Chapter 9

I’m not entirely sure if there was a door or something in the Conclave’s vaulted cathedral that slammed open on my arrival, but every single one of the thousands of eyes in the enormous building snapped to me as I stormed in, dragging in the battered, bruised and bloodied, but still breathing body of Sterling behind me.

I had spent hours venting my anger out on him. Lots and lots of real-world hours. Sterling, forced to stay in the mindscape by my complete capture of his Palace, had endured torture the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the dark ages.

Taking his memories had been easy; I had all the evidence I needed. Jeeves had simply placed his hand on the walls of Sterling’s library and copied everything held within. I now had access to his first-hand memories of every single person he had attacked. And he had attacked a lot of people, hundreds of them, over his long life. His theater had allowed him to maintain the ruse of his young age, but with that now spread across the ground of his city, I was able to see that this man was hundreds of years old. Possibly the oldest Evo I had met.

“What is the meaning of this?!?” The Archon bellowed indignantly and furiously as I tossed the limp body of my assailant into the wooden base of his throne’s dais. Fiona and Jerry, also in attendance, ran towards their friend in an attempt to shield him from my obvious wrath as Uri and Marco, with a group of other men, stepped closer to me.

I didn’t bother answering Thomas, turning to my mentor and his boss instead. “Remember at the party? Both of you telling me about the attacks on other Evos?” They nodded mutely. “Well, here he is. He tried his luck on me and failed!”

Both of them turned to look at Sterling. Fiona and Jerry furrowed their brows, suddenly a lot more cautious in the defense of the man but not making any move to distance themselves from him. They looked to be frozen in that moment of uncertainty. What they knew of the man was totally at odds with what I was telling them; of course, they had no way of knowing about Sterling’s theater, and the act that he had been putting on since before either of them had been born.

“You have no right...” Bellowed Thomas as he stepped down off his throne.

“I swear to God, if you finish that sentence, you won’t live long enough to regret it!” I growled at him, turning to give him the full measure of my furious gaze.

“Pete,” Uri said carefully, his hands raised as he stepped forward to defuse the quickly building tension. “Do you have any proof of these accusations? We would need to see your memories again, if you don’t mind, to be able to verify your story.”

“No need,” I snorted. “I took the liberty of freeing up his memories for you. Browse them at your pleasure! There is more than enough evidence in there!”

Every eye in the building moved to Sterling, not just the people in the central chamber but every single eye in the whole complex. I could see him try to shrink away from the scrutiny, but with his walls reduced to a pile of smoldering ruins and his mindscape Avatar currently locked away in my own city, there was nothing he could do to stop them. His memories, every single one of them ... well, almost ... was like an open book to the thousands of minds currently going through them.

One by one, the faces around me changed. Morphing from doubtful curiosity to surprise, to shock, and then, finally, to horror. Fiona and Jerry backed away quickly. “And for those of you in the cheap seats!...” I shouted out, my booming voice echoing around the cathedral as I swung my arm in a wide circle around me. The ghosts of Sterling’s victims, all of them, faded into existence in a large circle around us. A wave of gasps and cries filled the halls as Evos started to recognize the people that Sterling had hunted. “Do any of these people look familiar?” I finished, leveling my gaze at a pale-faced Archon.

The Archon was looking around the host of ghosts, recognizing most, if not all of them. His jaw hung loose as his mind struggled to accept what his eyes were telling him. My own eyes paused on the faces of Matthias and Jacques for a moment before continuing.

“Samantha?” The Archon stammered, stepping closer to one of the ghosts. “But ... but ... you were killed by inquisitors in the Athens attack.”

“Apparently not,” Marco said with a growing growl, as he stepped forward closer to Uri.

“Is he our mole?” Uri asked, his eyes narrowed at Sterling.

I shook my head. “No, he’s not. He’s just an opportunistic predator who preyed upon his own people to get more power. Sounds about par for the Conclave, doesn’t it?” I snarled. “I’m done. Do with him what you wish.” Thomas bristled as the ghosts faded into nothing.

