As soon as she saw him she remembered everything. The man who had killed Fulvio was coming towards her, striding over the wet cobbles in the rain, looking right at her.
Chapter Thirty Two
Melinda pulled herself over the low wall and in to the alley on the other side, then broke in to a sprint to the street at the far end. The cars were hurrying through the rain, just as the people were on the sidewalk. She didn’t know what to do. She grabbed the first person who was passing, an elderly man in a flat cap and an overcoat.
“Help me! Please!” she pleaded. The man looked at her in shock, pulled his arm away in a reflex action and hurried on down the sidewalk. She tried again, but people got out of her way. Then she remembered she was holding the cellphone. She kept running down the sidewalk as she speed dialed Beth’s number. She dared not look behind her to see the man with the scars on his face getting closer. She heard the phone ring on the other end then Beth’s voice came on.
“Melinda? Are you alright?” Beth called, frantically.
“I got out, I got out! I was in in the back of this van and I don’t know who he is but he’s following me…” She heard herself babbling but was unable to stop.
Another voice came on the line, speaking in a calm controlled tone. Melinda had no idea who would be talking on Beth’s phone, maybe the Police, but the woman had an American accent and sounded completely in control. That voice helped bring her back to herself.
“Melinda, my name is Lara McBride. I’m a cop. I’m going to help you. Where are you right now?”
Up ahead, she saw a crowd of people holding placards, could hear them shouting angrily in the rain. Student protestors. Across the street, she saw steps to a Metro station leading down, off the street. If she could make it over there and down the steps, he wouldn’t be able to see her. She was still too terrified to look behind her to see how close he was.
“Uh, there’s a Metro station up ahead,” Melinda sputtered.
“Which one?”
She looked for the sign telling her which stop it was, but the rain made it hard to see.
“St Denis? I think it’s St Denis,” she said.
“Get on a train. Get to Chatelet station. It’s big, there’s lots of people. You’ll be safe. Stay on the platform, we’re coming to you.” The other end of the line went dead and Melinda felt her stomach drop in fear. She knew until she reached Beth and this Lara woman she was completely on her own and in danger.
Melinda ran out in to the street. All she saw as the rain got in her eyes was a blur of headlights and movement, car horns blaring through the cold air, a cacophony of sound and colors. Then she was hurrying down the steps, past the protestors and in to the underground station.
A little further down the boulevard, Guillotine heard the car horns. He would have lost her had he not heard the cars blaring. He crossed the street at a clip, taking advantage of the stopped traffic Melinda had caused. He hurried to the Metro entrance, following her trail down the steps, almost slipping on the slick stones, then hopped the turnstile as she must have done.
Melinda had seen a Police officer engaged in a shouting match with a student protestor by the turnstile. He had said nothing when she had vaulted over it, not even seeing her. She wanted to get to Beth and safety. She hurried down to the train platform as a train roared in, wind blowing over her and she felt her skin prickle with goose bumps as the train slid to a stop. The doors opened, people came out, the few waiting passengers who had been on the platform boarded the train and Melinda jumped aboard. She dropped in to a seat, doubled up, keeping down and out of sight of the windows so she could not be seen from the platform. As she waited for what felt like an eternity for the doors to close and the train to move out of the station, she heard her heart thundering in her ears as the blood rushed around her body.
She was well hidden and, while she had successfully concealed herself from Guillotine, it also meant she couldn’t see him board the compartment behind her. She heard the doors slide shut, felt the train move and as soon as it entered the tunnel and all that could be seen through the windows was the reflection of the inside of the train car against the darkness outside, she sat up, exhaling in relief. She was shivering from a mix of the cold, the rain that was soaking in to her bones and from the adrenalin that was exploding through her.
Guillotine watched from the connecting door behind her. He was certain he had her now.
Chapter Thirty Three
Brouchard drove, Lara in the passenger seat, Beth and Jason in the back. He barked orders over the Police radio as he weaved through the rain lashed traffic. Chatelet station was to be shut down, nobody in or out. His car was the first at the scene, screeching to a halt on the road directly in front of the station entrance. Clearly, word had not filtered down yet with his instructions as commuters were still passing freely through the doors.
Lara jumped out of the car and sprinted for the entrance. Beth and Jason got out and followed, finding her inside, hopping the turnstiles. They did the same, hearing a Police officer shouting for them to stop. They kept moving, running for the moving walkway that led through the enormous station to the platform line where the train from St Denis would deliver Melinda to them. Brouchard called out to the cop behind them, repeated his instructions to have the station exits shut down, holding up his identification to make the man move faster.
