by Morgan Rice
Meanwhile, Jean-Charles Ariette was making his way towards the wings. Pinsley saw the flash of fabric pushing through the crowd of extras, shoving them out of the way without hesitation. Kaia was up there now, having managed to get past the ushers in the confusion.
“There,” Pinsley shouted, pointing. “He’s there.”
Too late, he realized his mistake, because Kaia set off in pursuit without waiting for him. It took him another second to break free of the crowd and get into the wings. By then, the two of them were already running.
Pinsley followed, down a flight of stairs, into the backstage area of the theatre. A part of him wanted to stop and make sure that Olivia was all right, but if he did that, he would be letting a killer go, and leaving Kaia to face him alone, all at once. Instead, Pinsley hurried on past dressing rooms and fragments of set. He dodged a rack of costumes, then leapt over a sandbag abandoned on the floor.
He saw Kaia ahead, and the flash of an opera cloak behind her, disappearing down more stairs. The catacombs beneath Paris, of course. He saw Kaia following without hesitation, and Pinsley cursed to himself. Did the girl have no fear?
He came to the top of the same steps, looking down into the dark.
“Kaia!” he yelled. “Wait for me.”
He knew that she wouldn’t, but even so, he had to try. He plunged down into the catacombs, determined not to give up the chase.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Pinsley took the steps down into the catacombs beneath Paris two at a time, guided by the light of a lamp ahead of him that the killer must have lit to illuminate his way through the tunnels there. He thought that he could see a flash of Kaia’s dress there, moving quickly, showing that she was still chasing.
That thought worried Pinsley, because even if she’d felled dangerous men before with those uncanny talents of hers, there was no way of knowing if such things were reliable. He had to catch up.
He ran as fast as he could, down tunnels formed by the constant rebuilding of Paris, now lined with crypts and monuments to the dead. It was a macabre place, and a complex one, with fresh routes seeming to branch off almost constantly. Only the light ahead and the glimpses of Kaia provided Pinsley with any sense of which way to go.
Not all of the catacombs below the city were given over to the dead. Some parts seemed to have been seconded for use as storage spaces. Others had people, the very poorest of the city pushed into the parts that no one else wanted. They stared at Pinsley as he ran past, but didn’t move to interfere with his progress. Those islands of people brought patches of light that added to that of the torch, but in between, the tunnels were dim.
Pinsley tripped on something in the dark, caught himself, and kept running, following the light. He came to a set of steps leading up, and had to make a decision. Which way had Kaia and Jean-Charles Ariette gone?
“Kaia!” he called out, but there was no answer, leaving no data on which to make a real judgement. Or was there? The absence of anything could be a form of evidence in itself. There was no lamp glow ahead, so didn’t it make sense that his quarry had run for the surface?
Pinsley could think of a dozen ways that he might be wrong: Jean-Charles Ariette might simply have quenched his lamp, or might have turned a corner. Even like this, it was a guess, but there was no time for more than a guess. There was a killer to stop, but more importantly, Kaia needed him.
Pinsley barreled up out past an open iron gate, into the streets of the city. Even at this hour of the night, there were people out there, with crowds walking to Paris’ night spots. Pinsley realized, though, that he could use them to find the direction Kaia and Jean-Charles Ariette had gone in, looking for the spot where people were staring and shouting, then setting off as fast as he could run in that direction.
He saw them again, now, spotting Kaia first, but seeing the opera cloak of Ariette only moments later. They dove off into a side street, and Pinsley followed.
“Call the Sûreté!” he called out as he ran. “I’m chasing the theatre killer!”
It was too much to hope that the French city police would arrive quickly, but Pinsley had to try. He skidded around a corner in time to see Jean-Charles Ariette take another turning with Kaia following along after.
They were in smaller streets now, which were quieter than the main boulevards, and the absence of people made it easier for Pinsley to keep track of Kaia and the killer. He saw them both duck down one more street, and hurried after them. He was closing the gap.
This time, when he rounded the corner, the other two weren’t already on the verge of taking another turning, because there were no turnings to take. It was a dead end, and in that dead end, Jean-Charles Ariette turned at bay, with his opera cloak swirling around him.
He grabbed for Kaia, struggling with her as Pinsley rushed forward to help. He half expected to see Kaia’s assailant flung back in the same mysterious way that he’d seen others thrown from her. Instead though, and to Pinsley’s horror, Jean-Charles Ariette managed to slip behind her, bringing that velvet rope of his up to wrap around her throat.
The fear that Pinsley felt then was every bit as great as it had been when it had been his daughter under attack. The thought of something happening to Kaia filled him with horror.
“You’re going to let me out of here,” Jean-Charles Ariette said. “You’re going to let me go, or I’ll strangle her right here in front of you.”
Pinsley froze in place. He could not allow Kaia to be hurt, he could not. If he thought that letting this man leave would keep her safe, he would do it in a heartbeat.
“We’re going to walk out of here together,” Ariette said. “And then I might let her go, or I might just strangle her anyway to teach you not to interfere in matters that are beyond you.”
That was the problem, and the reason that Pinsley couldn’t let this man walk away from here. Let him go, and there was nothing to stop him from killing Kaia anyway. Let him take Kaia away, and there wasn’t even the chance to stop him before he did.