I turned and made for the exit.

“It is not your place to dish out justice for this Order!” The Archon’s voice boomed authoritatively and challengingly after me.

I froze. Every eye in the room seemed to have momentarily lost interest in Sterling for a second and was now resting on me. I spun back around and stormed back toward Thomas; my eyes were practically burning with rage. Three men, ones I didn’t recognize, stood themselves between the retreating Archon and me. With a simple flick of my fingers, all three of them were tossed effortlessly to the side, unhurt but not in any rush to be that stupid again. I bore down on the shrinking Thomas.

“Not my place? Not my place??” I shouted into his face. “And whose place is it? Yours? A pathetic, weak excuse for a man who would rather pretend there is no problem at all than go out and deal with it? What the fuck are you going to do about it? Pretend it isn’t happening while you make yourself comfortable on your oversized chair? You seem to mistake me for someone who works for you, who is beneath you in this joke of a club you’ve got here, so let me clue you into something you seem to have backward in your ignorant little skull! You are in no position to challenge me! Not in principle, not in ethics, not in rules, and certainly not in power! Every single bad thing that happens to me can be traced back to ‘your order,’ and I’m looking right at you as the man responsible! Something tells me that is not a thread that you want me tugging on! But I fucking promise you, challenge me again, and I will bring this whole rotten place down and fucking bury you in it!”

The Archon’s eyes danced furiously, but neither of us failed to notice that nobody, not a single Evo among the thousands present, came to his defense.

“Only members of our order are allowed to dispense justice out to other members,” he spluttered weakly.

“And I brought him here for you to do just that. I could have just killed him and been done with it. But mark my words; the next time a road in my investigation leads me back to you, I won’t be so diplomatic when I hold you personally responsible, and you won’t be so healthy when I am finished. Am I making myself clear?”

“I don’t think...”

“AM I MAKING MYSELF CLEAR?!?” I was well past the point of playing nice by this point.

Thomas gulped hard as another wave of energy washed out of me. The building around us shook, and the nervous murmurs of the rest of the congregation echoed off the shaking walls. “I understand.” He said weakly, his eyes drifting downward and his shoulders slumping.

“Good! In the future, unless you have something useful to say, I suggest that you shut - and I cannot stress this enough - THE FUCK UP!”

I turned without another word and marched back toward the exit, making sure to cast a glance at Uri on the way out. One that only he saw. One that told him there was a lot more for us to talk about.

Matthias was running.

His footing was firm, and his breathing was steady; he may not have ever been the fastest man in the world, but his stamina was second to none. Being an Evo did, after all, have its perks. He could keep this up all night. If they were going to kill him, they were going to have to catch him first, and he was not planning on making that easy for them.

The thousands of meters of open space, the Place du Parvis, raced by, one footfall after another, one deep, steady, heavy, measured breath after another; he was gaining ground, growing the distance between himself and his pursuers. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder; it was not hard to spot them. Even against the shadowy outline of Notre Dame Cathedral, the ominous white auras of the men chasing him could clearly be seen.

He let a smile creep onto his lips. He was losing them.

The smile was only in place for a few seconds, however, before it vanished from his face. Five more men, each with a glowing white aura, each armed with revolvers and a saber, rounded the corner in front of him.

“Merde!” Matthias spat to himself, almost losing his footing on the rain-swept Parisian streets as he skidded to the right and started running along the northern bank of the Seine. If he could make it to one of the three bridges over the river before he was cut off, he would be able to vanish into the city. If not, he would have to take his chances with the murky, icy waters of the River itself. February was not a great choice for a swim at the best of times, but the winter of 1888 would be remembered by many of the people in the French Capital as a particularly bitter and cold one.

He needed to make it to the Champs de Mars and the base of Gustave Eiffel’s wrought iron monstrosity. It was barely half built and already an eye sore on the skyline of his beloved city. The powers that be had said that it would be a monument to match Big Ben or the Colosseum as if anyone would put those two buildings in the same category. But to him, it would just look like a giant dick sticking up into the Parisian sky. The Eiffel Tower was a monument to self-aggrandizement and hubris, but one he had to get to. The lives of thousands of his fellow Evos depended on it. Perhaps even the future of the Conclave itself!

