The cab window scrolled down a few inches. Sweet-smelling smoke and French hip-hop rolled out of the car. "Pitie-Salpetriere," she said. "Please."
The cab driver, a huge, bearded man who barely seemed to fit behind the wheel, stared for a second, and then nodded. The back doors unlocked and we got in. Inside, the music and cigarette smoke were even stronger. We were barely seated when the driver put the car into gear and mashed the accelerator. Marielle fell against me, her arm and shoulder across my body. Her skin was hot.
I was feverish too, and the secondhand smoke wasn't helping. Whatever the guy was smoking, it was strong and exotic, and he was using it to hide the smell of a recently smoked joint. The combination made me dizzy, and the stop-start motion of the cab wasn't helping either.
Marielle repositioned herself a little less awkwardly, though she didn't move that far away from me. She rubbed her upper arms, mainly-I thought-as an excuse to do something with her hands. "Moreau," she Whispered instead of trying to make herself heard over the banging hip-hop. "What did he tell you?"
"He didn't know who called Tevvys," I sent back.
She glanced at me sharply. "He was lying to us."
"I know." The cab dashed through a changing light, bouncing hard on the street, and I waited for my stomach to stop complaining before continuing. "But not about that."
She glanced at the driver, who was oblivious to our magi-speak conversation. "What about, then?"
I shrugged. I looked out the window instead of looking at her. Her neck was exposed, as were her shoulders, clavicle, and a bit more. I didn't fault the driver for staring when he had the chance. "He didn't say."
"I told you to find out what he knew."
The Chorus bristled at her tone, but I kept them in check. "And I did."
She didn't say anything, and implicit in that silence was the accusation that I had disobeyed her, that I had failed to follow through with her intent.
But it was her intent. Not mine. I had no reason to kill him, nor any desire to do so. The sight of the Chorus had been enough to reduce Moreau to tears. He had told me everything he thought he knew, and the Chorus had easily read his earnest desire to be believed.
"I am not your instrument." I told Marielle as gently as I could, but I couldn't keep the echo of my voice, the buzzing noise of the Chorus, snarling through a ripple of memory. We had been here before, and the sentiment had been the same then. I am not your angel of vengeance.
"We don't know anything," she said, vibrating with a quiet fury. She couldn't know what the Chorus was reacting to, but she could read the underlying bite in my words. "We lost more men and learned nothing. What was the point of all that, Michael?"
I shook my head. "What would killing Moreau have gained us? The satisfaction of Old Testament-style retribution? Is that what this has come to already? Besides, killing Moreau would have been a waste of a useful tool. I shouldn't have to tell you that, Marielle. Alive, Moreau can still be twisted to our design. He can still perform a useful service."
"What service is that?"
"We have Tevvys' phone," I Whispered. "I told Moreau that the only way he could redeem himself was make contact with whoever was coordinating the attack and have them call us."
"I don't-" She stopped and shook her head. After taking a few deep breaths, she changed direction. "He'll turn on us the moment he has a chance. Provided he actually lives long enough."
"I guess he has some incentive then."
"Michael-" She sighed, and a bitter laugh got caught in her throat. "You are such a fo-"
"I'm not." I spoke out loud, biting the words off more firmly than I intended, the Chorus sparking behind my anger. "I used him, Marielle, instead of throwing him away."
"What if he doesn't survive? How is that useful to us?"
"It tells us they don't care who they hurt." I reached out for her leg, and she moved away from me. I dropped my hand to the seat. "If they did bring the building down, it'll take them too long to dig out anything useful. They don't have that kind of time. They need to either find us or make a deal. As long as we can stay a few steps ahead of them, they'll have to keep flailing away at us. Wasting resources and energy trying to find us."
I glanced out the window again. Through a break in the buildings, I could see the black shape of the trees along the Seine. Beyond their silhouettes, I could see the lit buttresses of Notre-Dame. My vision swam suddenly, a disorienting pressure inside my brain. The lights around Notre-Dame changed, lengthening into tall shapes. The crown of the church looked like it was swarming with phantom gargoyles, all struggling to take flight. "Meanwhile," I offered. "We've got a head start."
"Yes, but a head start to where?"
"One thing at a time," I said. "Let's take care of this poison first."
This time, the laugh didn't get caught in her throat. I tried not to react, but it was like getting hit in the face again. She knew I had no idea.
The Chorus read a haze of magick coming off Marielle as she stood next to the car and leaned over to talk to the driver again. The driver smiled, welcoming her suggestion and letting it smooth his memory. His window scrolled shut and the vehicle slid away slowly from the curb. Marielle didn't look at me until she had walked a few paces and realized I wasn't following her. The wind pulled at her hair, winding it about her face and neck.
I pointed across the street at the massive shape of the one-time gunpowder factory, now a celebrity hospital. "Uh, the hospital is over there." I could have said it a hundred different ways, but my tone was nothing but petulant attitude.
"Too many eyes." Marielle said it like she was talking to a child.
"We don't have much choice," I pointed out. "I don't know how you're doing, but this thing is eating me." I tried to be a little more conciliatory, assuming that part of our crankiness toward each other was due to the twisting spikes in our guts and not the petty argument we had had in the cab. "I'm not going to be able to hold it off for much longer."
"Then you have some incentive to follow me, don't you?" She didn't wait for me to answer.
I sighed. Obviously the disagreement about Moreau was going to hang on a bit longer. Ride it out. Within an arc of steady light floating in my head, the spirit of Detective Nicols exuded a calming influence. Hold on to what matters; let the rest go. And, a second later, when I hadn't moved: Follow her. My legs started kicking on their own accord, and I stumbled into a steady trot, jogging to catch up with her.
We didn't go far, just a block or two further along the road, and when she turned toward the river, I saw our destination. I would have had to be blind to miss it. It was anchored at a quay on the river, and lit up with a thousand strands of red lights.
"Batofar," she said.
We could hear the music from here, and at quayside, there was a line waiting to get in. Batofar was an old lighthouse boat, Marielle explained as we walked over. Moored on the Left Bank since the turn of the century, it was a progressive nightclub catering to the electronic and industrial crowd. Small and intimate, it had several bars onboard as well as a dance floor below deck.
"And why would we want to go inside?" I asked. "There's not a lot of advantages in a cramped space with no escape route."
"It's not on land," she said. "And they have absinthe."
I swallowed a scathing comeback. Ride it out. But she read the annoyance and disbelief in my face. Somewhat surprisingly, she didn't bite back.
"I can mix a drink with absinthe that'll take care of the poison," she explained. "And it'll be harder for the geomancers to read us if we're not in direct contact with the leys."