by Grey Durose
The journey was uneventful and George spent the time keeping tabs on the news as he sped along the road from Calais to the French capital. It was late afternoon by the time George arrived and he was hungry. Once he'd unpacked, he headed out on to the streets to find a market where he could stock up on a few days of food. George loved Paris, and autumn would have been a fine time to visit if he didn't have the grisly expectation of his work hanging over him. Once he was on the street, and the sights and smells began to hit him, he soon forgot the pressures of what he had to do.
The sun was shining, low and pale, and there was a brisk nip in the air. With every step, George was hit by another aroma escaping from the door of a restaurant, or wafting up from the market stalls. Like most great cities, all the flavours of the world were available here but, also like other cities, Paris had its own particular specialities. North African and South East Asian food was particularly good here but they lived alongside the pinnacle of local cuisine. Cumin, paprika, lemon, garlic, cinnamon and fennel, all mingled with the aromas of cooking meats, rich cheeses, the fruits of the sea and the earthy scents of fresh vegetables.
George had bought most of his provisions for the days to come and was just acquiring some particularly ripe looking tomatoes, when something in the corner of his eye caught his attention. He'd spent part of his childhood training his mind to analyse the information from his eyes, in this case it was a face that stood out. He finished his transaction with the vendor and turned in the direction of the face he'd recognised. Though never looking directly at the subject of his curiosity, he could still pick out more detail now that he could focus on her. She had her back to him, talking to the owner of one of the market stalls, enquiring about the freshness of his fruit. George had an inkling as to where he'd seen her before but needed to see her face properly to confirm his suspicions. From the rear he could tell quite a lot, she was tall for a woman - about five-foot-nine - had silky brown hair and, despite the heavy clothing covering most of her body, he could tell she was slender though not overly thin. From the way she held herself, he could tell that she spent a lot of time on her feet and, from her command of the French language, he discerned that this was not her first time in France, in fact, from the slightly Parisian lilt, he concluded that she'd spent some time living in this very city. Her voice was familiar, too. Soft and reassuring but firm enough to get what she wanted if charm was not enough.
George manoeuvred himself between the two market stalls and turned his head to the left slightly, hoping to catch a glimpse of her face, just as she turned and looked him straight in the eye.
'Small world!' she declared, with a friendly smile.
'I'm sorry?' George had fallen back on feigning ignorance, he'd had no intention of engaging her in conversation but now it looked like he had no choice, other than turning and running, which seemed excessive.
'From the plane, to Kuwait.' She raised the tone of her voice at the end of the sentence in a, you know what I'm talking about, sort of way.
George looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face, partly as a continuation of his performance and part genuine. She shouldn't have recognised him, no one should. He decided to give up on the act, 'Oh yes, the stewardess!' He said, lightly tapping his forehead with his palm.
'Flight attendant.' she corrected him, with an arch of carefully shaped eyebrow to add emphasis.
'Sorry, old habits...' He trailed off. He'd been flying since the forties and sometimes he reverted to the terminology of earlier times.
'I know, you and the rest of the world! Still, I don't have to worry about that anymore.' she smiled as she said it, it was the smile of a woman freed of obligation.
'Not flying at the moment?' He asked.
'I quit. I was only working for them to get some money together to do some travelling of my own.' She explained.
'I see. Well, bon voyage then. I have to get going, thanks for waking me up.' George smiled pleasantly. Her ability to recognise him had disturbed his equilibrium but she didn't seem to be an immediate threat and he couldn't detect any attempt to deceive in her manner, and she crinkled her nose when she smiled.
'Okay, don't let me hold you up, maybe we'll bump in to each other again, you seem to be on the move a lot.' She observed.
'Well, you know how it is, business takes me all over the place.' He gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.
'What do you do, if you don't mind me asking?'
'Not at all.' George blurted out before he’d even considered a cover story.
'Sooooo?' she urged.
'Oh, sorry. Pest control.' He spat out. The ridiculous nature of his reply hit George even before it reached her ears and if he could have snatched it out of the air, he would have.
'International pest control.' both her eyebrows arched this time and she chuckled as she said it.
'Pests don't observe borders, you know.' He joked. He wasn't sure if that was a good save or just the second most ridiculous thing he'd said that day.
'I suppose not.' She replied with a glint in her eye and a broad, if a trifle disbelieving, smile. 'Well, it was nice meeting you again...' She held out her hand expectantly.
'George.' He replied, over eagerly. He took her hand and pressed firmly. What, can’t even think of a fake name now? he scolded himself.
'I'm Jacqueline.' she responded.
They said their farewells and went their separate ways. George went back to the house, an old building he’d renovated twenty five years earlier. Much of the rest of the street had followed suit when they saw how good it looked and a once run-down neighbourhood had slowly transformed in to a middle-class enclave. Inside, the décor had become slightly dated, he'd done his best to choose colours that wouldn't go out of date but the furnishings were still living in the eighties.
