Bois de Vincennes, Paris, November 22nd
Sophie’s pitched scream cut off abruptly as a rifle butt jabbed solidly against her forehead, bringing stars to her vision, and Caerys, started to leap up before she found the cold metal barrel of another gun pressed into her face.
*Both females secur-* one of the two began saying, presumably into a radio link of some sort, from the short burst of static, but cut off suddenly. Two muffled hisses were all the warning they received, as Gavin appeared in the window, a short barrelled rifle pressed against his shoulder firing two rounds in near silence, one into the back of the head of each.
Leaping through the window behind them he frowned, visibly, turning back towards the street, and ushered the two girls away from the entrance, wondering who was tracking them – and more importantly, why the obviously military personnel weren’t operating in sufficient numbers to have more troops coming in already.
“Move.” He ordered, over his shoulder, the silenced rifle spitting again, once, accompanied by the sound of a body crumpling outside. Scooping up the two dark green guns from the floor, he swung them back towards the girls. Caerys immediately grabbed one whilst Sophie shied away from it like it burnt.
“Just take it, you might need it.” He snapped, but she shook her head, hurrying out the door, and he was forced to stop arguing and back out after her as the first return fire embedded itself into the wall above his head.
“Across the hall, down the stairs.” He told them, sharply, tossing the extra gun aside noisily, and turning to put two rounds through the front door as steps sounded outside.
“We’re on the groun….” Sophie began, but Gavin brooked no argument, shoving her towards the door he meant.
“Damn it, woman, just do as your bloody told!” he snarled, ducking slightly as bullets began coming back towards them through the wooden door. This time, Sophie just turned and ran, close on Caerys’ heels. Inside the door they found a tiny landing with carpeted stairs leading up, and down a slick, moist, stone stairwell.
“Quietly.” Gavin urged them, following in behind, and pulling a second door closed, blocking off the stone stairs. He urged them on in silence, slipping easily past them to take the lead, before the second – last – flight ended.
“Where does this go?” Caerys pitched her voice in a whisper, but Gavin still spun round as though he were going to snap at her.
“It runs under the edge of the velodrome, and opens out somewhere near the Lac Minimes.” He explained, knowing full well it wouldn’t mean anything to them. “From there we have about a ten minute run…” – he eyed them both carefully and revised his estimate – “about a half-hour walk to another place I own. They shouldn’t know this one.” He said it with a confidence he didn’t feel, wondering how it was they’d found him here so quickly – or found them, rather. The military uniforms suggested it was the women they’d been looking for all along.
The passageway, now little more than a natural flaw in the bedrock, narrowed considerably, but finally opened out onto a slight rise overlooking a series of small lakes, and they emerged into the cold night air surprisingly quickly. For a moment, turning back over their heads, Gavin looked almost as though he’d lost something, but it passed quickly, and he gestured away to their left.
“That way.” He told them, and the pair wearily began to trudge that way.
“What the hell is all this about?” Sophie demanded, sounding close to tears, leaning heavily on Caerys as they climbed a slight rise. “I just came to Paris for a job interview.”
“I don’t know.” Caerys admitted, with a shrug. “I was brought here, they didn’t tell me anything more than that I was going.” She was holding up better, it seemed, but under the circumstances Gavin wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing. Reasonable, well-balanced people should be confused and disoriented by being chased through the Paris suburbs by armed militaria. Of course, if she were for some reason playing the role he’d have expected her to be somewhat more realistic, so he had to take her at face value for the moment – perhaps she was just odd. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility, given the situation he’d found her in.
“Is it much further?” Sophie asked, stumbling slightly, breaking him from his thoughts.
“We’re about half-way.” He explained, checking the sights quickly, and Caerys shook her head.
“You couldn’t have lied and said ‘nearly there’, could you?”
“And then have you turn on me in a few hundred yards? No.”
