The Christmas lights on the Rue du Faubourg St Denis were lit, throwing colored reflections into the oily street puddles and the glistening droplets of rain on parked cars.
People hurried by on the street, intent on getting out of the evening wind and home, barely giving Paul a glance. He needed to reconsider his options. If he handed himself in, the best case scenario he could expect was a serious grilling and a couple of nights in a police cell. He didn’t even want to think about the worst. The thing to do, he concluded, was to carry on, deliver this damn stone and find out what the hell he’d gotten himself mixed up in. Until he had some more information, how could he feasibly assess his options?
Obviously he wasn’t a terrorist, so logically, Elodie could be as innocent as he was. As far as he could see, the only way to get to the bottom of this crazy mess without getting arrested, was to deliver the crystal to the address Elodie had given him.
Paul pulled his map out from his pocket and peered at it in the orange glow of a streetlight. He found the address easily, it was on a tiny island on the Seine, connected by a choice of bridges to the rest of Paris.
Where he was now wasn’t quite so easy but by walking to the end of the street, keeping his face concealed from passers-by as much as possible, Paul found a street sign and soon located himself fairly close to the Boulevard de Strasbourg which led into the Boulevard Sebastopol and then directly to the Seine. It wasn’t too far, maybe 3 or 4 kms at the most, but as Paul was on the point of starting back for the main road, he heard the whine of police sirens and saw two cars streak by, towards the Gare du Nord, blue lights flashing.
He’d have to keep to the back roads, he thought, weave his way there carefully, keeping parallel to the main road.
What didn’t make sense to Paul, was how the stone could make him a terrorist. He’d looked at it long and hard. You couldn’t unscrew it to conceal a deadly, biochemical weapon inside. It didn’t have a hidden USB port. It was just your average looking crystal, a large acorn-sized, egg shaped bloody stone, without any obvious value. Paul cut left, turning the map in front of him to keep his sense of direction. Even if it was a diamond, he reasoned, they’d call him a jewel thief and not a terrorist.
There was so much in this business that made no sense at all.
The blustery afternoon had darkened further into a cold, wet evening, the wind whipping fallen leaves and the odd bit of rubbish along in the gutters, and Paul, keeping furtively to the side streets and alleyways was fast approaching his destination.
He arrived finally at the river and looked across at the island, gratefully hugging the overcoat around himself against the heavy drizzle that plastered his hair onto his forehead.
The view laid out in front of him was truly spectacular.
The bridges decked in hundreds of lights and the breath taking bulk of the floodlit Notre Dame cathedral, reflected and sparkled brilliantly in the choppy waters of the Seine.
Paul stopped to admire the beauty for a moment and was struck by a thought.
This time yesterday he’d been on his way home, looking forward to a cosy meal with Elodie, never conceiving that only twenty-four hours later he would be in a foreign city, without passport or money and wanted by the police!
Paul sighed and started over the bridge towards the island.
If nothing else it would make a good story to tell the kids one day he thought.
Christ! The whole situation had to be a big mistake, didn’t it?
He turned left off the bridge, stopping in the light of a smart restaurant to check his map.
There were no customers yet and a waitress was sulkily setting the tables. He pulled out the torn address book page, pleased to see he was nearly there. He followed the road as it skirted the island and then turned off into the shadows of an austere, stone archway which opened into a vast courtyard, ambiently lit and ringed by grand, terraced houses. They were generously proportioned, at least five stories high, tall french windows leading onto wrought iron balconies on the upper floors. Paul took it in slowly, sniffing the unmistakable aroma of wealth.
He strode into the square, counting the numbers on the doors off until he reached No 17.
Once there, he hesitated, aware that two distinct possibilities existed from this point. Either he would be admitted and could hope to learn something that would help unravel this mess, or, he would find himself looking up the barrel of a gun, staring at the grim features of an Agent with his finger poised on the trigger.
But there was no avoiding it now he’d come this far, Paul thought, and bracing himself he climbed the wide steps and lifted the brass knocker on the grand double doors. The frosted bevelled glass obscured the view of what lay inside.
Here goes, he thought, letting the knocker fall decisively, praying for the last time that it wasn’t a trap.
A moment later he heard the clack of heels approaching and the door was opened by a small, yet elegant, middle-aged woman, her black hair gleaming in a pristine bob.
She looked at him quizzically,
‘Oui Monsieur?’ she asked.
Paul gaped, relief flooding through him. He realized that during his hour long walk through the dark streets of Paris, he hadn’t planned what he’d say once he got here. The woman’s prim and proper air threw him. He hadn't known who he had expected but she definitely wasn’t it.
“Errrr ... Bonjour Madame,’ he stumbled, ‘Je suis, err une amie de Elodie et ...”
She interrupted his stilted flow abruptly, ‘You would perhaps prefer to speak in english?’ the pitch of her voice rising towards the end of the sentence.
‘Yes, thanks.’
‘Please come in.’ She held the door back, stepping aside for him to pass. Paul found himself in a huge spacious hallway, a symmetrical tiled floor stretching away in front of him, to the cavernous depths of the house. It certainly didn’t look like a terrorist headquarters, he thought, but come to that, he didn’t really know what one would look like anyway.
Paul stared, impressed at the marble staircase flanked by wrought-iron banisters which swept gracefully upwards from the hall. Surely terrorists wouldn’t have such artistic sophistication?
The woman closed the front door promptly and stood feet together, waiting for Paul to explain, her painted eyebrows raised in enquiry as Paul’s eyes continued to wander from the immense chandelier poised over the centre of the hall to the highly polished pieces of antique furniture that lined the walls. With a detectable note of impatience in her voice, she cut off Paul’s silent admiration.
‘Yes, you were saying Monsieur, about Mademoiselle Elodie?’
Paul gathered his thoughts together and plunged his hand into his trouser pocket, withdrawing the silk wrapped package. The cloth fell open, revealing in the palm of his outstretched hand the tiny, egg-shaped crystal.
The woman let out a stifled gasp and raised a hand to her heart.
‘Mon Dieu!’ she half whispered.
Paul continued to hold the crystal towards her, fascinated by the effect it was having on her.
‘Elodie gave it to me and told me to bring it here, and so,’ he paused, not sure how to go on, ‘here it is! It must be bloody important,’ he ploughed on, ‘as everyone seems to want it and I’ve been through hell to get it here! And now, I’d like to know what this is all about.’
His speech didn’t come out quite as articulately as he’d hoped but still he thought he’d covered the major points.
The woman’s jaw dropped for a moment but she quickly recovered herself, opening a door leading off the hallway into an elegantly furnished, high ceilinged room.
‘Please come in and make yourself comfortable.’
She followed him into the room and moving towards an old-fashioned, white telephone on a corner table said,
‘I regret Monsieur, I am not in the position to answer your questions. But perhaps you would care for a cup of coffee while you wait?’
Without pausing for Paul to answer she picked up and rang a dainty silve
r bell.
Almost instantly a woman wearing a maids uniform knocked and quietly entered the room. Paul listening, understood absolutely none of the rapid instructions she rattled off at the maid before she turned back to him saying,
‘Please excuse me while I make a call.’
Paul sat himself awkwardly on an elegantly carved chair and watched her.
‘Madame Sauveterre-Dubois,’ she said breathlessly, ‘C’est tres urgent, il faut que vous venez de suite,’ she paused.
‘Oui Madame. Un anglais.’
‘Très bien Madame.’
The conversation ended abruptly and the woman looked up and addressed Paul.
‘I am happy to say Mme Sauveterre-Dubois is on her way.’
