And one for all? Half-naked lunatic breaks into NYC French Consulate with a broadsword…
“Holy crap.”
I rasp it while watching my worst nightmare take life on a digital plateau over my head. Not a bulb of the supersign shows me mercy, in much the same way a pair of guards treats Bastien on the marble floor of the consulate’s rotunda. I cover my mouth, ordering myself not to get sick while viewing his sweat and blood slicked across the ornate surface.
“Oh my God.” I gasp it into my palm as the video feed is split in half.
The right side still displays the live events, with at least three people keeping Bastien pinned to the floor. On the left, they’re replaying a clip that’s timestamped from ten minutes ago. It looks like the videographer, likely a consulate employee, turned on their camera after Bastien burst in past the building’s 5th Avenue entrance.
Bastien’s tumbling hair and Conan-like shoulders are exaggerated by the light pouring in from behind him, even with the mansion’s awning in place. But not in the shot? The broadsword that’s so giddily noted in the ticker description. More cheap click bait, at the expense of a human I already care intensely about.
I’m well into an incensed growl about the injustice, only to choke on it after Bastien seems to exchange shouts with an aggressive security guard. As soon as the officer charges forward, Bastien swings to the right and yanks the weapon from a mannequin in a display beyond a velvet rope. Without a doubt he does the sword more justice than the statue, not that I have time to overly appreciate how spectacularly he gets his Conan on.
I can only groan harder, awash in new dread, as he swings out the blade with expert precision. But he’s so good that he only shaves the top of the guy’s hair—not that the guard notices that his life’s been deliberately spared. He keeps charging forward, invigorated when a couple of buddies back him up.
Another gasp clouds the air. I can’t deny it’s mine, since Drue is already in Eeyore mode down to the last sardonic speck. “Please tell me that’s not really him,” she mutters from beneath her rain cloud.
I don’t bother offering a virtual umbrella. We’re not going to be standing still that long.
“No time to lie about that right now.” I don’t wait for her comeback. I’m already turning and heading down 44th, barely refraining from breaking into a full run. “I’ve got to help him.”
“You mean we’ve got to.”
Eeyore vibes or not, the woman keeps perfect pace enough to give me a shoulder bump of encouragement.
While returning the gesture, I add, “You’re getting a full hug for this when I don’t have to dread telling Max that his brother’s been thrown into Manhattan Detention.”
“Not going to happen,” she volleys.
“The hug or the Max convo?”
“Both.” She barely pauses as we hook a left onto 6th. “Good call, taking it this way. Cutting through the park won’t be pretty today.”
I give only a fast nod. Depending on the day, Central Park can be either a sanity restorer or stripper. On a sunny Sunday like this, it’s likely to be the latter—and I’m currently needing every shred of lucidity I have left. Yes, even the parts of it that make me face valid fears.
Even if we sprint, the consulate is over a mile away. Waiting on a train, or even calling for a ride, will equate to the same amount of travel time.
What if we get there and they’ve already taken Bastien away?
And what if they get him to prison and ask him about his identity? His birthdate? His next of kin?
What if he decides that his jailors in this century are no better than those of his last?
If he’s even come to accept that he’s not in that time anymore…
The what-ifs don’t stop there. Not by a single, awful bit. I’m getting so dizzy at processing them all, on top of fighting to keep up with Drue’s half jog, that I’m only focusing on our surroundings with half a brain.
The half that doesn’t recognize the lime-green hybrid that’s slowed to a crawl next to us.
“You guys look like you’re escaping fate or chasing demons,” says the driver past their half-dropped passenger window.
“And you look like you hung out over at Bryant, hoping we’d resurface,” Drue answers Dash, who has instantly become our new best friend of the day.
“Did it to yourself, fancy tipper,” the driver rejoins with a fast wink.
“Which I’ll double if you get us to the Consulate of France like green lightning.”
At once, Dash pops the locks. “I’m your fast finisher, baby.”
“You really want me to riff on that one?” Drue quips as we climb in.
“I don’t upcharge for banter. But seriously, which is it? Fate or demons?”
I sigh heavily. “All of the above.”
And damn it, how I wish that it’s really only banter.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BASTIEN
“Do you know who I am?”
Why do I expect this iteration of the demand to earn me a different response than before? That these idiots in officers’ wear will opt to do anything but chuckle, grunt, and ruffle my hair like I am a stray dog they are preparing to torture and throw in the river? A fate I nearly yearn for, since decorum and civility seem to be missing factors in the twenty-first century.
The twenty-first century.
My senses have not yet recovered from their shocked raze, though how can I blame them? Two hundred years has changed the world. It is a place full of so many more colors, textures, people. Languages, lights, people. Vehicles, voices…people. Human beings that I understand but do not.
Like everyone else here, I have been in a hurry too. Deciding that if I just go faster, I will find the ultimate destination I seek. The place in all this insanity that shall extinguish the frantic fires in my mind, all burning with the same crucial question.
Why am I here?
I thought this building would have that answer. As soon as I saw the plaque that declares it as my homeland’s consulate, with the flag containing France’s traditional triad of colors, hope soared in my soul. Surely we are still friends with America, since they borrowed the colors for their standard. At once, I felt secure enough to rush in here. To do so with eager joy, expecting I would be met with courtesy, honor, and refuge.
Courtesy.
Honor.
Refuge.
Words that will never mean what they once did. I know that as a surety while straightening my stance despite how it strains my shoulders. The three guards responsible for my capture are not impressed. They keep up their chuckling and preening, until fresh footfalls resound across the atrium.
At once, the soldiers are sober. Their spines straighten. They dip their heads with deference at a tall fellow who enters, the clove shade of his skin lending to his kingly air. As he reciprocates their nods, I notice that his thick black curls are coifed similarly to Maximillian’s new fashion. He is bizarrely unaffected by the clamoring horde that has gathered beyond the building’s awning.
He is different than anyone out there. From anyone in here.
The observation dims behind my fascination with the sleek tablet he pulls from an inside pocket of his jacket. He holds it like Moses with one of the sacred slabs from Sinai: an ideal comparison since the entire front of the thing lights up when he touches it with a long black rod.