Inside the enormous subterranean station, adverts and billboards covered the walls, the tall ceilings loomed impassively and the walkways and corridors appeared to stretch on in to infinity. The sheer chaos of noise and movement created a blur that made it hard to focus on anything. They had lost Lara in the sheer assault of it all.
“Where is she?!” Beth shouted to Jason, who was scanning the faces trying to catch sight of her. People were moving in so many directions, there were so many places she could have gone, he could feel himself getting angry for staying back with Beth when he could have been neck and neck with the American cop. Then, Lara emerged from the crowd, moving people out of her way to get to them.
“This way! Keep up, gottdamnit!” she shouted and pushed back in to the crowd. Beth looked at Jason, he could see how lost she was in this situation. She was hesitating, burning time they didn’t have. He took her by the hand and launched himself through the crowd, driving them both forward.
Lara hurried to a long moving walkway taking passengers to the maze of stairs that led further down under the city to the warren of platforms below. People were shoulder to shoulder on the walkway, making it impossible to pass them. But there was no time to obediently sit in line, she had to keep moving and get to Melinda’s train as soon as it reached the platform.
Jason watched as Lara climbed on to the divider and ran to the far end, past the startled passengers who watched her in shock.
“Come on,” Jason said, climbing up on to the divider after her, reaching back for Beth’s hand, pulling her up behind him. They ran after Lara, hearing people shouting at them, seeing the cameras on the wall, knowing Security was going to come for them. Good, Jason thought.
Lara reached the end of the walkway, jumped down to the concrete floor, accidentally slamming in to a couple of backpackers, sending them sprawling. It made a hole in the crowd for Jason and Beth. He jumped down first, turned back to grab Beth from the divider and helped her down. He didn’t know why he felt so protective of her, it was something subconscious inside him, acting on a basic primal impulse. He took her hand, pulling her away from the backpackers, who were getting to their feet, screaming obscenities at them in Spanish. He tried to get a visual on Lara as the crowd closed around them again, a breathing sea of people. He saw her further down the tunnel ahead, searching for the right set of stairs that led down to the platform where Melinda would be arriving any second.
He had been here before, many times, but suddenly the whole place felt new and alien to him, aggressive. He was about to move when he felt someone slam their hand in to his back, shoving him forward. He stumble
d, turned and saw one of the Spanish backpackers Lara had knocked down, approaching him with his fists balled, anger in his eyes. The man was tall, tanned, his eyes ablaze with indignation. There would be no talking this out, or any time to do it. Jason threw a solid right hook, the punch landing on the Spaniard’s jaw, sending him back down to the concrete.
Jason said noting, simply took Beth’s hand and pulled her with him, going after Lara.
On the platform, the train eased to a stop and the doors slid open with a metallic clunk. Passengers hurried out and Melinda felt herself sucked in to the flow of people on to the platform. She was packed in close with a large group, she could feel those who had been waiting on the platform trying to push through to get on the train. It was insane, beyond anything she had experienced growing up in New York. It was like the city was trying to evacuate itself, violently vomiting its underground passengers up on to the streets while simultaneously swallowing more. She was being moved along by the human current of commuters and could barely see the faces of the people around her because of her slight stature. But Guillotine could see her very clearly as he took position directly behind her. He felt her warm, trembling body up against his and he felt very hard.
He made the first knife wound in her side, jabbing the blade up in to her rib cage. Melinda felt the sharp sting and thought it was a chest pain triggered by the stress of the moment. Her shoulders tensed, she missed a step and almost stumbled but the throng of people kept her on her feet and moving forward toward the steps. She felt a light buzzing up and down her right arm. The next wound made her catch her breath, felt like she had been bitten by something with sharp teeth. It stung. She felt a sudden rush of heat bloom up her spine and in to her throat and she threw up blood on the back of the businessman in front of her. He didn’t notice. Nobody did, they were all too busy trying to get out. Melinda felt helpless, staring at the blood on the man’s expensive raincoat in confusion, feeling something warm and wet seeping out of her ribcage and down her skin.
“Oh god…” she murmured as she realized what was happening. She turned her head and saw the man she had seen in the alley standing behind her. She saw the scars on his face. His eyes locked on hers and she saw within them an utter lack of humanity, a disconnect from all basic human emotion. There was nothing good in there, only bilious black seething evil and it was directed at her. She opened her mouth to scream for help.
He stuck the knife blade through Melinda’s side, piercing her lung, slid it back out in one smooth motion and knew the wound was one she could never recover from. She would bleed out in less than a minute and be left like all the other trash on the platform. A shame, really, because she was such a pretty little thing. But, alas, she was no Angel.