“We’d have been happy until then, though. Now we’re just going to be…”
“Will you shut up, girl!” he snapped. “I’m trying to make sure we aren’t being followed. Shut up and let me get on with it…”
Rue du Normandie, Paris, November 22nd
Caerys’ feet ached, her head hurt, her eyes were gritty and stinging, and the cold wind across the park was cutting through the bloodied shirt she was still wearing as though it weren’t there at all. She still couldn’t keep the grin from bubbling up on her face again and again as they trudged over the grass and gravel pathways.
She was free! It wasn’t how she’d imagined it – she’d hardly dared imagine it, often – but it was true. It was also true that she was being escorted by this gun-toting English weirdo, but you couldn’t have everything.
You could have freedom, though. Stepping off the grass as they passed through a small gate, she found herself suddenly stepping more gingerly on the pavement in her bare feet, struggling to keep Sophie upright as she stumbled more and more.
“This way.” Gavin ghosted past them, pointing to their left, and stooped slightly to scoop Sophie up off her feet over his shoulder. “Quiet.” He urged her, as she started to struggle, and Caerys just watched him take a few effortless steps away from her.
“Are you coming?” he asked, looking over the other shoulder.
“How the hell are you still going? It’s got to be close to two in the morning and you’re not even slowing.”
“I’ve gotten used to pulling all-nighters, over the years.” He explained after a brief pause. “Come on.”
“What is that you do, exactly.” She asked, pulling up alongside him on tip-toe, trying to keep her feet off the sharp-edged stones of the pavement.
“Whatever’s necessary.”
“That’s a non-answer.”
“True.” He nodded, his attention elsewhere as he looked around, ducking down an alleyway behind a large house. Caerys felt something distastefully liquid move beneath her foot as she followed. She paused, briefly, flicking whatever it was from her toes as best she could, until a strong arm wrapped around her waist and hoisted her from her feet.
“Shut up!” Gavin hissed in her ear as she yelped, and he eased down the alleyway, holding the pair of them aloft. His gait wasn’t as smooth, this time, but feeling the play of muscles in his arm and shoulder as she held on, Caerys couldn’t help but imagine that was more to do with balance than the fact he was struggling with the load.
She eased the gun barrel out of her hip, eventually, getting comfortable, just as he dropped her back to her feet without warning, and she pitched forward onto her knees.
“Sorry.” He managed, after a moment, reaching down to help her to her feet. “We’re there.”
“We are?” She looked up. And up. “Which floor?”
“What?” Gavin half-turned away from the security console he was accessing.
“Which floor are we on? Please tell me there’s a lift?”
“There’s no lift… you don’t have to go upstairs if you don’t want, there’s couches on the ground floor.” He turned away with a slight smile, and the metal grille-work over the door slid quietly aside.
“All of this? This isn’t an apartment block?”
“No, it’s not an apartment block. It’s a… a house.” She noted the hesitation and followed him in. “You can sit in here, I’ll go get a first aid kit for your feet.” He eased Sophie down onto the couch beside her, easing her hair away from the split on her head. “I’ll need to take a look at that, too… see if you can’t get her awake.”
“Let her sleep.” Caerys argued, lifting her feet to check the soles with a wince.
“She’s taken a blow to the head, I need to check that she’s sleeping and not unconscious.”
“Same difference, isn’t it?”
“No. If she’s unconscious, she’ll not likely wake up.”
“Won’t she just sleep it off?”
“Maybe… I’ll be back in a second.” By time he returned, Caerys was deep in sleep.
Rue de Normandie, Paris, November 22nd
Sophie woke slowly, a deep ache across her forehead and pain stabbing through her eyelids at the light coming from the window. She tried to roll away from the light, but found the back of the sofa in her way, and sat up with a start, wondering where she was.
Moaning at the spike of pain from her head she reached up and felt the raised lump on her forehead, remembering suddenly the rifle-butt that had caused it, and turned to see Caerys slumped on the nearby armchair, folded up neatly with her bandaged feet poking over the edge.
Rising slowly she tip-toed away, trying not to wake the girl, feeling hungry and thirsty, and stepped out of the sitting area into the hallway. The darkened passageway led deeper into the house, eventually terminating in a staircase that led up into more darkness above. The silence was oppressive, the darkness eerie given the light flooding into the sitting area from outside. The small panel of windows above the main door behind her had been tinted and let no light through, and she shuffled slowly across the hall, pressing open the first door she came to.