“I can’t let you go with Kaia,” Pinsley said. “Let go of her, and I’ll let you walk out of this alley.”
It was a lie, but hopefully one that might work. Just get him to let go of Kaia for an instant, and Pinsley would be on him. This would be over.
“No, don’t let him go!” Kaia called out, until Jean-Charles tightened the rope at her throat.
“Do you think I’m a fool?” Jean-Charles Ariette demanded. “I’m not a fool! I’m a brilliant man! An actor of the highest caliber, yet no one recognized it. No, they’d rather focus on pretty young things instead. Even when I started killing them, all the talk was of the loss of them, not of me!”
“Just let Kaia go, and we can talk all you want,” Pinsley said. Bizarrely, he found the sixth of Sir Robert Peel’s nine principles of policing springing to mind: To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public cooperation. It was a distraction he didn’t need, but it was also probably true that attacking here would only put Kaia in danger.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Ariette said, and yanked on the rope.
“No!” Pinsley cried out, as he started to strangle Kaia. Pinsley saw her face redden with it, and her hands went up to the rope. Then she did the one thing that he didn’t expect, and clearly Jean-Charles Ariette didn’t either: she turned into him and punched him, as hard as she could.
It wasn’t a blow to fell him, but the shock of it meant that Ariette loosened his grip on the strangling rope just for a moment or two.
It was all Pinsley needed. He charged in, landing a blow that the great prize fighters Cribb or Broughton would have been proud of. It knocked Jean-Charles Ariette off balance, sending him stumbling back to lose his grip on the rope.
He cursed and dragged off his opera cloak, flinging it at Pinsley. The move was enough to slow the inspector’s attack for a second or two, giving him some space. Pinsley ripped the cloak away, and saw the kille
r staring at him.
“I know you,” he said. “You’re the stupid Englishman I fought in the bar. Well, I’m not drunk now, and I’m going to enjoy this.”
He started to reach into a pocket, and Pinsley remembered the knife he’d pulled out before. Pinsley rushed forward, grabbing hold of his arm as it came out of that pocket. If you had to face a knife, the best time to take control of it was before it was out and waving in a blur of steel. He used his weight to drive Ariette back into the nearest wall, and then slammed his hand into it until he saw the knife clatter to the floor. Ariette hit him in the side with his other hand, but Pinsley ignored it until he could kick the knife well away.
Duchene pushed clear of him then, bringing his hands up and bouncing on his toes. He moved more gracefully now that he was sober, and his savate attacks came in quickly. His feet flashed out low, and then went up towards Pinsley’s head. The inspector slipped the attack, biding his time.
Another kick came in, this time thrown almost side on, with the heel of Ariette’s boot aimed at Pinsley’s knee. The inspector drew his leg back, but his opponent followed up with a flurry of punches designed to catch him while he was off balance. Pinsley managed to avoid one, and took another on his forearms, but a third got through, and for a moment the world felt unsteady around him.
His boxing master at school had one rule in situations like this: when hit, it was better to go forward than back up. Pinsley had found it to be true in war, too. In the Crimea, falling back under an attack was the surest way to see your men slaughtered.
He attacked.
He pushed past another punch, then used his elbow to stop a kick from reaching his side. Closing with Jean-Charles Ariette, Pinsley grabbed him and dragged him to the floor, wrestling with him to come up on top and land punches. To his surprise, Ariette twisted out from under him, throwing a blow with his elbow that stunned Pinsley enough for the other man to move into a superior position. One punch came down at him, then another.
“Not so tough now!” Jean-Charles Ariette gloated. “I’ll beat you to a pulp, Englishman!”
Right then, Pinsley feared that was exactly what would happen. Already, he could barely think with the blows that had fallen. A few more, and he would fall into unconsciousness, leaving Ariette free to do as he wished with both him and Kaia. Pinsley fought furiously to get up, but it made no difference.
Then Kaia was there, holding Ariette’s own velvet rope in her hands. She wrapped it around his neck exactly the way he had with her, and from behind, like that, it was enough to let her drag him off the inspector. Knowing that there wouldn’t be another chance, Pinsley surged to his feet and struck out with all his remaining strength.
He hit Jean-Charles Ariette, and the blow was one that would have felled any man alive. It had Pinsley’s full weight behind it, and it connected sweetly with Ariette’s jaw. The sound of it was like a mallet striking a peg, and Pinsley felt the impact of it all the way up his arm.
Jean-Charles Ariette slumped, falling backwards like a felled tree, and didn’t rise. Pinsley stood there breathing hard for several seconds. He stared down at the fallen man, almost daring him to move. He didn’t, and relief flooded through him.
It was done.
Kaia came over to him.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I should be asking you that,” Pinsley said. He could see the red marks of the rope on her throat. “Your neck…”
“I’m fine,” Kaia assured him. She looked down at the fallen form of Jean-Charles Ariette. “He’s just a man.”
“What did you expect him to be?” Pinsley asked, even though he knew what the answer was likely to be.
“I just thought that, to do something like this, he would have to be possessed,” Kaia said. “I was so sure it would have to be a shadow, even now.”