‘Who?’ asked Paul
‘The mother of Elodie.’
‘But what ... ?’ Paul started, so filled with questions he didn’t know quite where to begin, before he was cut off by a raised hand.
‘As I said before Monsieur, all of your questions must wait.’
She turned to the window pulling the curtains closed with a heavy gold cord and then sat demurely, her hands folded in her lap, on a small padded chair and Paul, feeling effectively dismissed, resigned himself to wait.
He’d come this far, delivered their precious stone and felt that at the very least they owed him an explanation. He looked around the room in awe, feeling like he had been dropped into another world. Above the stylish curves of the art nouveau fireplace was a large and fabulously ornate golden clock, swarming with trumpeting angels and podgy cherubs, its brass pendulum ponderously ticking away the seconds.
There was a discreet knock on the door and they both turned to see the maid enter carrying a tray.
‘Ah le café,’ said the woman, sounding relieved.
But what Paul noticed, was that standing in the hallway behind her was the back of a tall, dark suited man, with a thickly muscled neck bulging from his jacket collar.
Shit, Paul thought, it looked like maybe he wasn’t free to leave even if he wanted to. There was definitely more to this crystal than met the eye.
The maid set down the silver tray beautifully laid with tiny jugs and a sugar bowl with tongs. Paul smiled his thanks to her but she ignored him, pouring his cup of steaming, black coffee and leaving the room.
Coffee wasn’t his favorite drink but what the hell, it gave him something to do. He stirred in some sugar and cream and took a sip. If it was as strong as it tasted he knew that every mouthful was jeopardizing his chances of a good night’s sleep.
As he drank the woman remained seated by the window, her eyes lowered and lips tightly pursed. Fine, thought Paul, if she didn’t want to talk she didn’t have to. He was glad of the time to gather his thoughts anyway and this opulent drawing room was a definite improvement on the cold wet streets outside.
Paul sipped his coffee slowly. The mantelpiece clock ticked the seconds and minutes away, he drank one cup, then a second, and finally a tepid third.
As Paul stirred the dainty cup yet again he could hear the occasional shuffle of the guard’s feet outside the door.
There were a lot of players in this game already. The Agents, the bag-lady and now these wealthy Parisians.
Well, it didn’t take that many brains to figure the Agents were the bad guys, which logically would make this lot the good guys.
Still, you couldn’t be too sure, maybe real-life wasn’t quite as clear cut as a movie.
The purr of a powerful engine slowed in the courtyard outside, the woman quickly rising and twitching a corner of the curtain back. With a look of relief, she spoke to Paul for the first time in half an hour.
‘Mme Sauveterre-Dubois has arrived.’
The engine cut and Paul heard the opening and closing of car doors.
A moment later the double doors were opened to reveal a slim, elegantly dressed, elderly woman. Although she was petite her presence was huge, dominating the room. Paul rose as she entered, stepping forward to shake her tiny gloved hand.
‘Hi, I’m Paul, you must be -’ he started to say, before he was cut off by her quiet, imperious voice,
‘You have something for me I believe?’
Paul fumbled for a moment in his pocket before handing over the silk-wrapped crystal. As Mme Sauveterre-Dubois received it, she too let out an involuntary sigh, saying,
‘Mon Dieu, qu’est ce que c’est passé?’
She examined it carefully for a moment before unclasping a shiny, black handbag and carefully dropping it in.
‘So tell me Mr. Paul, firstly how do you come to be in possession of ... of ...’ she searched for a word before settling on, ‘this object? And secondly, where is my daughter?’
There was something about her attitude, a mixture of haughtiness and condescension that threw Paul off track, making him feel tongue tied and clumsy,
‘Well, you see, I’m her neighbour and we were just having dinner and all these police came and she ran away ...‘ he took a much needed breath, ‘and well, she gave me the crystal and asked, or told me to bring it here, and I don’t know where she is and that’s about it,’ Paul finished lamely, feeling the blood starting to rise to his face, as Mme Dubois studied him hard. That would have to be his worst speech ever he thought, the flush of shame burning his cheeks.
‘So, how well do you know Elodie?’ she asked.
‘Quite well I thought, but obviously not, ... ‘
‘And what exactly has she told you?’
‘Well she forgot to tell me the bit about being a member of a terrorist ring,’ Paul replied, thinking that at least belligerent was better than moronic. He was aware that the conversation was not going to plan. He’d unwittingly risked his neck bringing them their crystal and he was the one who should be asking the questions.
If only she didn’t make him feel so insignificant and small.
‘I see,’ she said, ‘and let me clarify, you said you are her neighbour?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ replied Paul, his infatuation for Elodie staring them both in the face.
Mme Dubois smiled mirthlessly,
‘Well, it is most kind of you I am sure ...’ she said, offering him a delicate, gloved hand to shake, ‘Of course, if you have incurred any expenses,’ she continued, ‘it would be our greatest pleasure to reimburse you.’
She tilted her head quizzically for the briefest moment, before carrying on with a new note of briskness to her voice,
‘I beg you to excuse me but I must leave at once. I trust you will have a pleasant stay in Paris,’ she said, turning to leave.
Paul stared at the space that she had just vacated for a moment before stumbling after her down the hallway.
‘Hang on, hang on! Having a pleasant stay in Paris is one thing I won’t be doing!’
Mme Dubois stopped and turned to look at him.
‘Or haven’t you seen the news? I’m a wanted man thanks to your daughter and your blessed stone!’
Paul stopped as he reached Mme Dubois, the guard half a step behind him.
‘What’s this all about?’ he demanded, ‘are you terrorists?’
Mme Dubois eyebrows arched slightly in response as Paul blundered on, his need to have some answers taking priority over everything else,
‘So why is this stone so bloody important? Who are those Agents in grey? And what -’
Mme Dubois visibly stiffened, cutting Paul’s flow.
‘Agents know you are in Paris?’ she asked.
‘Well, obviously!’ Paul replied, pleased to be getting some kind of reaction.
Mme Dubois appeared to think hard for a moment before reaching a decision.
‘One thing we can certainly not afford now is for you to fall into their hands. We have no choice,’ she stated, ‘you must come with me.’
Finally, Paul thought, she was paying some attention to his problems or was she just thinking about her own? Either way, anything was better than being turned out onto the streets to await arrest, and t
his way at least he might actually get to find out what this story was about.
Paul grabbed his damp coat and allowed himself to be led out onto the dark street where a uniformed chauffeur was holding the back door to a prestigious, sleek silver car open. Paul wasn’t an expert on vintage cars but from the graceful curves of the wheel arches and the long bonnet, he guessed it was probably a Bentley.
Paul settled himself on the spacious leather seat next to Mme Dubois, and the chauffeur eased off from the curb as Mme Dubois leaned forward to speak to him,
‘Aussi vite que possible, s’il te plait Louis.’
He nodded in acknowledgement, ‘Bien-sur, madame.’
Paul, still desperate to understand the situation immediately fired off his most burning questions.
‘So who are you guys? Why am I wanted for terrorism?’
Mme Dubois looked him over gravely but didn’t reply.
‘Look I’m not stupid!’ Paul blurted out, ‘there is obviously something secret going on here and it’s time I knew what it was.’
‘But of course, Mr. Paul. We will do our best to inform you and remedy your predicament once we have arrived at the Chateau ... You are of course our guest until such time.’
She paused, flashed him a brief insincere smile whilst lifting a satellite phone from its cradle between the seats.
‘Excuse me please and thank-you for your patience.’
Paul bit his lip in caffeine-fueled frustration.