The study inside was almost as brightly lit as the sitting room, broad sash windows flooding the desk and crammed bookshelves warmly. Further inspection, though, showed that no-one had used the room for a while, a thin veneer of dust on the shelves and desk matched the motes in the air that the door had disturbed, so she pulled the door shut and moved on up the corridor.
The next two doors were locked, one of them with a regular key and the other with a digital keypad, so she moved up to the foot of the stairwell, and the single door at the end of the corridor that hadn’t been obvious at first. This, too, had a digital keypad, and she almost turned away when she caught the murmur of voices from within, and pressed gently against it. Half-surprising her, it swung gently, silently open, and she managed to catch it before it struck the wall.
Inside, against the slightly dated décor of the rest of the house, a stark, clean room was sunk slightly below floor level, with a short flight of stairs leading down into it. Large video screens dominated three of the walls, and a large bank of computers lined the fourth, surrounding a single leather chair in which Gavin was reclined, closed eyes pointed towards the ceiling, talking quietly.
“It doesn’t make any sense, though. Military operations to break up… no, to hijack a human sacrifice? Given the description of the altar, what religions or cults are on record as performing human sacrifice that would fit?”
“Nothing on record.” A disembodied female voice answered, coolly. “The detailing itself is not consistent with any documented movement. Human sacrifice is widely rumoured in numerous contexts, but there is little evidence to support any of the allegations.”
“Alright, change tacks, what about the weapons?”
“NATO standard issue, without any serial numbers or identifications… there are no realistic chances of tracing them without further information.”
“Damn.”
“I do have initial information on the two women.”
“Alright, go on then.”
“Caerys Michaelson, nineteen, student of Ancient Civilisations and Sociology at Oregon University. Father, Conrad, is Chief Operating Officer for an Import/Export firm in Portland, and sits on the board of three museums in the United States. Her university performance is reasonably good, although some concern has been expressed that she may being abused – no long term relationships have been noted, although she has a long history of male and female lovers.”
“That’s it?”
“She’s wholly unremarkable, save perhaps for opting for Ancient Civilisations as a topic of study.”
“Thanks for that.” Gavin reached up to massage his temples gently. “What about the other one, Doctor Barthez.”
“Sophie Natalie Barthez, twenty-six, resident Doctor of Neurology at Le Havre Hospital she interned with Doctor Georg Roffmai at the Pitie-Salpetriere in Paris, who has recently disappeared from his post at the Val de Grace military hospital in…”
“He’s not missing.” Sophie blurted out, and Gavin was on his feet faster than she would have expected. He didn’t move any further, just pressed a button on the nearest terminal, as she eased herself away from the wall she’d pressed herself against.
“Are you alright?” he finally managed, his voice pitched quiet so as not to alarm her any further.
“J’ai faim.” she pointed out. “Sorry, I have a hunger, and a thirst.” Gavin’s eyes narrowed slightly as she spoke, picking up the mistranslation.
“You’re tired, still, as well.” He noted as she came closer, and she nodded. “Come on, I’ll get you something for breakfast, and then we’ll have set off.”
“Set off? For where?”
“You wanted to get your son, didn’t you?” he pointed out. She nodded, a little cautiously, and followed him back up to the hallway where he stopped to close the door, typing something into the keypad.
“Up the stairs, first on the right.” He told her, and headed off towards the front room to get Caerys. By the time Sophie had wearily trudged her way up the plushly carpeted stairs Gavin was beside her, carrying a sleepy Caerys in his arms, and led the pair of them into the expansive kitchen.
Sitting them both at the breakfast bar he rounded the counter to the cooking area and paused, opening the cupboards and a built in fridge.
“Spanish omelette? We can almost get a full English breakfast, I’m afraid there’s no mushrooms or black pudding.”
“Is it all fresh?” Sophie asked. “It didn’t look like anyone had been here for months when I poked my head in downstairs.”
“The library?” Gavin asked, and she nodded. “I don’t tend to use it, much, but I was here three – no, four days ago. The food should still be fine from then.”
