The Sacrifice of the Lambs
A Noir fanfic
by hkmiller
28 March 2004 - prereader draft
20 April 2004 - FFML draft
24 April 2004 - Revisions from FFML feedback;
death scene rewrite
The characters of Noir were created by Ryoe Tsukimura and Yoko
Kikuchi, and are copyrighted by A.D.Vision, Inc. in the USA and
Ryoe Tsukimura / Bee Train / Victor Entertainment in Japan.
No disrespect intended by my unlicensed usage.
Contains spoilers for the entire series, mild shoujo-ai, lime
content, and VERY dark content.
This is a sequel to my earlier story, "The Peace of the
Ten-Year-Olds". To summarize: the day after leaving the manor,
Mireille and Kirika rescued two ten-year-old girls, Aditi and
Tati Sarkhovsky, from a splinter Basque terrorist group. The
girls' grandfather died requesting that the girls be delivered to
a priest in Paris.
- - - - - - - - - -
"What does 'Les ministres confronte au financement des services
publics'" mean?" Tati asked from the back seat, running a bandaged
finger over the headlines in Mireille's discarded newspaper.
"'Ministers confront financing of public services'," Kirika
replied. Kirika was half-turned in her seat, facing the two girls
in the back seat, wearing that rare smile which Mireille had come
to treasure.
"BOR-ING!" Aditi declared. "We need a real case." The Indian
girl, sitting next to Tati, promptly moved on to the next story.
"What does 'un tueur en serie possible' mean?"
"'A possible serial killer'", Kirika replied.
"MUCH better!" Aditi pronounced. The two twice-orphaned girls
bent their heads down over that section of the newspaper.
"'De le Sud de France' means 'from the south of France'," Tati
offered, as she thumbed through a French-English dictionary.
"Now for 'entre dix et vingt jeune filles manquant'..."
"Are you trying to learn French, or are you really looking for a
case?" Kirika asked them.
Aditi, panicked, looked at Tati, who answered, "You two live in
Paris, right? So obviously we have to learn French if we're going
to live with you."
"You two are NOT going to live with us," Mireille snapped. Tati
ignored her; Aditi briefly stuck her tongue out at Mireille.
"Now, THIS story..." Aditi nudged Tati.
"...sounds like a job..." Tati continued, smirking.
"...for YOU TWO!" they finished in unison, fingers pointing into
the front seat, between Kirika and Mireille.
Aditi added, "Ably assisted, of course, by ..."
"...your lovely and talented apprentices, Aditi and Tati
Sarkhovsky!" Tati said, buffing her bandaged fingers against her
blouse with a pleased smile. The two ten-year-old girls looked at
each other and nodded in unison.
"We are not going to do anything about that story. We are going
to drive straight to Paris, today, and hand you over to this
Father DiFrancesco." Mireille eyed the two girls sternly in her
rear-view mirror as they threw the newspaper down, crossed their
arms, and huffed in disappointment.
Kirika was still looking into the back seat with a fond smile.
"What are you looking at?" Mireille asked curiously.
"Nothing important," Kirika answered wistfully.
"Kirika, do you remember what our apartment currently looks
like?" Mireille said sweetly. Switching to German, Mireille
added, "Living with us is too dangerous for them. You do know
that, right?"
"I know, I know," Kirika answered sadly, also in German. "I
just... like having them around."
Mireille patted Kirika's leg. "We'll find a way to keep tabs on
them, maybe visit them occasionally. Does that help?"
"Ummn." Kirika smiled at Mireille and nodded.
"Did you see anything in those papers Altena left us?" Mireille
asked curiously.
Kirika looked down at the papers she'd been holding in her hands.
"Nothing much. Apparently I rarely came to Europe in recent
years. I was in Marseilles for a short time two years ago, but
it doesn't say what I did there."
"Probably nothing terribly important." Mireille switched back to
French. "We'll make a brief stop soon, in Bordeaux, for gasoline.
And we'll have to get you something to wear which won't attract so
much attention; I know where there are some nice shops in
Bordeaux. After that we'll drive straight on to Paris."
Kirika nodded, her eyes drifting again to the back seat.