How many times could these people fob him off, he wondered, as the shining puddles flashed by outside the window. He’d just have to go with the flow and wait till they got to this ‘chateau’. At least he’d be kept warm and dry and there was the prospect of a hot meal and a comfortable bed for the night. Of course, there was always the possibility he was going to finish the evening in a bag at the bottom of the Seine, he thought wryly.
Paul settled himself resignedly into the cream upholstery, staring out the window as Madame Dubois started to speak into her phone.
‘Ah Serge! Ils savent qu’il est a Paris!
Oui ... il faut qu’on se deplace ce soir même. Je suis en route ...
Oui ... à toute de suite.’
If only he’d paid more attention to his French lessons at school, he thought, but then again, he’d never have predicted ending up in a situation like this.
She replaced the telephone, then picked up a remote control the size of a lighter. Paul noticed the glint of a diamond encrusted watch elegantly draped around her wrist. He thought of the necklace he’d been so proud to buy Elodie, realizing that it would probably look like it came out of a Christmas cracker to people with this kind of money. Classical music suddenly filled the car, the melody washing over him in perfect definition from hidden speakers behind his head.
Mme Dubois smiled across at him,
‘I trust Bach is to your taste ... so soothing for the nerves I find.’
Without waiting for a reply she reclined comfortably and closed her eyes.
Paul, in his state of agitation found Mme Dubois attitude perplexing.
How could she listen to music at a moment like this?
Was she not worried about her daughter?
The chauffeur gunned the car confidently through the streets, weaving smoothly through rush hour Paris. Paul peered out, recognizing the spectacular flood-lit Arc de Triomphe across three lanes of traffic on his left as they peeled off, accelerating down a tree lined dual carriage-way.
As the rain-washed streets of Paris finally gave way to open countryside, Paul sat in coffee induced agitation, mentally chewing at the bizarre and frightening events of the day.
The CD finished and Mme Dubois opened her eyes, blinked once and looked around.
‘We are nearly there,’ she said.
They had turned off the main road and mature parkland was visible behind spiked iron railings on either side of them. The intermittent drizzle of the afternoon had increased to a steady rain and Paul peered past the monotonous sweep of the windscreen wipers looking for a road sign to give him some indication of his whereabouts.
‘Voici le Chateau, Mr. Paul,’ said Mme Dubois, gesturing with her hand to their left.
Paul could make out a side view of an enormous, rectangular building, lights blazing from the upper windows.
As the road swept toward it the trees thinned out and Paul could see an ornate gatehouse tucked behind a pair of imposing, wrought iron gates.
The chauffeur flicked his indicator on and braked to pull into the drive.
Suddenly Mme Dubois let out a shout of horror and surprise as all three of them saw a blue gendarmerie van concealed by the rhododendrums tucked in at the edge of the drive and the silhouettes of two gendarmes blocking their way.
At the far end of the drive, Paul could see more police cars and two black, tinted windowed Range Rovers parked haphazardly on the Chateau forecourt. And behind them, illuminated in the light spilling from the open double doors, silhouetted figures were being frog-marched out of the building. The Bentley ground to a halt, its wheel skidding on the wet gravel.
Mme Dubois reacted quickly, grabbing Paul’s shoulder and shoving him down before either of the waiting police officers on the drive turned to look. Paul found himself bent double, his head jammed between his legs as Mme Dubois, suddenly fiercely animated, urged her driver on,
‘Recule Louis, vas-y.’
Paul tried to sit up but she held him forcefully down as Louis put the car into reverse, the wheels spinning on the gravel.
‘Stay down,’ she said, ‘ you must not be seen. They know I am here, but hopefully they do not know about you.’
The tyres gripped tarmac and the Bentley powered off into the darkness.
Mme Dubois grabbed the telephone, ‘I must warn the other houses, it is all in my hands now,’ she said, thinking aloud, whilst she punched in the number on the keypad.
Paul, from his hunched position looked questioningly up at her. She met his eyes and explained,
‘We have more people in Italy and Switzerland.’
Paul could hear the dull ring of the telephone, once, twice before it was answered by a gruff voice.
‘Allo? Polizia ...’ Despite the darkness inside the car, Paul could see the color drain from Mme Dubois face as she broke the connection and tried another number with the same result. She replaced the phone with a shaking hand, flashing a backwards glance through the rear window.
‘Plus vite Louis! Ils nous approchent, plus vite!’
Paul’s stomach tightened sickeningly as the car’s wheels accelerated through the bend.
He looked up at Mme Dubois seeing her face sagging momentarily in despair.
‘Mon Dieu! On est vaincu ... on est vaincu ...’ she muttered under her breath. Her eyes met his again as a new thought hit her, returning strength and color to her face, ‘but while Elodie is free, there is still hope,’ she said with conviction.
Paul raised his head gingerly above the seat, sneaking a look behind at their pursuers. They were about two hundred meters away, their high beam shining through the falling rain.
‘This can’t be coincidence. We have combated their power to read minds for centuries,’ she said.
‘You what?’ Paul interjected, but Mme Dubois ignored him, following her own train of thought, ‘Obviously they have upgraded ... they must have a new device ... something that specifically isolated the chosen 12. But how did Elodie escape when the others didn’t? And now, Elodie, alone of the 12 is still free.’
Paul clung to the armrest as the car braked into another bend and powered out the other side. He looked at the walnut veneered dashboard with its dated, circular dials and saw the needle creep up to 140.
This wasn’t your average chauffeur, he thought, this guy really knew how to drive.
Mme Dubois was evidently thinking along the same lines,
‘We have a superb driver and a superior car but even as we speak Agents are on our trail,’ she sighed, ‘even if
it takes until the petrol tank is empty, inevitably we will be caught.’
She unclipped the clasp of her handbag, withdrew the now familiar silk bundle and held it out to Paul, her eyes burning with an intensity that reminded him strongly of her daughter.
‘I pray to God that Elodie knew what she was doing when she chose you,’ she looked hard at Paul, still bent double uncomfortably behind the drivers seat, before she continued, ‘perhaps there is wisdom in her choice, after all they will not be looking for a mind or frequency like yours.’
Paul, although he didn’t fully understand what she was saying had the distinct feeling that he was being insulted. Mme Dubois pushed the crystal more urgently towards him, saying,
‘Take it, you are the only chance we have left ... take it to Alesia as fast as possible and we will pray that Elodie will find a way to meet you there.’
‘Whoooaa there!’ Paul sat up straight, ‘Why on earth would I want it back? I don’t want more trouble, I want my name cleared and the first train back home ...’
They screeched round a bend and Paul was pushed hard against the door as the back wheels slid on the wet tarmac. Squinting ahead, Paul saw a “STOP” sign flash past and then another with “TROYES 85 kms” written on it. They skidded diagonally across the junction to join the main road.
He looked out the back window and saw that even though the police headlights were still visible behind them, Louis professional driving had gained them some ground.
Mme Dubois fixed Paul with her eye,
‘Mr. Paul, we must not delude ourselves, the raid on the chateau has changed everything. The only person who can help now,’ she paused for effect, ‘ is you. Of course it will be dangerous but if you succeed, then we will all be free.’
Paul was on the point of answering when Louis interrupted with a shout of,
‘Attention!’ and slammed the brakes on.
Both Mme Dubois and Paul were flung forward into their seat belts, Paul just glimpsing the flashing blue lights of a roadblock ahead before Louis turned sharply down a farm track. The car bumped over potholes, past some lit-up farm buildings and a half-minute later Louis rejoined a smaller tarmac road.
Paul, looking between the seats noticed, tucked discretely next to the steering column, the glowing screen of a state of the art GPS. Not only could that guy drive, he thought, but he could read his GPS with his foot down at 100 k’s per hour.