“Can you not just do Cheerios?” Caerys asked, her head resting on her folded arms on the counter.
“Cheerios? Sorry, no, I tend to have cooked. Bacon sandwich? Or I can just do you some toast?” His obvious distaste at that idea shone through, but Caerys nodded, and he dropped a few slices into the toaster.
“You, Doctor?”
“Bacon sandwiches sound good.” She ventured, feeling her stomach rumbling. It wasn’t difficult to see why Caerys had the figure she did – and Sophie didn’t – but she felt she deserved a little something after the previous day’s events.
“You got any OJ to go with that?” Caerys managed, finally pushing herself upright.
“OJ?” Sophie queried.
“Orange juice,” Gavin explained, opening the fridge, “it’s only concentrate.”
“That’s fine.” Caerys nodded. He passed the carton across with a glass that Caerys ignored completely, and turned back to the breakfast. “I could almost pass for human after that.” She observed, putting the empty carton back down.
“We’ll leave in an hour.” Gavin explained, quietly, as the bacon began to sizzle gently in the pan.
“To where?” Caerys asked, suddenly defensive.
“Le Havre, initially, it’s on the north coast.”
“And if I don’t want to go?”
“Then you don’t have to.” Gavin assured her, with a shrug. “I’d advise it, though, those people are still chasing.”
“They won’t catch us now, though, will they?” Sophie asked. Moving around the counter, putting the toast down in front of Caerys as he went, he pulled the long curtains aside from the door that led out onto the balcony to reveal two black-clad figures slumped outside against the railings.
“They already did, about two hours ago.”
Rue de Normandie, Paris, November 22nd
“Are you ready to go yet?” Gavin knocked at the door, frowning deeply.
“Nearly.” Caerys’ muffled voice came back.
“Hurry!” It was the third time he’d tried to chase her out of his room, but he spun away and down the stairs at a pace, finding Sophie waiting at the bottom. “At least one of you can tell the time.” He snapped, as much to himself as her.
“Je m’excuse!.” She straightened a little, caught by the sudden change in temperament, but followed him down the corridor where he unlocked the computer-locked door and pushed his way inside. The door, she noted, was reinforced on the back by a bulky metal panel. Inside, she found out why.
“Merde!” she breathed, taking in the rows of guns, bombs and ammunition racked up around the room. Gavin, for his part, stood in the middle of the room, casting an eye around, mulling over choices for a few minutes.
“Here.” He reached up, grasping the first selection and holding it to her.
“Non!” she backed away a step. “I can’t use that…”
“It’s not for you, it’s for me, I just need you to hold it for now. We’ll load it into the car in a minute.”
“Oh…” Gingerly, she reached out and took the gun, surprised at how heavy it was, but he immediately snatched it back.
“Here.” He pulled her arms out like a cradle, and dropped the gun across them before quickly turning back and selecting a half-dozen more of various specifications that meant nothing to her. A rucksack packed with a variety of grenades and what was presumably some other sort of explosive was just as quickly arranged, and then he took the array back from her one by one until she was empty-handed.
“Do you have any objections to this?” he asked, holding out a bulky, square looking pistol. “It’s a taser, a sort of a ranged stun-gun. It electrocutes, but it’s not intended to kill. No guarantees, if they’ve a weak heart or something, but generally it just knocks people out.”
“Do I have to?”
“I’d rather you did. I’m… I’m not used to looking out for other people, it’d be best if you had some sort of ability yourself.”
“Al… alright.” She nodded, reluctantly, taking it off him. Grabbing two heavy pistols from the nearest counter he strode out the door, pulling her behind him easily despite the clanking guns all swinging on their straps, and moved down to the next door. Pulling a key out of his pocket, he opened up the garage and the lights came automatically to reveal a pair of motorbikes, a two-seater soft-topped sports car and a big, bulky Volvo estate.