George began to cook the evening meal, the plan was to eat then get in a quick nap before preparing for his nocturnal activities. It was around midnight when George was finally prepared. From the small armoury he kept locked up in the attic space, he'd selected a handgun and a sub-machinegun, well suited to the conditions he expected to encounter. He'd brought along his trusty blade and, right at the bottom of the weapons chest, he'd found an incendiary grenade left over from a previous adventure. He packed away the weapons in his backpack, along with other useful equipment he regularly used and made his way to a quiet part of the city. Once he was sure he was unobserved, he lifted a grate and climbed down in to the underworld of France's capital.
The sewer system was not exactly maze-like but the large distances involved, and the number of side branches, made it easy for a newcomer to become confused. He decided to stick to the main arteries - which roughly matched the streets above - for the greater part of the journey and estimated it was about five miles from the point where he entered the system to the entrance of some sort of sub-complex. If he made good time he could be at his destination inside an hour and be out before the city burst in to life again.
The wide, echoing vaults of the Paris sewers stretched out in front of him, vast and surprisingly clean. Water dripped in a steady rhythm all around him and shadows swept past as light bounced of walls and water. For once, things went smoothly, he got to the entrance without bumping in to any service engineers, or more than a handful of rats, and managed to find the trigger for the hidden doorway surprisingly easily, considering it was supposed to be a secret.
Beyond the hidden doorway was a long dark tunnel, George closed the door behind him, the last thing he needed was a curious sewer worker stumbling in to the middle of a fire-fight. The tunnel was clad in stone, damp and narrow; just enough room for two people to squeeze past each other. The smell in the tunnel air was musty and slightly reminiscent of the sewers beyond the door but the odour gradually cleared as he made his way along toward the light at the far end, fifty metres away.
As he traversed the tunnel he noted several side passages and a flick of his torch revealed that they each ended in a wooden door. T
he construction of the complex was too solid and professional to have been added at a later date and it seemed logical to George that the engineers who'd worked on this part of the sewer must have also built this place at the same time, though it appeared on none of the plans. This suggested to George that one of the senior engineers must have been a cult member and that could mean the secrets of this cult extended out in to the entire infrastructure of Paris.
He was nearing the end of the tunnel and slowed his pace, to soften the impact of his shoes on the stone flooring. Something was wrong here. George had assumed that his foes would be holding regular meetings, at this time of trouble within the cult, but the silence from the vaulted room was unbroken. He slid along the wall to the edge of the open doorway, the room was lit by flickering amber-flamed torches, reflecting the love of the dramatic which all the cults he'd encountered so far seemed to share. It had bare brick walls - only interrupted by the torches - and had more of a crypt feel to it, which was probably a psychological device used by the cult leader to keep his followers in order.
He glanced around the corner in to the rest of the room; it was big, perhaps ten metres by fifteen with a high vaulted ceiling arching up in to the shadows above, not far below street level. More startling than that, was that the floor was littered by half broken furnishings and the bodies of twelve robed figures.
The room was empty, nothing living remained here, only the evidence of what had occurred: the floor twinkled with light reflecting from dozens of brass shell casings. George knelt down, picked one up and sniffed at it; a strong whiff of cordite; it had been spent not long ago, perhaps an hour or so and from its size it seemed to have been expelled from a small automatic weapon not dissimilar to the SMG he was carrying in his bag.
He turned his attention to the bodies: most had been cut down in a hail of bullets from behind, several gunshot wounds to the back, though some had the distinctive marks of a large blade on them, perhaps a combat knife. All of them were dead and already getting cold. He flipped a few of the bodies over to check their faces, contorted by the violence of their deaths but still identifiable. George realised there was something missing from the scene: there was no sign of any burning, or puddles of the thick dark blood he would have expected from the slaying of their cult master.
He pressed on to the back of the room, there was a large stone sarcophagus with a heavy lid, carved in the image of a medieval knight with his palms placed flat against each other as if in prayer, and a longsword stretching from the heels of his palms to his armoured feet. It was the only place left in the room where the creature could be lurking, licking its wounds or biding its time before it struck.
George reached in to his bag and pulled out his crowbar, placing the tip to the edge of the lid at one corner and pushing with all his might. The lid shifted with the low grinding sound of stone on stone, opening up the corner of the sarcophagus and revealing the pitch black space beneath. George stepped back and decided to proceed with caution, to avoid a fight if possible. He grabbed a torch from the wall and walked back, drawing his dagger. He held his breath and plunged the torch in to the sarcophagus, pushing it up towards the far end. There was no resistance to the motion of the torch, it was empty.
He stopped for a moment and rubbed his stubble but, as he turned, his heart leapt; he came face to face with a gruesome image. A pair of beady, red-centred, bloodshot eyes stared back at him, glowing in the dim light. A face, part human and part animal, with the mouth and nose forming a kind of protruding muzzle. The ears were large and pronounced, coming to a point at the tip. All but the tops of the cheeks were covered with a thick coat of wiry white fur.