He cast another quick glance over his shoulder. The unexpected appearance of the second group of his attackers had caused him to pick up the pace; he was starting to tire. But more concerning, the need to suddenly change directions had allowed the first group to cut the corner of the Place du Parvis and gain back all the ground they had lost since he was ambushed on the steps of Notre Dame Cathedral.

His heavy breaths fogged the air in front of his face; he could feel the steam rising off the sweat that beaded against the frozen night air, just a few more yards, and he would be over the river.

A shot rang out against the silence of the night, and something zipped past his head. He could feel the closeness of it. He instinctively ducked away from the sound, losing the rhythm of his pace and slowing down dramatically. Another shot rang out, then another. One thudded into the corner of a building to his right, and the second skipped off the floor a dozen yards in front of him and a little to his left.

He darted to his left, aiming for the gap in the low stone wall that marked the opening of the bridge and off this cursed mid-river Island. They had been stupid, or at least more than a little cocky. Meeting on the steps of the building that had once served as the Inquisition headquarters for all of France, the building that marked the height of papal authority over his country. Yes, it had been centuries since it had served that purpose, now, it was a place of worship like any other, but there was something poetic about having the meeting there. The meeting that had confirmed the lies of the Conclave leadership and the true identity of those now hunting him.

Claude, his contact, had been hit by the very first shot. Matthias could still see that brief look of shock on his face before his eyes rolled back, and he slumped to the ground, his brains splattered all over the ancient stone against which he had been leaning. Matthias had reached down, grabbed the envelope from his pocket, knowing it contained the information he needed, had turned, and ran for his life.

He made it to the opening of the bridge, grabbing hold of one of the cast-iron oil lamps that illuminated the bridge to swing himself around the corner and kept running. Something hit him in the side. It felt like a cricket bat had come out of nowhere and smacked into the bottom of his ribs. It didn’t hurt so much as it just knocked some of the wind out of him. He didn’t slow down; he kept running.

Each breath started to become more labored, and the feeling of a wet warmth started spreading down his side. He didn’t bother checking; he knew he had been hit. It was funny that the shot that had hit him was the one he hadn’t heard being fired. He tried to twist around to look again, but this time a sharp, intense, soul-searing bolt of pain ripped through his side.

“Nope, fuck that. Keep running. You can deal with it later!” He thought to himself as he fled.

Somehow, he made it over the bridge. A few more shots were fired after him, but all of them were wildly misaimed. It would seem that his pursuers were running out of steam faster than he was. He allowed a small smile to flicker onto his face in self-congratulations. Matthias was a Parisian, born and bred, the Inquisition had caught him out in the open, but these narrow streets, winding alleys, dark corners, and late-night saloons were his territory. He could lose himself in them in a heartbeat.

And that is precisely what he did.

He rounded the first corner he came to, then, while still out of sight, darted right into an alley, ran along it for a few dozen yards, then bolted left again onto the next street before ducking through the door of one of Paris’s many late night burlesque houses.

He was already at the bar, sipping on a cognac, his breathing steady and his face the mask of calmness when the white-aura’d men ran past the window. He allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. But with the conscious lowering of his adrenaline came the spike of pain in his side. He was in more trouble than he had originally thought. He could already feel the clinic in his city working overtime to stop the bleeding and repair the damage done by the bullet. He cursed under his breath as he swallowed down the warming liquid.

He had to wait. They would give up soon. They couldn’t possibly know who he was supposed to meet, let alone where, and Jacques would be at the tower all night, if necessary. Only at sunrise, if Matthias hadn’t shown, would he know for sure that something had gone wrong. He had his own orders to follow then.

Matthias would wait, he had at least four hours til sun-up, and the Champs de Mars was barely a twenty-minute walk away. Two hours here would be enough to give his body time to heal a little and ensure the Inquisitors had given up the hunt for him, but still give him plenty of time to make the walk to the Tower.