Mme Dubois, maintaining her composure shook the crystal inches from his face,
‘Do you even know what this is?’
Paul pulled himself back up in his seat,
‘No, I don’t, but I’ve been hoping -’
Mme Dubois cut him off, the urgency in her voice unmistakable,
‘It is the most powerful object in the world! For centuries it was guarded by the druids in the central stone of Alesia. Until 2,000 years ago when Julius Caesar and the Roman legions systematically destroyed the stone circles of ancient Gaul.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Paul. ‘What on Earth would the Romans want with it?’
A look of exasperation flashed across Mme Dubois face.
‘I am afraid we do not have time for a lengthy discourse in history. Suffice to say there is more to any power structure than meets the eye and there are always those who control the controllers. May I continue?’
‘Yeah sure,’ said Paul, none the wiser and uncertain whether she was going to make any sense at all.
‘The druids were able to reach the stone first and hide it and ever since then it has been passed down in secret.’
‘But why?’ Paul interrupted, ‘why so much trouble for a little stone?’
‘This “little stone” as you call it, and only this little stone,’ Mme Dubois rushed on, ’according to druidic legend has the power to bring on a golden age of peace and prosperity for all of Earth, if replaced in the stone circle of Alesia at sunrise on winter solstice 2012.’
‘Hang on,’ Paul interrupted, ‘I thought you said the Romans destroyed the stone circles.’
‘Indeed,’ she replied, ‘they did, and that is why the chosen 12 have trained all their lives to be able to transcend both time and dimension to plant the crystal back before the circle was destroyed.’
Paul started to object but she cut him off,
‘Believe me Mr. Paul,’ she laid her hand on his, ‘We are no more terrorists than you are.’
Mme Dubois might believe in the story she was telling him but there was no way Paul was going to buy it! A prophesied “golden age of peace and prosperity”! He’d never heard anything quite so idiotic.
Could she be lying, he wondered? But if she was, couldn’t she have concocted a better story than this wooly fairy tale of conspiracy, prophesy and magic? It made no sense at all.
The car veered off the main road and rocketed down a steep incline. There was so much nonsense in her tale, Paul thought, as his body was flung around in the back of the car that he didn’t know where to start with it.
With all the incongruous ingredients that she’d thrown into the plot, Paul could see no way in which they could all link up into a coherent story. How could she expect him to give any credibility to the idea of “transcending time and dimension”?
But then he remembered his strange experience of that afternoon with the bag-lady in the station. Could that have been what she’d done to him?
Transcended dimension? Of course not but what on Earth were the police doing taking this madness so seriously, he thought, vocalizing the question that sprang to mind.
‘So why do the Agents want the stone?’
‘There are those who benefit from keeping the Earth and humanity in a weakened state, a lower vibration,’ she said enigmatically, ‘and it is from them that we have been running for centuries and it is they who will win tonight if you do not help us.’
Paul tried to rationalize the situation but failed. He was sure of two things, very sure. One; He wasn’t going to get a nice dinner or a comfy bed and two; he didn’t fancy another meeting with those Agents. Mme Dubois imploring eyes locked with his.
‘Please, Monsieur Paul, I beg you ...’ she breathed, as he stared stubbornly back at her feeling his resistance begin to weaken and then, against all reason, logic and sound judgement he felt himself open his hand and accept the crystal into his palm.
Mme Dubois, still holding his eye contact said,
‘Thank you. If Elodie placed her trust in you, then I must also. I believe you can do this.’
She leant forward to speak to the driver,
‘Arrête après la prochaine virage Louis. Mr. Paul va sortir.’
Moments later the car slammed to a sudden stop and Mme Dubois, un-clicking both seat belts, leant across him and flung the door open. Then, placing a hand on his shoulder, she gave him one last searching look and said.
‘Bonne chance Monsieur Paul. Get out and hide!’
Paul stared dumbly back for a moment before she pushed him, with unexpected force, out of the door into the rainy night.
Paul, taken totally by surprise caught his leg in the foot well of the car and fell, flinging his left arm out instinctively to protect his head. He landed badly, his shoulder and wrist impacting hard against the tarmac.
Before he could think let alone speak, the passenger door slammed shut and he watched stupefied as the car smoothly accelerated away from him through the dark night, its taillights receding into the distance until they vanished round a bend.
Sitting confused and sore on the wet road, Paul rubbed his shoulder and noticed that his watch was smashed, the glass face shattered into tiny shards where it had ground into the tarmac.
He sighed, aware that his broken watch was probably the least of his worries. He heard the screaming revs of a fast approaching car and looking up he could see its headlights picking out the branches of the trees above him.
Paul staggered to his feet, took a few steps in the dark, aware that he must get off the road and tripped, stumbled and fel
l headlong into the ditch.
He lay still, feeling the cold water seeping into his clothing, as a police car streaked by throwing blue light onto the surrounding undergrowth.
Paul raised his head as a second car roared past, realizing immediately that it was one of the black Range Rovers he’d seen at the Chateau.
They too vanished further up the road, the sounds of their engines fading to leave him in a silence broken only by the soft patter of dripping leaves.
It was only when he realized that his left side was soaked through, from his sock, to his trousers, shirt and coat sleeve that he lifted himself up cautiously and climbed out of the ditch.
Paul stood vacantly on the road, the gentle rain settling in tiny pearls on his hair and the heavy fabric of his overcoat.
The situation was so beyond his previous experience that he was at a loss as to how to react.
How had he got into this mess?
Come to that, why was it happening to him?
If this was a dream, now would be the opportune moment to wake up, he thought, but from the throbbing pain in his shoulder it was clear that he was most definitely awake.
Could things possibly be any worse?
He was wet, cold and hungry with a badly bruised shoulder on a deserted road somewhere outside Paris. To add to that, he was wanted by the police, for a crime he didn’t understand, in connection with the tiny crystal which was now shoved back in his pocket. And to really top things off he had no money, no passport, no phone, no watch and no prospect of either a meal or a bed for the night. Laid out simply like that, things appeared even worse than before and Paul sank down onto the wet tarmac, a wave of despair washing over him. He buried his head in his hands, rocking unconsciously backward and forwards. It was only when he noticed that his teeth were starting to chatter and the cold rain was running down his neck in rivulets, that he realized he needed to move, to keep warm.
He could feel something pressing uncomfortably into his leg through the thin material of his trouser pocket, he pulled it out to find the bar of chocolate he’d bought all those hours ago in Paris. It had moulded itself to the shape of his thigh, and the outside wrapper was sodden, but, right now, Paul didn’t care and he ripped it open, gratefully munching his way through piece by piece. As he polished off the last crumbs and the rush of sugar hit his bloodstream he could feel his mood lifting slightly. His blank depression having been replaced by a new determination to think his way out of this crazy muddle.
If his mobile hadn’t been smashed this afternoon he would have liked nothing better than to tell Julie the whole, incredible, nonsensical story. He had to admit she had a certain knack of reading between the lines and spotting the things that really mattered.
Still, Paul sighed, it wasn’t going to happen. He was well and truly on his own here. He got to his feet, stamping about and clapping his hands together to improve his circulation.
The rain was showing signs of letting up, the ragged edges of a break in the cloud illuminated in silver moonlight.
His mind turned to the tiny, egg-shaped stone once again in his pocket.
It seemed there was no getting rid of it, but how could it be so damn important? To him it looked like any other trinket you could buy for a fiver in a new-age hippy shop. As far as he could see there wasn’t anything either magical or powerful about it.
