The Glamourist (The Vine Witch #2)(49)
CHAPTER TWENTY
Elena knocked three times before opening the door. A scattering of energy from Yvette’s ultraradiant aura lingered in the room, but the young woman wasn’t there. After a quick peek, she learned Yvette wasn’t in the water closet down the hall either. Elena had no intention of knocking on every artist’s door in the building to find her, having no wish to discover the young woman in a state of undress. And yet she had the distinct feeling she wouldn’t find her in the building. The cat was gone too. The animal had grown too fond of Yvette to leave her sight, which meant she must truly have gone out. What was that fool of a girl thinking?
Elena returned outside with the hope of tracking Yvette’s aura. To her horror, she found blood instead. One rust-colored dot followed by another on the street until the blood, fresh enough to still have a shine, turned into a steady trail. Yvette’s? Her heartbeat jumped into a staccato rhythm at the thought of the young woman in pain. And all because she’d walked out on her. Elena reached in her purse to take a quick inventory of her herbs and vials to see what she had for an emergency, then followed the crimson trail into a narrow passageway with a gate to a private courtyard at the back end. Two men stood at the gate. One of them, the young man from the café with the sketchbook, pressed a hand against his damp shirt. The other, the one with the bad teeth and stained trousers, wielded a knife. So not Yvette’s blood after all.
“One more step, mademoiselle, and I’ll cut both your throats.”
She had no doubt the ruffian holding the knife would do exactly that. Given the shadows in the narrow passageway, the lack of windows in the buildings on either side, and abundance of barrels in which to dump a body, she grudgingly gave him credit for choosing an ideal location for a murder. Where he went wrong, of course, was in assuming she’d turn and run.
Elena opened her purse. Wolfsbane or snapdragon? On a whim she removed the dragon flower skull she’d been given at the apothicaire toxique. The man warned her again to leave, then raised the knife against the poor artist’s throat as if to make clear he was not bluffing. Elena simply crushed the skull between her fingers and scattered the seeds on the ground.
“From small seeds a dragon grows, hit the ground and strike your pose.”
A stout lizard the size of a large dog lumbered out from behind her skirt. Its tail swept back and forth against the alley’s bricks as it sniffed the air with its tongue, a carnivorous dragon baring its teeth in preparation to attack.
“Charge the gate and do not pause, let them feel the weight of your claws.”
Both men stared wide-eyed, backing up as far as they could against the metal gate. The one with the knife forgot all about committing murder, while the other recovered from his wound with amazing agility, climbing atop the barrel she presumed he was soon meant to occupy.
“Wait, wait,” begged the young man with his hands held up in surrender. “I’m a friend of Yvie’s. Call it off!”
Yvie?
A friend of Yvette’s? It couldn’t be a coincidence. Did he know where she was or if she was in some kind of danger? Best to get him out of there. Elena beckoned the young man, still bleeding slightly from his side, to follow her. For a brief second, he seemed to consider who was more dangerous, Elena or the dragon, before jumping over the giant lizard and staggering out of the passageway. The knife-wielding assailant, his wide eyes giving away his panic, tried to make the same move, but the beast lunged and snapped its jaw, cutting him off. The long-tailed lizard was only an illusion, the best she could conjure based on the photograph Jean-Paul had shown her in his geographic society magazine, but the animal did seem to display the required ferocity. The would-be murderer gave up trying to leap over the creature’s head and hugged the metal bars of the gate, working frantically to open the lock and get free before a leg or arm was bitten off.
Walking quickly so as to be out of sight when the ruffian finally realized there was no real threat, Elena headed up the hill before ducking behind a ramshackle shed in the dirt. Behind it the arms of a windmill slowly rotated, grinding bushels of freshly harvested wheat into flour. The young man, wary but still on his feet, staggered in behind her, short of breath.
“What was that thing back there?” The terror had not drained from his eyes.
“Nothing but a shadow. Now who are you? And where is Yvette? Is she hurt? In danger?” Elena took a menacing step toward the young man. “Answer me.”
He backed up until he hit the shed wall. “I’m Henri. Yvie and I grew up together.” He gripped his satchel tight to his chest, as if it were the most valuable thing he owned. “She was supposed to meet me for coffee but never showed.”
“Impossible. She was told not to leave the room.” Elena realized too late she never actually put a spell on the girl to make her stay put. She had, however, seen the young man waiting restlessly for someone who never joined him, making it likely he was telling the truth. But then, where was she?
“Weren’t les flics who got her,” he said and winced as he pulled his sticky, wet shirt away from his side.
“Someone took her?”
Looking pale and shock-worn, Henri slid down the shack wall, landing on the ground with a grunt. He lifted his shirt and probed the narrow knife slit in his side. His fingers came away with blood, and he nearly fell over sideways. It’d be no use getting information out of him while he was distracted by the pain, so Elena dug in her purse, beneath the bundle of wolfsbane, and found the pot of salve she’d made for herself. She opened the lid and passed it to him. “Dab a generous amount over the cut. I’ll do the rest.”