“That one,” he pointed to the estate, “we won’t get three people in the others.” Opening the boot, he lifted the panel of the floor and placed the guns one by one into the space revealed before putting the panel back. “Take a seat.” He waved towards the car and she slipped into place in the passenger seat, more than a little disoriented by the glaring differences between the mundane actions of loading the car, the picnic hamper that Gavin returned with a moment later, and the bodies on the balcony, the disjointed memories of the previous evening.
“CAERYS!” Gavin shouted from the doorway, almost deafening her as she appeared in the dooryway.
“What?”
“No rush… take your time… were you going to join us?” he gestured towards the car, slinging an attaché case and another backpack into the boot, slamming it shut and heading round to the driver’s seat.
“What did you do with the bodies on the balcony?” Sophie asked him as he settled into the driver’s seat, fishing a pair of glasses out of the overhead holder.
“I put them into the septic tank under the shed.” He told her, coldly. “They’ll not lead anyone here.”
“Damn.” Caerys slumped reluctantly into the back seat.
“What?” Gavin peered back at her, swamped in one of his shirts and a pair of his trousers, still cinched tight at the waist.
“I just figured that I’d get to sit in the front for once.”
“I have… maladie de voyage?” she looked at Gavin.
“Travel sickness, motion sickness…” he translated for them both.
“Oui, thank you. I get travel sickness if I sit in the back.”
“Wonderful…” Caerys hunched down in the seat.
“Seatbelt.” Gavin told her.
“What?”
“Put on your seatbelt.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the law, here. Because Gerard Morandais isn’t the sort to drive people who aren’t wearing their seatbelts. Because we don’t want to draw any more attention than we have to.”
“Who the fuck is Gerard Morandais?”
“He owns the house,” Gavin explained, settling the glasses into place and hunching down in the seat slightly. “…and the car.”
“I thought they were yours…” Sophie remarked.
“They are.”
“But… you said your name was Gavin?”
“One of them.” He admitted. “Gerard’s another. A systems auditor that spends much of his time at work and returns here periodically to take brief breaks.” He explained, leaving the two women to come to terms with the fact that they still didn’t really know anything about his man.
“I wish I knew what the hell was going on.” Sophie fought back tears as Gavin pressed a button on his key-ring to open the automatic garage door.
“So do I.” He admitted, with a look that wasn’t without sympathy. “Why don’t you try sleeping a little more. It’ll take hours to get to Le Havre, I’ll wake you plenty before we get there.”
“I don’t know if I can sleep right now.” She admitted, turning away rather than let him see her crying. “This is….”
“Just try.” He told her, quietly, and pulled out into the morning sunshine. She closed her eyes, as much to stop him talking as anything.
Autoroute A-13, France, November 22nd
“Where are we?” Sophie mumbled, waking with a start, and Gavin reached down into the well between the seats to produce a bottle of water.
“Autoroute de Normandie, the A-13, between Aubergenville and Mantes-le-Ville. There’s a service area coming up soon.”
“Do we have far to go?”
“We’re a little over half-way in distance. Further than that, timewise – it takes a while to get out of Paris, especially if you avoid the Boulevard Peripherie.”
“Did we?”
“Yes.” Sophie turned to look at Caerys in the back seat, expecting her to be asleep, but she was bolt upright, eyes shut, legs crossed uncomfortably on the seat in front of her.
“Is she asleep?”
“I think she’s meditating.” He peered in the mirror, briefly. “She said she was going to ‘delve for some answers.”
“Delve? What is ‘delve’? I’ve not heard that before.”
“It means… dig, I suppose. Archaeologists delve for ancient treasures.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know… didn’t make any sense to me, either. If she’s been involved with cults then she likely into any number of spiritualist or pagan ‘rituals’. Best to let her just work through it, I think.”
“It’s not spiritualist or pagan.” Caerys cut in, suddenly awake. “We’re being followed.”
“We are?” Sophie started to turn, but Gavin’s iron-hard arm caught her shoulder before she could.
“Don’t look.”
“How do you know we’re being followed?” she asked, peering in the mirror at Caerys.
“I could feel them closing in.”
“Or see them.” Gavin argued. “Dark blue Mercedes, three cars back in the middle lane – that’s why we’re stopping at the next services.”