But then again, even if he didn’t believe in it, those Agents did, and he only had to cast his mind back to the station earlier that day to know they were real enough.
In fact, both Elodie and her mother had thrust the damn thing on him as a last resort, when they thought they couldn’t escape. He could clearly see Elodie’s beautiful face, her eyes pleading with him to take the crystal to France, and then more recently her mothers intensity as she’d pressed it back into his care, begging him to take it to Alesia.
Alesia?
Well, he still didn’t know where the hell it was. It was all just so damn confusing.
What was he, of all people, doing embroiled in this mess?
He didn’t believe in conspiracy theories or crystal power, let alone anything quite so unscientific as alternate dimensions!
The cold continued to seep further into Paul’s skin from his drenched clothing and he knew it was time he formulated some kind of a plan.
‘Jesus,’ he said out loud, ‘I don’t need this! I’ve got a job, kids to think of, a marriage that might just be savable.’
He started to walk, thinking as he went. Just because he fancied Elodie didn’t mean he had to risk his neck for her. The bottom line was, however much truth there was or wasn’t in this story, one thing was certain, it didn’t concern him. He had his own life to think about .
Suddenly a concrete plan sprang up in his mind. That was it! He’d walk back to the last village they’d passed, it hadn’t been that far, five or six kilometers at the most. And then he’d hand both himself and this bloody stone into the gendarmes. Once they got what they wanted, they’d let him go free, wouldn’t they?
The thought cheered his spirits and he picked up his pace, at least in a police cell they’d give him dry clothes and a breakfast. He wasn’t exactly helping Elodie by dying of pneumonia in a ditch, he thought.
Maybe, he’d be able to talk his way out of this mess. He hadn’t actually done anything illegal and it had to be pretty obvious that he wasn’t part of a terrorist ring. Paul skirted a large puddle reflecting the moonlight and strode on, the corner of his coat slapping rhythmically against his knee and his soaked shoe squelching along in time.
He heard a distant car engine and glanced over his shoulder, wondering as he did so what had happened to Mme Dubois. Had they caught her by now?
He turned back and his heart skipped a beat. For a moment he stared incredulously, his jaw dropped slackly open. There standing solidly in front of him, no more than ten paces away was the bag-lady from the Gare du Nord, looking calmly back at him, her head cocked slightly on one side, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
Paul struggled to find his voice,
‘You again!’
She nodded, the corners of her mouth turned up in a smile.
‘How did you get here?’ Paul demanded, ‘and where are my wallet and passport?’
She didn’t answer, but instead, the strangest change appeared to be taking place in her. Subtlety at first and so slowly it was hard to be sure if he wasn’t imagining it, Paul saw her start to transform. Her skin darkened, the wrinkles in her face deepened into folds and creases from which her dark, penetrating eyes shone out. As Paul gaped, the transformation seemed to speed up, the changes occurring in her appearance becoming so rapid it was hard to take them all in at once. Her lank grey hair lengthened and thickened into long matted dreadlocks wrapped with lengths of string and hung with pebbles, beads and bones. In fact, her entire head was changing, the mouth and jaw jutting forward and her skull flattening and elongating. Paul was held so fascinated by the bizarre changes taking place in her face that he hadn’t noticed that her shabby tramps clothes had vanished, replaced by a cape of animal fur, bound with a leather cord at her waist.
‘Who are you?’ Paul demanded, feeling thoroughly unnerved by this attack on all that was possible.
‘I am a Magur, an original Earth human from 78,000 years in your past.’
Paul slapped his forehead dramatically, feeling overwhelmed by the sheer ludicrous impossibility of her answer.
‘Fantastic!’ he exclaimed, ‘That explains everything! I should have known ...’
The woman remained impassive and patient, a gentle smile still playing at the corners of her mouth as Paul’s sarcastic outburst continued.
‘Well, thanks for that! It's all clear as a bell now. So you’re a ghost, well, seeing as I don’t believe in ghosts - ’
She gently interrupted him,
‘I know this is hard for you to accept ... You can think of me as your next-door neighbour, separated from you only by the thin walls of frequency.’
‘So, why are you here?’ he asked, reigning in his sarcasm.
‘I have been entrusted with the task of entering into your vibration if the heart stone ever comes into danger. I must help the bearer in time of need. You are that person. That is why I am here, now.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ Paul stammered, ‘I mean, what happened in the station? Was that real?’
‘The heart stone was in peril,’ she replied, ‘you were nearly caught. I had no choice but to pull you out of your reality.’
‘OK,’ said Paul slowly, trying to digest the information, ‘the crystal, or ‘heart stone’ as you call it. Why’s it so important?’
‘You are the bearer?’ she said, looking at him quizzically, ‘You are entrusted with the heart stone yet you know nothing? There is so much I need to tell you and so little time.’
She stepped closer to him until he was looking straight into her deep, black eyes in the moonlight. Despite the strangeness of the situation, standing on a deserted road facing a being who claimed to be an apparition from the past, Paul felt neither scared nor threatened. The Magur reached a bony arm towards him from beneath her ragged furs and poked him firmly between the eyes.
Instantly, Paul’s field of vision closed in, narrowing rapidly from the outside until all he could see was the wizened face of the Magur peering at him intently as though through a tunnel with those wise, penetrating eyes.
And then that too was gone as the tunnel shrank to a pinpoint and suddenly -
Paul is standing knee deep in lush, waving grass on a wide plateau looking down into a long, wooded valley, the rough limestone sides of a gorge visible at a distance.
In front of him, lit by a swollen, yellow moon floating in a cloudless star filled sky, Paul can make out a circle of standing stones, huge shards casting their long, black shadows across the surrounding silvery grassland.
Around the imposing circle of stones, several fires are lit, their aromatic smoke carried on the warm, summer breeze, to where he stands.
The Magur’s voice starts to speak calmly from somewhere inside Paul’s mind.
‘We are 78,000 years back in your time and are here to witness the creation of the heart stone. It was the last desperate deed of the ancient people, when we knew we were beaten.’
Paul looks and as he does, he feels himself zooming in on the scene, bodiless, weightless, his consciousness moves closer.
Within the ring around the central stone, he sees people, like the Magur, standing in a circle, holding wooden staffs and torches. Above and around them the air has come alive, swirling patterns hovering and then shrinking into the central stone, like giant, fractal ferns folding themselves away. They shimmer and flow, awash with rainbow colours. He stares fascinated as pattern follows pattern, a continuous succession of geometrical complexity, pyramids, cubes and intersecting circles shrink and vanish into the jagged point of the central stone.
The voice of the Magur continues,
‘We placed the energetic blueprint of the planet into the heart stone, hidden from the invader’s eyes.’
Paul moves closer still, till he can clearly make out the people’s rough leather and fur clothing, their flattened foreheads and short, hair covered bodies, ornamented with necklaces and bracelets of pebbles, small bones and feathers.
As he stares at them, Paul becomes aware of a gentle, droning noise throbbing in the air. It is a subtle sound, reverberating around the stones, rising and falling, the tones from each person blending with the whole sound.
Paul listens intently, feeling the swell of power in these voices, but also their sense of loss, an indefinable sadness woven through the melody. Paul moves closer still, and realizes he is seeing right into the stone, where nestled in its centre he recognizes the now familiar, tiny, egg-shaped crystal. The crystal appears to be pulsing with energy, absorbing the compressed patterns through a network of veins of quartz that lace the inside of the standing stone.
The Magur continues her tale,
‘The heart stone was encoded to be reactivated far into humanities future, in the crucial moment when the possibility exists to revive the earth’s vitality, heal humanity and shake off the invader’s network of control.’
