Chapter 3

We'd ride out of that valley down to where the fields were green
We'd go down to the river
And into the river we'd dive
The River, Bruce Springsteen

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."