The Eterna Files by Leanna Renee Hieber

Author:Leanna Renee Hieber
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466829251
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

CHAPTER

TEN

“You will not see her!” Louis insisted, floating alongside his twin as they again wove through the winding streets at the tip of Manhattan Island. “I never told Clara about you, for your safety, and that’s best. Not to mention the sight of you may grieve her unduly. You’ll leave Smith’s address and go.”

Andre chafed. “The woman on the boat offered protection, wouldn’t she want to—”

“Explain yourself to the senator, then, and leave my Clara out of it,” Louis barked.

Andre again stared at the brownstone building marked 61. New York swirled and buffeted around him as if he were a tree and the populous were leaves in a breeze. He looked behind him nervously. He was sure American interests would serve him best. Perhaps vague stirrings of patriotism were awakening in his heart. More likely he was driven by the same healthy sense of self-preservation that had gotten him this far. After spending most of his life running away from things and getting himself out of sticky situations, he was faced with something inescapable—his brother’s death.

He’d decided to throw himself on the mercy of whoever he found inside, hoping their first instinct wouldn’t be to cause him harm.

Preparing to knock, Andre glanced through one of the glass panels in the door and spotted a young woman, dressed all in black, performing some sort of strange dance in the entrance hall.

Red hair poked out in unruly wisps from beneath the dancer’s crepe hat. Louis had said Clara was a blonde so Andre felt it safe to proceed, knocking upon the glass. The woman froze, then stared at the door, piercing green eyes boring into him even through the glass.

When she opened the door, she did so only to the width permitted by the chain locks he saw gleaming in the gap between door and frame.

“And you are?” the woman asked, unsmiling. Andre was not put out; he’d had worse greetings.

“A woman on a boat told me to come here for safety,” he said quietly. “A British spy was tailing me. He wanted information.”

Her lovely face appeared unimpressed beneath her black hat. “Hmm. What kind of information?”

“I should probably tell that to some sort of officer of the law or department official,” Andre said carefully. “Do you know where I might find Senator Bishop?”

Her entrancing, bright eyes narrowed, assessing him further. Then she shut the door, but only so she could unfasten the chains and beckon him in. She held a thin black stick in one hand.

Andre stepped into the hall. The woman held up one hand, stopping him.

“Pardon me,” she said. She flicked her wrist, and with a whipping sound, the small black stick became a full baton that she ran over Andre’s body: first one arm, then the next, down one side then the other, up one pant leg and then the next. “Do not get the wrong impression,” she said, even as Andre’s senses thrilled. He glanced at her hand. A ring. Yet she was all in black, perhaps the poor chap was dead.

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