As the voice fades, Paul feels the pressure and warmth of the Magur's finger between his eyes decrease, and as suddenly as it started, he is back in his own time, standing on a road on a damp winters night, facing a small, neanderthal woman.
Anticipating the questions that rushed up to Paul’s confused mind, she said,
‘There is much more you need to know ... but first we must get you off this road, before we are traced.’
Paul’s mind was reeling from the vision he’d just seen. It had felt so vivid, so startlingly real that it demanded to be taken seriously and not fobbed off as a hallucination.
It seemed so unfair that just when he’d decided he wasn’t getting involved in this crazy business, this neanderthal, this “Magur” should appear to confound and draw him in again.
Another rain cloud was swept in by a cold gusty wind, its wispy edges turning the bright moon to a dull, opaque disc.
Paul’s attention was alerted suddenly by the sight of headlights coming round the bend. A thought of panic leapt to his mind. Could those Agents have come back for him? But it was too late to hide, the car careered round the bend and Paul was caught, flooded by the full beam of the headlights, frozen like a rabbit in the centre of the road.
The car swerved erratically and pulled up alongside him, a repetitive beat reverberating in the quiet night, and Paul saw that it was a tiny Renault 4. He looked behind him but the Magur was gone.
The driver threw the door open and in the weak, interior light Paul saw a grinning face covered in piercing with a pink crew-cut, looking him up and down, as he stood stupefied, rooted to the spot.
‘Eh mec!’ the driver called, turning the music down, ‘tu montes ou quoi?’
Paul realized that he was being offered a lift and shaking himself out of his stupor, he stammered,
‘Errr ... merci beaucoup.’
‘Yah! Eeeeenglishman cool!’ the driver shouted, recognizing his accent.
Paul tried the door.
‘That door fucked man - get in other side ...’
He walked round the car and opened the back passenger door.
The two guys in the back seat good-naturedly shuffled over as Paul squeezed in and closed the door.
The driver pulled a gear stick poking out from the dashboard, jamming the car into 1st and turned back to Paul.
‘Where you from?’
‘London,’ Paul replied.
‘Hey, you know ‘ackney?’ he asked delighted, turning back to the road, ‘yeah man. Me, Toxico, Kiff-kiff we squat in ‘ackney’, yeah, you know Dalston lane? Mare street? Good times man! Hey you lucky we take this road man! Night-time, no cars little roads.’
The front passenger turned the volume up again as the driver finished speaking. Paul was engulfed in a pounding techno beat pulsing out from miniature speakers, screwed to brackets, behind his head.
He’d never succeeded in enjoying the repetitive, electronic music young people listened to these days and now was no exception.
The driver, turning, passed him the soggy butt of a joint, shouting,
‘What’s your name man? I’m Crousti.’
‘Paul,’ he shouted as he took it and passed it disdainfully to the lanky guy next to him, who toked hard, filling the air between them as he breathed out with a cloud of stale smoke. He too had a face full of piercings, a bullring in his nose and a huge plug with a yin-yang design in the ear nearest him. His tall, starched mohican flattened against the roof of the car as he turned to Paul accusingly,
‘Hey, fuck! You’re wet man!’
‘Yeah, I’m really sorry,‘ Paul stammered, hoping that this wasn’t going to turn ugly. What had he been thinking getting into a car full of drug-taking punks? For all he knew they might be planning on robbing
him and leaving him to die in a pool of blood. Not that he had anything to rob.
‘You want orange juice?’ Toxico asked, moving Paul’s dripping coat away from himself.
‘Oh, err, yeah, thanks,’ said Paul, confused by the change of subject, as he accepted the carton. The car jerked round a bend and the orange juice splashed down Paul’s chin and neck.
Crousti turned back in his seat, taking his eyes off the road for far too long in Paul’s opinion.
‘Where you go man?’ he asked.
Paul realized that he didn’t have a clue. Where was he going?
Was he still going to the nearest gendarmerie to hand himself in?
Or had the vision he’d seen changed how he felt?
He just didn’t know. He needed time to think.
He remembered the signpost he’d seen from the window of Mme Dubois car and said,
‘Troyes.’
‘Too far man, in pissing rain. Wrong road this,’ he pointed past the creaking windscreen wipers at the night beyond to make his point,
‘You come chez nous, relax, crash ... morning come ... is much better hitchhike no?’
Toxico nudged Paul in the ribs with his bony elbow, ‘Night-time only crazy people on roads ... like us man,’ he said grinning insanely.
The guy on the other side of him raised both hands, arms stretched forwards, past the drivers head and burst out with,
‘Party people!’
The others joined in with ear-splitting whoops and trills and a long drawn out,
‘Ecstacyyyyyy!’ almost drowning out the music behind Paul’s ears. Another fat cone of a joint was lit in the front, filling the tiny interior of the car with dense smoke. Paul wiped the condensation awkwardly from the window with his already damp coat sleeve and wondered where they were taking him. He could ask to get out, to be dropped off again, but there was nothing out there except the occasional passing tree and an ocean of darkness. Maybe he was better off in a car full of delinquents than back out there in the rain. They at least weren’t as threatening as the Agents. Yep, his best bet was to try his luck with them for a bit longer.
Crousti passed him the joint. Paul took it and passed it straight on to Toxico,
‘I don’t smoke anymore,’ he said apologetically.
Toxico shrugged, nodding his head in time to the music and toked. Paul, feeling smothered in the smoke filled, tiny car tried to open the sliding window to let some air in. He noticed that there was a line of moss growing on the sill, and the sliding mechanism seemed to be sticking.
Toxico looked across as Paul struggled to budge it.
‘Window fucked man, kaput, like car!’ he explained.
Crousti heard him and shouted back,
‘Eh! Ta guele toi, espèce de connard!’
Toxico grinned and lent forward,
‘C’est un bagnole de merde,’ he said, adding for Paul’s benefit, ‘big shit car.’
‘You don’t like car, you walk man!’
The banter continued backwards and forwards and Paul let himself slip into his own thoughts.
Was the Magur for real?
How had she found him again?
Where had she vanished to and what about that vision?
The problem was it all felt too damn real for him to pretend he was suffering from some kind of schizophrenic fit.
The car slowed and turned off down a deeply, rutted farm track, throwing the three in the back around on their seat.
What a night, Paul thought, he'd gone from traveling with an aristocrat in a luxury Bentley to this journey squashed up with a bunch of punks in a wreck on wheels.
What was going to happen next?
The headlights panned over some stone farm buildings, a pack of dogs appearing out of nowhere, barking madly. Well, Paul thought, this must be it as they stopped next to a single story farmhouse, a dim light glowing through a dirty window.
‘Crazy farm!’ announced Crousti proudly, turning the engine off.
Paul opened the door and unfolded himself stiffly from his cramped journey, the collection of mongrel dogs crowding round his feet, sniffing, tails frantically wagging.
Toxico pulled his lanky body out of the car behind Paul and nursing his hair upright said,
‘Ehh Crousti, you kill my mohican man!’
Crousti ignored him, bending down to fuss the dogs, he rolled them over and scratched their bellies,
‘Eh Jo-jo, tu étais sage? C’est qui le bon chien-chien?’
Together they headed over to the farmhouse, climbed three worn stone steps and pushed open an old, weathered plank door, the dogs surging ahead.
Paul blinked for a moment as his eyes grew accustomed to the light from the single bare bulb that hung from the ceiling, smelling the stale odor of wet dog and tobacco.