The lips of the muzzled mouth curled up in a snarl, revealing two rat-like, gnawing teeth at the front and a row of pointed canines running back along its mandibles. For a moment they stood staring in to one another's eyes. Without warning, the beast's clawed, hairy hand was around George's throat and he was lifted off his feet. He was thrown violently against the wall and slumped to the floor. The back of his head had taken part of the impact and his vision blurred and span. As he lay there, he could hear a deep growling and the scraping of clawed feet on the stone floor. When George looked up, a huge, fuzzy white shape was looming over him. It came closer and bent down towards him, it sniffed deeply a few inches in front of his face. George felt a trickle of warm liquid breach the edge of his upper lip and spread in to the line of his mouth, he could taste his own blood. The beast came in closer, a rough rasping tongue shot out from its mouth, lapping at the sanguine flow below George’s nose.
George regained his senses, pulling away from the creature in disgust. The beast raised its head and roared, sending vibrations resounding through every bone in George's body. He saw his opportunity and brought his dagger to bear on the creature's lower leg, cleanly severing its foot. The beast lost its balance and fell backwards and to its left. The foot sat there for a moment then lost its form.
He took a few moments then rolled away from the beast and got to his feet, pulling his bag from his shoulder and hastily rummaging through the contents. At the bottom, his hand surrounded the form of the incendiary grenade. He pulled the pin but kept his grip on the safety trigger, delaying the explosion until he needed it.
The creature clambered on to all fours, or threes; even now it was tall enough to look George in the eye. He gulped anxiously as he and the creature began to slowly circle each other, looking for the chance to strike. A stumble, a flick of the eyes, a lapse of concentration; any of these could prove fatal for either, or both of them.
The stand-off continued for a few moments, giving George time to recover from the shock he'd received and, less fortunately, long enough for the beast to regenerate its lost foot. The beast broke the deadlock first, bursting forwards at George with inhuman speed, its teeth snapping wildly at him as he dodged to his right, ducking under the creature's outstretched left arm. George lifted his knife hand, jabbing the tip of his blade in to the side of the beast's belly, allowing its own momentum to open up a rippling gash which ran all the way down to its left knee. The creature landed on the stone floor with a crash, it rolled, scraping at the ground, trying to halt its momentum. As it tumbled in to the side of its own sarcophagus it smashed the ancient stones and freed the huge lid from its perch. It fell on to the creature's chest, pinning it to the floor.
George seized the moment, rushing at the struggling beast. As he reached it, the beast was clutching at the side of the lid and beginning to muster the strength to hoist it away. The left leg he thought to himself; the first vampire had only been destroyed when he vanquished its head, the second its tail but this was the Sect of the Left Leg and George knew what he had to do.
He looked at the gash along its left side and noticed it had healed along its body already but the wound along its thigh was still open. He lifted the hand holding the grenade and looked at it for a moment, then quickly thrust it in to the wound. There was a squelching as his hand went in all the way up to the wrist, no bone or muscle offered any obstacle, just thick, surging blood. George released the trigger on the grenade and pulled his hand free. He turned to run, just as the beast tossed the stone lid aside. As George fled, he could hear the beast rising to its feet and letting out a bestial roar of laughter as it saw the opportunity to chase him down like prey.
George’s eyes remained trained on the doorway and as soon as he felt he was close enough he launched himself, flying through the air for a moment and falling in to a somersault sending him tumbling head-over-heels in to the wall on the far side of the passage, just as the grenade detonated. Countless burning pieces of the beast went flying through the air, followed instantly by a ball of flame and shrapnel. George was knocked sideways, further down the tunnel, the worst of the flame rushing overhead. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone, leaving him gasping for air and dizzy.
He climbed back up on to his feet, using the wall for support and walked back to the doorway. Stumbling and choking on the smok
e, he took in the scene. All about, the walls were coated with the blackened blood of the beast and the floor was scattered with the flaming remains of cultists and furnishings. George grabbed the remains of a torch from the wall near the entrance and limped back down the passage, stopping at each side passage to open the door and destroy anything within. Letters, books, bottles of odd looking liquids, all were touched by flame.
He left the passage and closed the secret door behind him, falling back against it. His clothes, hair and face were all singed or blackened from the explosion and the smoke. Dried blood covered his upper lip and mouth as well as one of his hands and, now he was back in the cool air of the sewer, he was starting to feel the effects of his injuries.
Whoever had been there before him, had done him a favour but he still felt the need to know who, or what, they were and why they'd intervened. George suspected the assassin had no idea of the nature of the cult or the current emergency he was trying to avert and that made them potentially dangerous. If he hadn't arrived tonight the vampire would have been forced to leave its lair in search of new cultists to serve it and provide sustenance. There were no guarantees that it would have ever returned, making the job of finding it all the harder. George could only hope he didn't have to deal with a rogue element, as well as the remaining one hundred and nine more cultists, nine vampires and whatever the Nameless One was.
He checked his bag, fished out a packet of hand wipes and did what he could to tidy his appearance, before setting off on the long walk home. He arrived back at the house before dawn and went straight to bed, he didn't have the energy to even contemplate the night's events and he'd have to leave for Rome the next night for his appointment with the Sect of the Right Arm. He went to sleep cursing Henry.