- - - - - - - - - -
It was mid-morning when the rising sun crested the roofs on the
east side of the narrow street enough to fully illuminate the
light-colored stone of the buildings on the west side. Few
shoppers were on the streets yet, here in the 'Golden Triangle'
shopping district of Bordeaux, despite the trendy fashions
displayed in the boutique windows.
Armand Gafori sauntered up the street whistling, his hands in his
pockets, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses, watching the few
shoppers out and about. He was of medium height, lean and wiry,
dressed in a fashionable white suit and flashy, narrow tie.
Wind-blown hair topped a long, narrow face.
He watched a Toyota Land Cruiser came to a stop and park in front
of a fashionable women's clothing store. Two women got out of the
front seat, one rather nice, a blonde; the other a little young,
and an oriental. Hmmm; he hadn't tasted Chinese yet. Two more
Asian kids got out of the back seat. The oriental woman was
wearing some bizarre golden gown, and had bandages wrapped around
one leg. She wasn't the type he'd normally watch, but with the
amount of leg that gown was showing...
Suddenly his eyes widened. It couldn't be; could it? He had to
get a closer look! He followed the four into a clothing store,
and studied the woman closely out of the corner of his eyes while
buying whatever lingerie came first to hand. It WAS her! He was
sure of it!
For a moment it all came back to him...
The dingy, dimly-lit warehouse on the Marseille waterfront was
filled with the smell of smoke and shouts of confusion.
Automatic weapons fired here and there there in the smoke. He
and the two men with him quartered their assigned section,
wary and alert.
The icy-eyed girl came out of nowhere, simply materializing out
of the smoke. She fired three rapid shots in a single motion of
her arm, her face completely expressionless. Armand saw his
teammates fall out of the corner of his eye as he himself fell
backwards in shock. A lung puncture, he thought vaguely,
coughing up blood.
As if in a dream he lay where he'd fallen, watching the girl
whirl and duck just before Big Jean's reaching arms grabbed her
from behind. He saw the quick two-step which tripped Big Jean
just as Jacques and Leon emerged from the smoke and took aim at
her; he watched her take three unbelievably quick steps and jerk
Jacques' gun around just as he fired so that the bullets killed
Leon. Stepping past Jacques, the girl held her arm straight
out, without even looking, and shot Big Jean just as the
latter got back to his feet. Jacques got himself turned around
to face the girl just in time to meet the same fate, drilled
through the middle of the forehead. Moments later the girl was
gone, vanished again into the smoke.
Armand waited another few minutes, then slowly got to his feet.
Both the men with him had been drilled through the heart, he
saw. Well, this gig was done. He slowly staggered towards the
corner where the boss kept his safe and all the cash.
Armand left the store with his purchases, turned and walked
around the corner, suppressing a shiver. The girl was death on
wheels, that was clear; on the other hand, what a prize for his
collection! This might well call for breaking his rule about not
hunting on his home turf. But carefully, carefully; he'd have to
figure an approach. Perhaps a hostage? Would she sacrifice those
two little lambs with her? Or maybe the blonde who'd been doting
over her?
The lambs he dismissed as any threat, but he hesitated over the
blonde. Treat her as formidable, for a woman, of course; but what
if she were the oriental girl's equal? Gafori shivered
involuntarily, then smiled and relaxed. No, women weren't
fighters; they were made to be appreciated, by connoisseurs such
as himself. He'd treat the blonde as formidable, but there could
not be two like the oriental in the whole world.
- - - - - - - - - -
Inside the shop, Mireille began picking out clothes for Kirika
to try on, one outfit after another. It was not a large shop,
occupying just a front and back room on a single floor, and only
the smiling proprietress was present at this time of day. It was
sparsely decorated, just white walls, mirrors, and mannequins.
"I thought we wanted to be quick," Kirika noted in an even tone,
fingering the cloth on the first outfit, a light blue sun dress.
"But this is such as darling outfit! I have to see how it looks
on you!" Mireille gushed, a fond smile on her face. "And I did
say that you need more clothes," Mireille reminded Kirika. "You
really are just too adorably cute when you dress right. You
should show it off more."
Aditi whispered to Tati in their private patois, "This is our
chance! We GOTTA find another case, before they can dump us off
on Grandpa's old friend, or we'll never get to be spy-detectives
like them! You keep 'em busy, I'll go outside and look for a
case! They're going to be at least another half hour."