The room was long and low, with a stone fireplace at one end in which a couple of huge logs smoldered, ash spilling out on to the rough, flagstone floor. Paul was relieved to note the absence of a television. If they didn’t have one, they couldn’t see his face on the news. There was a rectangular table in the centre of the room crowded with a chaotic array of dirty coffee cups, full ashtrays, beer cans and half-eaten food. Paul had never seen anything quite so disgusting. This place hadn’t seen a decent tidy-up let alone a drop of bleach in a very long time.
Behind the table was an ancient looking stone sink built into the wall, a cold tap on the end of a long copper pipe hanging suspended above it. The sink itself was piled high with dishes and pots and in the corner, Paul could see a collection of overflowing bin-bags. Housework was definitely not their strong point.
Nailed up blankets roughly covered the two, tiny windows, presumably to keep out the cold but even so the room wasn’t much warmer than the outside.
A young couple were sprawled on a cheap modern sofa drawn up close to the open fire. The guy looked up lazily and said,
‘Eh les gars.’
‘Salut Babu, Lili ...”
‘C’était bien la teuf?’
The punks crowded into the room and gathered round the fireplace, their boots tracking mud across the filthy floor.
‘Ouia, trop cool quoi.”
As the guy on the sofa caught sight of Paul, he sat up, his eyes narrowing suspiciously and asked,
‘C’est qui ce mec?’
Paul felt a wave of hostility directed towards him and there was a moment of silence as all eyes stared at him, waiting for an explanation.
Paul was acutely aware of how out of place he looked in his newly acquired black overcoat, white shirt, creased trousers, and shiny shoes.
Crousti took a step back, breaking the tension by putting one arm round Paul’s shoulder and said,
‘Hey! C’est notre Eeenglishman! He’s cool mec. We find him on little road.’
Babu and Lili said nothing, obviously unimpressed. Crousti snatched his hand off Paul’s shoulder saying,
‘Hey, fuck! You make me wet,’ and stepped back, fully appraising Paul for the first time, and Paul reddening slightly, mumbled,
‘Yeah, I ... er ... sort of fell into a ditch.’
Crousti thought for a moment,
‘No problemo,' he said, 'I lend you clothes - you got to change or you get sick ...’ and dragged Paul from the room down a dingy corridor reeking of cat’s piss and into a bedroom, talking as he went. ‘Hey, don’t worry ‘bout Babu man,’ he grinned apologetically, scooping bits of clothing off the mattress onto the floor, ‘he smoke too much reefer, always fucking paranoid. Babu think everyone pig!’
Paul’s eyes wandered around the small room, taking in the grubby mattress and single bulb dangling from the low ceiling by its grey cable, while Crousti opened a big tin trunk against the far wall and started rummaging. After a few seconds he pulled out and held up a pair of lime-green, furry trousers.
‘Hey, these ones punky,’ he said, his face lighting up with childlike delight.
Paul winced, there was no way that he would ever wear anything like
that.
Faced with a choice, Paul thought, he’d rather get pneumonia than be seen wearing those trousers.
‘Err, no thanks ... you don’t have any jeans do you?’
Crousti looked momentarily disappointed before he said,
‘Hey, no problemo, we nick Babu jeans. He your size.’
He was back in seconds with a pair of ripped, greasy jeans. Paul reckoned that he didn’t have much choice and not wanting to seem ungrateful, he accepted them. Crousti found him a tight, black, sleeveless T-shirt with ‘Never mind the Bollocks’ scrawled across the front and an anarchy A symbol on the back and to finish off, a huge, mohair jumper with a horizontal rainbow fade.
Paul peeled off his wet clothing and shivered. He squeezed into the T-shirt and pulled the jeans on, transferring the contents of his pockets out of his wet, flannel trousers. It seemed totally ludicrous to him that the sum total of his possessions included a cheap street map of Paris, a silver necklace for Elodie that seemed increasingly unlikely to ever get to her and the source of all his troubles, an egg-shaped crystal.
He dropped the enormous, misshapen jumper over his head and pushed his arms through the sleeves. At least there wasn’t a mirror, he thought, it would be too humiliating to see what he looked like. Anyway, he only had to wear this strange assemblage till his clothes were dry.
Crousti barged back into the room with a heavy, fur-lined, flying jacket.
‘Hey, some guy leave this after party ...’
He looked Paul up and down approvingly, till his eyes rested on Paul’s respectable black leather brogues.
‘Hey, your shoes shit man. No wonder Babu worried,’ he said, turning back to the door and calling over his shoulder, ‘lucky I don’t see them before, I don’t give you lift!’
Paul, clutching his bundle of soggy clothes and feeling more self-conscious than he remembered ever feeling before, followed Crousti back to the kitchen, from where he could hear the angry tones and raised voices of an argument.
As they re-entered, the room fell silent. Babou and Lili got up and left without another word. They brushed past him on their way through the door leaving Paul facing the other four in an awkward silence.
‘Hey, I’m really sorry if I’m causing trouble ...’ Paul faltered, ‘if you want me to go,’ his eyes flicked to the wet, dark night beyond the window, ‘that’s fine ... I’ll go’
The silence hung for a moment until Toxico laughed.
‘Hey, fuck Babu man! You want some shit to eat?’ Toxico mimed putting food into his mouth and Paul grinned with relief. Now that Paul thought about it he realized that he was ravenous and had been for hours.
But what sort of food was he going to get here?
Definitely not the pate de Foie Gras and Don Perignon he had envisaged at the Chateau with Mme Dubois. They might not be too hot on hygiene, but still, beggars couldn’t be choosers. Paul accepted gratefully and taking his wet clothes to the fire he hung them to dry over the backs of kitchen chairs.
The atmosphere relaxed as Kiff-kiff loaded more logs on the fire and Crousti put some chill out music on the CD player. Toxico ladled some grayish glop from an enormous, blackened, aluminum pot on the table, its rim encrusted with layers of dried dribbles and presented Paul with a loaded bowl full.
‘Casserole like wine,’ he stated, ‘more old, more better taste.’
Paul had to smile as he spooned the cold lentil, potato and carrot stew into his mouth. It may not have been the 3 course dinner served by a butler in a chateau that he had been looking forward to only a few hours ago, but all the same, he had to admit, it tasted great.
Toxico, seeing Paul smile, puffed himself up proudly,
‘I make good chef no?’
Paul nodded and said,
‘Oui, very good.’
He focused on his food, chewing and swallowing slowly, hoping that they wouldn’t talk to him. He didn’t want to chat about himself, why he was here, what he was doing or anything like that.
The punks settled down to smoking joints and chatting amongst themselves, puppies sprawled at their feet, soaking in the heat of the fire. Paul let their conversation and the ambient beats of the music wash over him as he again lapsed into his own thoughts, trying despite his exhaustion to make some sense of what both Mme Dubois and the neanderthal Magur had told him.
The fact that their stories supported each other he supposed, gave them some kind of credibility, but there was just too much that was plain impossible and too much he didn’t understand for him to take it onboard. Everything the Magur had done today had confounded the laws of possibility. If it hadn’t actually happened to him, he would have thrown the whole business out as total fantasy, but it had, and he just didn’t know what to think.
Paul finished his food and got up taking his bowl to the sink and washing it out. The steam was rising from his clothes now and he sat down besides the fireplace, feeling the welcome heat on his face and hands.
He stared into the fire, mesmerized by the licking tongues of flame and flurries of sparks that shot up the chimney, the conversation of his hosts a comforting incomprehensible murmur somewhere behind his thoughts.
There was one question pushing to the forefront of Paul’s tired mind that needed asking first.
