The Treasures of Saint Germain

CHAPTER EIGHT

Outside again, and it seemed an age since he’d seen the same darkness, smelled the same air. Paris had changed considerably; the entire world was smaller, less significant. Webb, questing alone, had solved age-old mysteries.

Not that he’d doubted himself.

Out here, the air should be his to manipulate, the earth a possession he might control. One day. A patch of lamplight pooled off to the right, and Webb shied away. He left the Parisian vacation home and checked the time, surprised to find it was only around 9 p.m. He’d imagined he’d been down there half the night. And that was a shame, because tourists still littered the streets with their cameras, food bags and backpacks, and Webb wanted them all to himself.

Everything changed a moment later.

From out of the shadows and through the solitary lake of light they came, six this time and all with faces as hard as forged steel. Webb took off fast, bruised muscles from a few days ago flaring up as if in warning. Heavy boots thundered after him. Not a word was spoken though, and that sent a bolt of fear through Webb’s very soul. They would wipe him from the face of the earth tonight, if they could.

He raced head down, and aimed toward the only people he could see, but in the direction of the famous Champs Élysées. The crowds roamed there twenty-four-seven it seemed, and offered Webb his best chance of melting away. A car crossed his path, almost silent in the night, a freakin’ electric mutant that he never heard. Webb’s heart leapt in surprise, his awareness increasing exponentially. He followed the car as best he could, hopeful the owner would slow, but of course, on this occasion, he had no luck.

Dark windows lined the street and several rows of topped trees. A small group of tourists stared, watching the action, one even starting to take the cap of his big Nikon. Webb veered toward them with an idea in mind, then sprinted past only to hear shouts from behind as the cameraman was assaulted. Good. The goons thought he’d taken a snap and were now wasting precious time teaching him a lesson.

He glanced back. No such luck. Only one goon had remained back there, the others were closer still. He saw garbage cans lined up ahead, ready for recycling day, and toppled them in his wake. Leaves, branches and vegetation spilled over the road, the big bins getting in the way of one pursuer and sending him headlong and face-first into the road.

Webb then experienced some more misfortune, landing badly as he crossed a standard curb and turning his ankle. He went down. The goons were on him in eight seconds as he struggled to his knees.

“ ’Old ’im,” one said in British accent.

“No,” Webb said. “Not now. I’m too close. I—”

A fist slammed off the side of his head, sending spots dancing all across his eye line.

“Shut the hell up.”

Webb hung his head, making himself heavy. His ankle throbbed. “Please.”

They shook him violently and the spots kept on dancing.

“Gun,” one of them said menacingly.

“I have money,” Webb tried. “More than you can imagine. Shit, a month ago you were all probably working for me.”

“Shut yer gob.”

“Who do you work for now?”

“Our employer doesn’t like violence,” another man said. “So he employs others who do. That’s us.” A jab to the ear. “Get the picture now?”

“Yeah, but I could double your pay.”

“You got the wedge on ya?”

“No. It’s—”

“Then stop wastin’ my time. I’m already knackered from the run and gobsmacked you even got this far. Now stop all yer kerfuffle and die.”

Webb understood little of it, but got the general idea. He cast around for anything he could use, but the mercs were covering him well, all angles spoken for. This time he had no way out. This time Tyler Webb’s lifelong dream was really going to sputter to a stop.

Webb was down to the desperate measures he’d hoped never to have to call upon.

A small incendiary device, almost like a firecracker or vigorous sparkler, might make these hardened men laugh in the battlefield, but one shoved inside their clothing was no lightweight matter. Webb had palmed one from his small backpack earlier and now thrust it inside the Englishman’s jacket. The reaction was instant, flames singeing and scorching, and the man jumped back with a screech, smashing at his own chest.

Everyone stared.

Except Webb.

Pushing from his heels and with every ounce of strength, he broke through the shocked men just as flames burst through the man’s jacket. These men didn’t know whether to stop and help their leader or give chase. This then, was why the Pythian mercenary force never conquered the world.

Webb saw it all first-hand now and ran hard for the end of the road. A man stayed with him, though, sending a fist to the ribs which, on the run, gave Webb heart palpitations. He veered away, saw a man walking a small dog, picked up the sniveling mutt and hurled it straight at his looming attacker. Mayhem surrounded him. The dog walker complained loudly, the dog itself snarled satisfactorily, and Webb broke away.

Free. Now don’t—

A gunshot blasted from behind, the bullet slicing across his left thigh. Webb squealed, the pain temporarily washing all else away, the terror blinding him. The dog walker screeched too, then fell into him as he turned to run, tiny mutt forgotten.

Webb staggered, holding up both hands. He looked down, expecting ragged flesh, protruding bone, but saw only a thin tear in his jeans, and thus an even thinner tear in his flesh.

I got shot.

And lived! The leg was already badly wounded of course. Webb had twisted an ankle. Maybe fate was giving him a chance. Feeling like the world’s most heroic soldier, he limped away toward the Champs Élysées, now close enough to smell the exhaust fumes and see the endless droves milling around.

A chancy look back. The fire still blazed, though the man now lay prone on the ground. A shotgun aimed at Webb. Briefly he wondered if he might be able to dodge a bullet, rating his chances a little better than fifty-fifty. Best not to wager on that and his newfound prowess yet, though. He snaked between parked cars. The next shot blew out a windscreen, then another thunked into the door skin. Webb scrambled on, knees ablaze now too.

Tourists stared at him, cameras twitching. He ignored them, skirting their mindless groups. Some laughed, some looked concerned. Others ate out of fast-food bags or stood staring at buildings, probably imagining what it might have been like hundreds of years ago. Actually, Saint Germain may have done the very same thing in this neighborhood, considering what it had been like in the sixteenth or fifteenth century perhaps, and wondering if he might find the answer to the meaning of life. Cars honked their horns, taxis sped by, safe in their imagined immunity to all things bad. These people had heard the noise, probably couldn’t get their tiny little minds around the fact that, yes, it was actually a gunshot!

Once on the Champs Élysées, he headed unerringly toward the throngs and the wider spaces, toward the Place de la Concorde.

The place of many executions.

Webb would never stop running, nor searching. Here he was, finding new depths to himself and new abilities.

It was then he saw her to his left; his favorite victim.