Melinda started to lose the feeling in her legs and staggered. She coughed out more blood and thought how much of a mess she must look now, her make up having run down her face like half melted wax on her skin, eye shadow tracked down her cheeks like black streaks of tears, her hair reaching out in crazed angles and her eyes hollow from the stress. Her walk becoming a grotesque stagger, like a puppet with half its strings cut.
Guillotine pushed sideways, getting out of the throng and reaching the wall where he saw a billboard for his show. That made him smile. With all this excitement he had almost forgotten tomorrow was his big night. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, used it to wipe the blade clean as he walked, then dropped it on the platform and eased his way back on to the train. He watched through the window as Melinda fell backwards on to the steps leading up out of the station, her arms spread out by her sides like an inverted cross. People were crowding around her, trying to help, but he knew it was too late.
He was exhausted from the chase and the pressure. He sat down in the train compartment facing the platform and tried to clear his mind so he could focus on coming up with a new plan. With the elfin girl gone, he would have to get to Beth another way. There was much to be done and very little time left to do it. The Fates were toying with him once again.
As the train doors closed, he saw two people hurry down the steps to Melinda’s side. He saw the man who had left the museum with Beth last night and then he saw Beth herself. His missing Angel. The one who would finally allow him to complete his masterpiece. The lights on the platform grew to a blinding level, everything else went out focus except for her. She was bent over Melinda’s body, forming a heartbreaking tableau of loss and pain, on her knees, holding Melinda’s hand. It affected him so deeply that he would paint the scene later in the garage. Tears fell from his eyes as he got to his feet and walked to the window, reaching out to tough her through the glass.
Then Lara McBride stepped in to his sight, blocking his view of Beth and the light fell away. She was looking directly at him. She had not come down the steps with Beth and the man, meaning she had already been on the platform somehow. His head suddenly filled with extreme shockwaves of pain and in the reflection of the window, he saw his Aunts standing behind him, their eyes glowing red beneath their funeral veils, burning him with shame. He pitched forward in pain, grabbing the rail on the back of the seat to steady himself as the train rolled in to the tunnel and all he could see in the glass was his own mutilated face and his Aunts standing over him.
He had been reckless, impulsive, creating a domino effect that could destroy everything he had worked for to this point, a flirtation with self-destruction he could not afford right now. Not this close. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He took a deep breath, held it, releasing it slowly and straightening up inch by inch as the air left his body until he was at his full height and the pain was gone and his Aunts had melted back in to whatever netherworld they came from. Suddenly, everything was alive to him, the world around him crackled with an energy he could feel flowing through him.
In that moment, he experienced a clarity he had not felt since he left the barn as a boy with the razor in his hand, determined to take back his life and make it his own. He knew that his masterpiece would be complete on time and would be even more than the spectacle he had designed. He knew that with absolute confidence. And he knew that Lara McBride would come to him and he would be ready for her.
Chapter Thirty Four
Lara watched the train disappear in to the tunnel and turned back to see Beth holding Melinda’s limp hand on the steps. She walked over slowly, in no hurry to be so close to death. Here was a young woman who she had just spoken with only minutes ago and now here she lay, lifeless and bled out on the cold dirty steps of the Paris underground like a doll a child had dropped and left behind. Lara felt the anger rise in her at the loss of another innocent and her own inability to have stopped it. She hated feeling helpless, something that had been pulsing in her since she had boarded the plane at LAX. Brouchard came down the steps with three Police Officers and a team of Metro Security Guards.
“He’s on the train,” she shouted to the Inspector. “You have to shut down the next station,” she called, moving aside to let the Officers past her and on to the platform.
Brouchard surveyed the scene, the professional inside him switching on immediately. Lara admired him for that- having a daughter of a similar age to the dead girl at his feet had to trigger something very powerful in him. He began to give orders in French to the Officers and Security Guards, telling them to cover the body, secure the people who were down here to get statements and then he pulled up his radio to call for the next station to be shut down, nobody getting in or out, including trains. His eyes went back to Melinda and Lara saw the wave of melancholy bloom across his face like blood clouding water.
“He will slip through, most likely,” Brouchard explained, his voice weary and his eyes unable to mask how tired he was. “They’re still closing this station down. …”
Lara watched the Officers blocking off the platform. She saw Beth still holding Melinda’s hand. She looked at Jason, sat on the step above and behind Beth, staring right back at her with an accusatory look in his eyes. She was no closer to getting Janel
le back.
“Fuck!!!” she yelled, the noise echoing up and down the platform. The Officers and some of the passengers looked at her in confusion. A hole had been torn in reality and they had all been flipped through to the other side. She had seen their look before. It would pass. Lucky for them, unlike her, she had to live in the carnage left behind. She took a breath and walked over to Beth and Jason.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She felt hollow, as though something personal had been stolen from inside her, another little piece of her soul.
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