Who were the Invaders the Magur had mentioned? Were they possibly linked to the allusions Mme Dubois had made in the car chase that evening to, “those who control the controllers” and “those who benefit from keeping the Earth in a weakened state”?
One of the puppies lounging around the ashes of the fire, saturated with heat, rose sleepily to its feet and tottered a few paces back before throwing itself down with a deep contented sigh.
Toxico leant forward rubbing its belly affectionately, whilst the puppies tail lazily flopped up and down.
Paul watched him, looking from his enormous, spiky, green mohican, to his ears, nose and eyebrows loaded with piercings, a realization slowly dawning on him. He’d always presumed that young people who made themselves look so different, so aggressively radical were inherently antisocial, filled with negativity and anger, but now, seeing Toxico soppily stroking the puppy, he realized that he might be wrong. They had shown him, a soaked stranger on a deserted road nothing but generosity and acceptance. Would he have been so charitable if their positions had been swopped?
He thought not.
Kiff Kiff passed him a joint and on impulse, instead of passing it straight on, Paul took a tentative toke. The tobacco was rough on his throat as he inhaled but the taste was not unpleasant. He had smoked the odd joint when he was at college doing his A levels years ago but had never got into it, always preferring a good honest pint of beer.
He exhaled the smoke into the fire, watching it drawn by the heat up the chimney and away.
Jesus, if Tara could see him now sat here, holding a joint, dressed like a freak with a bunch of techno-punks, what would she think?
In fact, shit! Tara, and Chris and Julie had probably seen him on the news or online, wanted by the police for suspected terrorism.
They would know it wasn’t true, wouldn’t they?
Paul felt suddenly desperate, the effects of the cannabis amplifying his anxiety and he put his head into his hands as the extent of the mess he was in flooded back into his mind.
Crousti called across to him,
‘Hey man! You OK?’ a look of concern on his face.
‘Oh yeah, just had a bit of a long day, I guess,’ Paul replied looking up, thinking ironically that that was probably the biggest understatement he’d ever made.
‘You wanna sleep? You take my bed,’ Crousti offered, adding with a grin, when Paul started to politely refuse,
‘It’s cool, when I come down, I crash on settee.’
Paul realised the offer was genuine. He dragged himself up out of the chair,
‘Thanks for everything guys and good night,’ he said, feeling a bit foolish for his stiff formality.
As he left the room Crous
ti added,
‘No problemo. When I go to London you do same for me yeah?’
Paul couldn’t help but smile at the incongruity of the image, trying to picture Crousti in his tidy, well-furnished flat. As long as it wasn’t a weekend that he had the kids, Tara would probably take him for a role-model.
Christ! If Crousti was his son, they’d spend their time arguing about how he should get it together, get a job, tidy up etc., etc.
He padded back down the dark corridor to Crousti’s room.
Paul took off his shoes but decided to leave his clothes on, away from the kitchen the house was freezing. As he arranged the stained quilt and smelly blankets on the mattress and rolled up the sheepskin jacket as a pillow, he thought of his own bed and the one he’d shared with Julie with a pang of longing.
He looked at the smashed face of his expensive swiss watch, the buckled hands jammed at twenty five to eleven, reluctant to take it off and throw it away. Maybe he’d be able to get it fixed when he got back to London, if he ever got back there.
It must be getting toward morning he reckoned and pulling the weight of bedding around himself and sighing, he lay back, hoping for sleep.
A few hours later Paul woke up, his eyes popping open in the surrounding darkness. The heap of blankets were twisted around his legs and he was uncomfortably hot despite the damp, coldness of the air in the room.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he breathed as the memory of the previous evening flooded back to him, the weight of reality heavy on his mind.
Paul heaved himself up and felt his way carefully to the light switch on the wall, blinking as the squalor of Crousti’s bedroom snapped into illumination.
He pushed open the door into the dark corridor and felt his way along towards the toilet.
The pulse of trance music was still coming from the kitchen. He clicked on the single bathroom light bulb. If the kitchen could be described as “filthy”, it was nothing compared to the bathroom, Paul thought, eyeing the shelf cluttered with squeezed out toothpaste tubes and empty hairspray cans. The whole room had the faint but unpleasant odor of stale urine and damp and the toilet bowl was stained brown around the rim, Paul noticed with distaste.
He turned on the tap to wash his hands. It gurgled and burped for a moment before letting out some faintly brown, icy water, which swirled around the dirty sink before sinking down the hair-clogged plug hole. The general squalor of the punks house reflected his feelings of depression and gloom. What was he going to do when the cold light of tomorrow dawned? he wondered. He padded groggily back down the dark corridor to his bed and pulling the covers over himself, he lay down, staring into the pitch darkness overhead.
The responsibility of his choices felt too overwhelming for him to come to a decision.
Should he do what the Magur woman, Mme Dubois and Elodie wanted? Or should he put himself and his family first by turning the crystal in to the police?
It would be so much easier if events would slow down enough for him to think straight and make his own informed decisions. Maybe what was needed was some objectivity? Tomorrow, he resolved, he’d phone Julie and perhaps his lawyer and get some level-headed advice. Feeling better for having come to a decision, Paul drifted once again into the blissful freedom of sleep.
Paul is standing alone in a large, empty cinema.
In front of him, row after row of empty seats run down to a rippling, red curtain covering the screen.
Suddenly, loud dramatic music blasts out around him and the lighting slowly fades.
Paul quickly steps into the nearest row, unfolds a velvet covered seat and sits down.
The curtains pull back smoothly revealing the screen.
He looks on.
There is a moment of silence and then a mighty fleet of black craft burst onto the screen, flying in a tight, orderly formation, high up in the sky.
Hundreds of triangular machines, like no aircraft that Paul has ever seen.
The noise is terrifying.
A deep, oppressive, rumbling vibration pushes him deeper into his seat.
Close up there is something disturbingly organic about the craft, their shiny, black bodies glittering with scales, half primeval flying reptile, half machine.
Paul feels their malignant consciousness searching, scanning down over the surface of the Earth.
A shiver passes up his spine as the scene on the screen changes, growing until it encircles and encompasses everything and the theatre vanishes.
Paul is crouching behind a large, granite outcrop, dense, leafy forest all around him.
He feels the dampness of the moss against his skin and smells the rich complexity of the leaf-mould and soil beneath his feet.
He hears the approaching engine and a surge of fear passes through his body.
Looking up through the mottled greens and yellows of the canopy above him, he sees nothing but the shards of sunlight shimmering through the ever moving leaves.
But the noise is getting louder.
Adrenaline rushes through his veins.
He knows there are others concealed like himself, throughout the sloping woodland.
Suddenly, the air around him explodes.
The forest is a chaos of flying earth and stones, torn branches, searing heat and acrid smoke.
Paul buries his head in his arms as more explosions ricochet through the valley.
He looks up and devastation meets his eyes.
A craft lands in the gaping crater of blasted, bare soil.
Tall, black-armored men charge out, two, four, ten, twenty, too many to count.
Two by two they return with captured natives.
Small dark skinned people, defeated, injured, dragged between them.
His interest overriding his fear,
Paul follows,
stealthy, unseen, into the belly of the craft.
The Commander’s heals echo on the steel floor, as he paces,
tall and powerful, scanning the miserable, huddled captives.
He too is dressed in black body armor,
his skin ageless and pale to the point of translucence.
Paul looks on,
feeling his way into the Commander’s blank, sterile consciousness,
He is intelligent, focused and chillingly effective,
devoid of love or fear, as he makes his judgement,
pointing to three females.
Elodie December 17th
2012 The Secret Teachings of the Next Door Neighbour Page 8