But my gawk does not deter him. Yet neither does he regard me like my mind is made of pudding. He seems to see me as one of Carl’s staff would. There is honest respect in his gaze, despite his open curiosity.
“Good afternoon,” he intones, his accent as pedestrian as my attackers. But his words are similar to Magique’s—well, the modern version of her—in that it has subtle music because of its underlying consideration. “Monsieur…De Leon?”
“Oui,” I say, remaining cautious. He nods, seemingly understanding of that. As if he knows what I have just been through. As if he was watching from beyond the bright, flashing lights as the trio of churls took me down and bound me like a common dissident.
“Detective Liam Logan,” he states. “But you can call me Logan if that floats your boat better.”
My fascination with his light board makes it impossible to answer right away. But when he dips his head again, becoming the first in here to pay me some basic deference, I return the courtesy as best as I can with my hands bound at my back. Tucking a shoulder and extending a leg, I bow a little lower than I thought possible.
Before I am finished, Logan frowns. His perplexity does not wane, even as he speaks again. “Well, okay then.” He clears his throat. “So now we’re clear on me but not you. Catching my drift?”
His drift is not as enjoyable to contemplate as the goddess who warmed the sheets with me last night. “Désolé,” I mutter. “I am afraid not.”
“You know my name now, but I’m still not officially aware of yours.” He focuses back to the glow of his tablet. “Bastien Eneas Jacques De Leon? That’s all of it?”
“Oui. Just as I informed your colleagues.”
His confusion, even after my statement, prompts more of my bewilderment. That and my abysmal choice of words. Colleagues? Surely something more accurate could have come to my mind, such as underlings or thugs. The same jackasses who congregate nearby, reminding me of gossiping whores with their open disdain of Logan and his fitted attire, compared to their ordinary livery. ’Twould seem some things about the world have not changed over the centuries.
If Logan notices their pettiness, he does not indicate so. “Well, we’re having trouble matching you up to the databases, man. I mean, any of them. That’s part of why they called me in to help out. You hear me on that? Helping out. So twist your heat to low because I can’t legally arrest you for now. Technically, you’re still on French soil.”
“I…am?” I glance out the window. Nothing at all has changed, meaning I have to advance his narrative for myself. “I mean I am, of course.” This consulate must be similar to the ceremonial tents that foreign dignitaries insist on erecting at Versailles that are symbolically treated as an extension of their own country. Confidential—and untouchable.
“But only for now,” the man reiterates, as if I have reasoned all of that out loud. “If we can’t clear up your citizenship, I’ll have to remit you back over to these NYPD boys. No more having your back.”
I snort. “Because of what? Walking in the door?”
“Not my job to make sense of another country’s laws. Or, for that matter, my own.” He rolls his gaze back toward the mob outside the windows. “But right now, just give me something to cover a few of the databases, okay? Then I can let you blow this popsicle stand.”
“Blow on it? Why? And where?” I emulate his modest rear back, though am prepared to go on. “As far as bases, if you enlighten me about these day-dahs, and what materials with which you would like to cover them, I am certain I can help. But if it must be today, I suggest wood instead of bricks. The skies have grown foreboding, and rain might be—”
“No,” he interjects, but not soon enough to suppress the snickering gossip gaggle. He quells them with a sharp glance before addressing me again. “What I mean is that we can’t find you, buddy. Like, anywhere. You don’t have a viable home or work address, here or in France. We can’t find a single background document to link to you. You don’t have a social or NIR number. No driving license in either country. Certainly no birth certificate.”
I stiffen my jaw. “Oh, I was born.”
“Of which I’m well aware.” His mild sarcasm goes well with mine, though he does not indulge it for long. “But how and where and when?” he persists. “Come on, De Leon. Don’t make me try to rhyme anything past that. Just press me with some numbers that prove you didn’t show up out of nowhere, so we can cross-check things and avoid you getting snack-receipted out of here.”
“Getting whatted?”
“Stuffed somewhere dark and tiny then eventually forgotten.”
I snort, newly enlightened—yet pained. The expression sounds like something my modern magie would say. But just as my silent pining grows into inescapable ache, the woman is back with the best surprise of all.
“Nobody’s forgetting anyone.”
Herself.
Logan and I nearly collide skulls as we swing around, reacting to her determined decree from the gilded hallway leading to the back of the building. Even so, I am inundated by the waves of his new puzzlement. Thankfully, my senses fight back with waves of warmth and solace. It is a selfish but necessary choice, soaking in the strength of the voice that she has stolen as much as Magique’s face and body, and I promise to plead forgiveness from her ghost later. But right now, I am unable to swipe away my triumphant smirk as she approaches. Triumphant—and transfixed.
With everything about her.
Those fierce and determined steps. Those flashing, glittering eyes. Her attire, with the tight breeches similar to other women I have observed in this era, that now seems so new…so damned alluring.
That brings on more guilt and bafflement.
Why all this attachment and attraction to a woman I know barely better than a street doxy? A stranger dressed in such garish trousers and a formless jerkin?
The answer defies all logic. But last night, I also would have scoffed at the “logic” of being pitched forward in time by hundreds of years.
“Who are you?” Logan demands before she gets too close. “And how the hell did you get past the security perimeter?”
“Can we just cut the niceties?”
This time, the retort is not from my pseudo-Magique. I know this because I have not broken my stare upon her, even as she seems to physically split before my eyes. Quickly, I realize the impression is because of her companion’s smaller stature.
The friend, who brings a smirk to match her open audacity with Logan, wears a crimson knitted cap atop black hair that resembles a monk’s blunt tonsure. Perhaps it is, considering the strictness of her overall stature. Despite the coiffure—or perhaps, in some strange ways, because of it—she reminds me somewhat of that little fellow Napoleon, without his nervous twitches. Her attire is similar, with a dark-blue jacket buttoned down to her knees and shiny black boots covering the rest.
“Senior Special Agent Lautrec, FBI,” she states, flipping open a small leather case to show a shield-shaped medallion for all of two seconds. “And this is my partner, Agent Degas.”
Logan snorts as the women resettle their postures. “Lautrec and Degas?” He escalates to a chuckle. “Is this a joke?”