If he didn’t make it, the world would be thrown into its first fully-industrial world war within a matter of a few decades. The first domino would be toppled, so to speak, and millions of lives would be lost. A lot of them would be Evo lives. It would be a war that would put to shame the barbarism of the American Civil war and would completely eclipse the cruelty of the British wars in their South African territories.

He shuddered at the thought.

At the appropriate time, he stepped out of the saloon, leaning forward to light his cigarettey while subtly taking the opportunity to check the deserted streets for any sign of glowing white men. There was none. They were gone. He started walking.

There was nothing simple about this part of the journey, however, not since that bullet had hit him. Whatever it had done to him, it was in there pretty deep and had caused a lot more damage than his adrenaline-fuelled escape had allowed him to feel. He winced against the pain as he brought his hand up to dab against the wound, pulling away to inspect the mess on his fingers. The blood wasn’t just red, but it was a thick, dark, almost black color, and he knew what that meant. He needed a hospital, all of which were doubtlessly under Inquisitor surveillance. More than that, he needed one now, but if he went now, even if he could get past his assailants, he would miss his rendezvous, and countless lives depended on him making it to that on time. This was one meeting that he couldn’t afford to be late for.

Another sharp jolt of pain made up his mind for him. It was too late. The damage was done, and no amount of medical intervention was going to change that. At least the four glasses of cognac and a significant amount of power had done a little toward numbing what would have otherwise been a crippling amount of pain. He stumbled onwards into the Parisian night.

Forty minutes later, barely able to stay upright, the blood draining from his extremities, his shirt saturated in his own blood, and barely able to see the half-constructed Eiffel Tower overhead, Matthias made it to the bank of Seine on the far end of the Champs de Mars.

“Mon Dieu, Matthias. What happened?” Jacques gasped as he jumped up from the bench he had been sitting on for the past six hours.

Matthias opened his mouth to answer, but a bubble of blood burst from his lips instead, followed by a cough. He pitched forward and collapsed onto the frozen wet floor. Jacques, his friend of almost thirty years, rushed over to him, kneeling next to him and lifting his head onto his lap.

“It was ... an ambush,” Matthias gasped against the pain of simply breathing.

“Claude?” Jacques asked hopefully, but Matthias only shook his head.

The dying man slid his trembling hand into his left-hand pocket, pulling out the envelope before pushing it into his friend’s hands and curling his fingers around it. “Tell Annie ... I love her ... and I died for ... my duty ... and for ... our children.” Jacques nodded, his eyes tearing up as he watched his friend of so many years fade away before his eyes. Matthias looked up at him, his eyes glossing over and losing focus. “Take it...” Matthias murmured, “ ... before it’s too ... late.”

“No, Matt, no. I can’t. I won’t.”

“Do it ... now.”

Jacques sighed, still holding the envelope in one hand and resting his other on the forehead of his dying friend. It was the last rite for dying Evos; their powers would be drained by the person closest to them; at least, that was the hope. It was rare for Evos to die of anything other than old age these days. Taking their powers was a way to pass their strength on to those who would still need it, to stay in the fight, so to speak. It was the one duty no Evo ever hoped to have to carry out on another.

But Jaques did it. He drained his friend, he emptied his library, and he pulled every single shred of knowledge and power out of a man he would have died to protect but no longer could. The closest thing to a brother he had ever had.

He then watched as Matthias slipped away. The fog of his last long breath drifted into nothingness in the cold night air.

Jacques took a deep breath and stood. His new memories, especially of Matthias’s flight from the Cathedral of Notre Dame, had been as incredible as they had been heroic. He could see, in his mind’s eye, the moment when his friend had willingly chosen to sacrifice his life for the cause for which they were now fighting. He would carry those memories for the rest of his life, and then, once this war against the rot within the Conclave had been won, he would donate them to the archives so that all would be able to understand what true heroism looked like.

He said a silent prayer over the body of his friend and then turned and headed toward the city center. The next train was due in an hour, and he had to be in London by the next afternoon at the very latest.