Pinsley shook his head. “People are more than capable of their own evil, Kaia, and he is just a cruel man who decided that if he couldn’t have the actress of his dreams, others should die for it. The world is full of such men.”
“But that’s…” Kaia paused as if she couldn’t find the words for what it was. “That’s horrible.”
Pinsley nodded. “I’ve seen ordinary people do the worst things it is possible to do. Some say that the devil made them do it, others claim madness. Maybe some are mad, but many are not. They simply choose to do evil.”
“How… how do you stand it?” Kaia asked.
“It helps that people choose to do the kindest things, the best things, for one another, as well,” Pinsley said. “It helps that I can try to protect those people from the ones who would do them harm.”
“And what do we do with him?” Kaia asked, gesturing to the fallen form of Jean-Charles Ariette.
That was the question. The temptation was to take revenge, but Pinsley knew better than to give in to that temptation. He was a police officer, not a judge, or an executioner.
Instead, he took the rope from Kaia and used it to tie Jean-Charles Ariette, ensuring that he wouldn’t be able to escape.
“Here!” he yelled, as loud as he could. “The theatre killer is here!”
He yelled it once more, just to be sure, and then led Kaia out of the alley, to a spot in a doorway where they could watch without being seen easily in the dark.
There, they waited until Pinsley saw uniformed officers of the Sûreté running along the street, hurrying towards the alley.
“What if they don’t realize who he is?” Kaia asked. “What if they don’t believe that he’s the killer? What about Amelie?”
“After I yelled it in the theatre?” Pinsley said. “People heard his name. They will investigate, and people will have seen him there, too. They will know that he is the killer.”
The Sûreté officers would find the truth, and Jean-Charles Ariette would face justice of his actions. Pinsley was certain of that much.
“We should still stay to tell them what happened,” Kaia said. “We should make sure.”
Pinsley shook his head. “We can’t. We ran from the Sûreté. They will probably still think that we are spies, regardless of what we say. Even if they arrest Ariette, things will be too difficult.”
Kaia hesitated, but then nodded. “So what now?”
“We need to leave Paris,” Pinsley said. He paused for a moment. “First, though, we need to rest. We’ll find somewhere to stay, and then… then there is something that I must do.”
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Kaia woke to someone hammering on the door, and for a moment, she thought that the Sûreté had found them in spite of their efforts.
“Kaia,” Pinsley called. “It’s time to go. Please tell me that you’re actually in there, and I’m not talking to an empty room again.”
“I’m here,” Kaia called back. “Let me get ready.”
She got dressed and got her things together. Pinsley was waiting as she reached the door.
“Are we going to have breakfast first?” Kaia asked.
Pinsley shook his head. “Once we’re moving. After everything last night, we need to get out of Paris as quickly as possible.”
“Straight away?” Kaia asked. “There was something I wanted to do.”
“Well, there is one stop I want to make first,” Pinsley said. “But then it’s straight back to London.”
It was Kaia’s turn to shake her head.
“I can’t go back to London, not yet. I need to go to Munich.”
“Munich?” Pinsley said. “In Bavaria? Why on earth would you need to go there, Kaia?”
Kaia did her best to explain. “Last night, when I was spying on Amelie and the others who were possessed…”
“Or whatever had happened to them,” Pinsley insisted.
“They were possessed by shadows.” Kaia wasn’t going to let that go. “Inspector, you’ve seen enough of what’s happening to acknowledge it, by now.”
“I…” It seemed as if he might try to deny it, even then, but then Pinsley sighed. “Ye
s, I suppose I must. I have not seen these creatures directly, but I have seen things that I cannot explain in other terms.”
Kaia knew how hard that acknowledgement must have been for the inspector. It ran contrary to his entire view of the world. Now, though, she needed to push further. She needed to tell him the rest of it.
“I overheard what they were talking about,” Kaia said. “They were telling one another about what would happen next. Their plan was to try to open a way through to… to the place that they’re from.”
She saw the inspector hesitate, and for a moment or two, she thought that he might try to deny it again.
“An invasion?” he said. “More people like… well, like that? No, that cannot be permitted.”
Kaia could only agree with that. “There are people who fight against them, the Shadowseers. The people who were possessed were talking about how they would have time to open a portal here, because the Shadowseers are all in Munich, trying to find some kind of relic.”
“They’re looking for religious icons?” Pinsley said.
Kaia realized that she wasn’t explaining herself quite right. “This is just something old, something that the Shadowseers think can close the portals, but the shadows were saying that only one person can make it work. They’ve gone to Munich to find it, which means that I have to go to Munich to find them.”
“It’s a long journey,” the inspector said, obviously trying to work it all out. “And not to the safest place. Bavaria is coming under pressure from Prussia at the moment, and things are potentially unstable.”
“We still need to go,” Kaia said.
“I know,” Pinsley said. He still seemed thoughtful. “London at the middle of a political crisis, Paris after a bombing, Munich at a time when there is pressure on it… I wonder if the shadows seek out such places.”
Kaia didn’t know about that, but she did know that she had to get to Bavaria, and find the Shadowseers.
