Pierre Pevel - By The Alchemist in the Shadows Page 0,63

stiffened, her body paralysed. She tried to speak, but could only manage a hiccup. Like a vice, the wisps of mist were now crushing her chest. She was starting to lack for air.

'But it wasn't enough for you to draw my warriors into a trap. Even once you were rid of them, you knew your flight would never be complete as long as I held within me that small shred of your soul which I stole from you. You needed to kill me. And that's why I was waiting for you.'

The sorcerer shook his staff again. Alessandra gave a jolt. Her eyes round with fear, she felt the black mist running fine, agile fingers over her throat towards her face, her lips, and her nostrils.

If this horror reached inside her . . .

'Dying of the sudden ranse is extremely painful, did you know that?'

La Donna gathered her last strength to tear herself away from the mist that threatened to invade her nose, her mouth, her throat, and her entire being. In vain. She gave a long painful moan in supplication. Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes.

The worst thing was that she and the sorcerer were not alone in the cellar. La Donna had seen someone slowly emerge from the shadows behind the drac's back. But why didn't he act? Why wouldn't he help her? Was he content to watch her die? Why? What had she done to deserve such indifference?

Do something . . . For pity's sake do some—

She was losing consciousness when the mist suddenly relaxed its embrace. The young woman collapsed on the dirt floor and, through a veil, saw the sorcerer frozen in shock, a blade pointing at his chest. Then the blade disappeared with a sound of steel clawing at scales and bone, and the old drac fell down dead. First to his knees. And then on his belly.

The black mist dissipated.

Coughing and spluttering but quickly regaining her wits, La Donna dragged herself backwards away from the body and the pool of blood spreading beneath it.

"Wh . . . What were you waiting for?' she finally asked, between two great gulps of air.

'I was waiting to hear the full story,' replied Saint-Lucq.

'You bastard.'

'You're welcome.'

The half-blood crouched to wipe his blade on the sorcerer's filthy, stinking rags. Then he stood up, re-sheathed his sword and, from behind his red spectacles, watched La Donna struggle to her feet, one hand seeking support from the wall.

'You'd better hurry, madame,' he said in a voice that betrayed no emotion. 'As perhaps you would like to rest for a little while, before your next appointment with monsieur de Laffemas at Le Chatelet.'

4

Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre was located in a neighbourhood that stretched from the palace of the Louvre in the east to that of the Tuileries in the west, and between rue Saint-Honore to the north and the Grande Galerie to this south. This old neighbourhood had undergone various upheavals over the centuries, to the point of now finding itself curiously embedded in the royal precinct, after the Grande Galerie -also known as 'Gallery on the shore' — was built to link the Louvre to the Tuileries along the bank of the Seine. But whatever its changed circumstances, it had kept its mediaeval appearance. Dirty, cramped, and populous, it offered an unfortunate contrast with the royal buildings that surrounded it on three sides.

Running north from the quays, rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre ended at rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Palais-Cardinal. It took its name from a twelfth-century church dedicated to Saint Thomas of

Canterbury, and had acquired a certain notoriety due to the two adjoining mansions of Rambouillet and Chev-reuse. The first was the Parisian residence of the marquise de Rambouillet, who hosted a famous literary salon there. The second belonged to the duchesse de Chevreuse, whose reputation as a lover, schemer, and woman of the world needed no further embellishment.

This evening, the duchesse was receiving guests.

Torches burned at the monument gates of her mansion, lighting up the street in the gathering dusk.

Other torches illuminated the courtyard. The guests were already arriving in coaches, in sedan chairs, on horseback. But also on foot, escorted by lackeys who carried lights and who, once they reached their destination, helped their masters change their shoes or even their stockings. Groups were forming at both ends of rue Saint-Thomas. And people were almost jostling one another before the mansion itself. They conversed gaily, already pleasantly anticipating the excellent evening they would be spending. The jesting of men and the