sometimes called by the French, now nothing more than a ghostly shadow in the dense and swirling fog. There was a sling-back sofa and matching chair upholstered in a dark tweedy fabric beside the window, with a low wooden table between them. In the middle of the rear wall was the door to the bathroom, and to their right was the bed, flanked by a pair of night tables and lamps. The floor was polished wood, the walls the color of sand. The light streaming in was pallid and watery, entirely without definition, so that no shadow was cast anywhere in the room.

Bravo sat on the bed, holding Jenny in his arms, while Camille used hot water and a washcloth to bathe the back of her head and her hands where they were abraded. He hoped that the raincoat that had trapped her had also protected her from more serious damage while she had been dragged by the Mercedes because right now they were afraid to subject her to the handling required to take it off.

Camille applied one of the antiseptic creams she had bought, and Bravo gently laid Jenny on the bed, pulled a light blanket up around her.

"Camille, we have to find a doctor. Surely the longer she's unconscious the greater the danger."

Camille sat down beside him on the bed and, leaning over, carefully lifted Jenny's lids. "Her pupils aren't dilated-she appears to be sleeping, nothing more."

"But-"

"Come away now, my love." She rose and took his arm. "What she needs most now is rest-as do we all."

"I don't want to leave her."

"And you won't." Bravo was too distracted to notice the small pause. "You must take some time now to look after yourself. Go wash up. Don't look so concerned, I'll watch over her."

Bravo nodded. As soon as he was in the bathroom, Camille carefully and methodically searched the room. She knew exactly what she was looking for, and when she found Jenny's possessions she picked through them with the expert eye of a pawnbroker. At first glance, nothing out of the norm presented itself. This was to be expected; Jenny Logan was a Guardian. But because she was, Camille knew she could not be totally unarmed. She had to have a weapon on her-one that she could take through airport security. And so Camille came at last to a compact, which was slightly oversized and a good deal heavier than any compact had a right to be. Opening it, she found not foundation powder and a pad but a small folding knife. She wasn't fooled by either its size or the mother-of-pearl scales. Activating the switchblade mechanism, she was rewarded with the lightninglike appearance of a wicked-looking stainless-steel blade. With the digital camera in her cell phone, she shot photos of the knife open and closed, dialed a Paris number and sent the photos off. Wiping down the knife carefully, she returned it to the compact moments before Bravo reappeared.

"How is she?" His hair was still dripping wet.

"No change." She gestured to the sofa near the window. "Why don't we sit here where we can easily keep an eye on her."