"Aditi, no!" Tati hissed. "Not now! Just stay put! What if they
decide to just leave you?"
"That's exactly why we gotta find the next case! You stay here,
and don't tell them I'm gone until they ask!" Aditi replied, just
before sneaking out the front door.
Outside, Aditi grinned and began to stride down the street,
turning her head from side to side. If she were a terrorist
group, where would she hide in Bordeaux? What other kinds of
cases would Kirika and Mireille let them help with? Bank robbers?
Spies? That serial killer? Where should she look?
She had just passed the mouth of an alleyway when she heard a
faint scraping sound close behind her.
- - - - - - - - - -
"What do you mean, she's gone? Where did she go?" Mireille asked
Tati sharply as she paid for Kirika's new outfits.
"She was just restless; went out for a walk..." Tati looked
a little scared and uncharacteristically subdued.
"She can't have gone far. Let's just split up and search. Tati,
you stay with Kirika, understand?" Mireille frowned at the child.
Another hitch; just great. "We'll meet back here in twenty
minutes. I'll go left."
"Ummn." Kirika nodded, then took Tati's hand. Leaving the shop,
they turned right.
Mireille was just finishing her third block at a steady pace,
having seen no sign of Aditi, when the rear door of a black
Citroen sedan parked at the curb opened just as she came abreast
of it. Glancing inside, she stiffened. A wiry but capable-
looking man sat in the back seat, holding a silenced Beretta with
the barrel up against the side of Aditi's head. Aditi herself
was gagged and tied up, quite professionally, it appeared.
"Please don't make a scene," the man spoke softly. "It would be
SUCH a pain to get her brains out of the upholstery."
Mireille froze and watched the man calmly, bending her legs
slowly in case she needed to jump, right hand drifting to the
mouth of her handbag. "Your move," she acknowledged with a nod,
wondering whether she should just shoot him anyway.
"I'll take that handbag of yours, to begin with. Toss it to me
with your left hand, please. Then get in the front seat driver's
side. The key's in the ignition. Start the car and pull us
carefully out into traffic. I'll give you directions as we go."
Mireille sighed. Kirika liked the girls, heaven only knew why;
she refused to admit that they were growing on her a bit as well.
She tossed the handbag and got in the car. The man didn't look at
all familiar, Mireille thought. Wonder where he knows me from?
"My friends will be wondering where I am," she said slowly.
"My dear, I'm counting on it." The man smiled nastily.
- - - - - - - - - -
Kirika and Tati stood in front of the Toyota Land Cruiser getting
increasingly worried. Aditi might be impulsive, even reckless at
times, but it was very unlike Mireille to have missed this
rendezvous. Tati just looked scared.
Kirika thought about going to the police. But what credence
would the police place in their story? They were two girls, one
underage, neither French by origin, and neither had any documents
to show that they were in France legally. The car they were
using belonged to a wanted Basque terrorist, now dead.
The police were going to have to be a last resort.
- - - - - - - - - -
Mireille frowned. The man had given her no good openings, and now
she was running out of opportunities.
The man had ordered her to circle through the winding streets for
a while, into an old residential neighborhood with centuries-old
stone houses. She'd pulled into an enclosed garage in back of
one of the houses, and now the automatic garage door opener was
shutting again.
"You get out first. Place your hands on your head once you're
out, and walk over to that door. Don't turn around once you're by
the door."
Mireille heard the back door of the Citroen open behind her as the
man herded Aditi out of the car. Glancing into a shiny surface
close to her, she could see that the man was still watching her
closely and all but ignoring Aditi. This is your chance, girl,
Mireille thought. Kick him in the shins.
Unfortunately, Aditi did nothing. Staying carefully back, the man
ordered Mireille to descend ahead of them into the cellar.
The bottom of the cellar stairs opened into a large central room
taking up most of the basement, well lit by an overhead
fluorescent lamp. A butcher-block table sat near a large freezer
towards the back, with a cleaver and knives sitting on a large
cutting board. A few brown stains smudged a large pewter platter
also sitting on the table. A lone mouse scurried out of sight.
Towards the front of the house was a thick wooden door with a
heavy bar across it. Glancing around, Mireille decided that the
stone walls were much too thick for any noise to escape the
basement.
Her captor motioned her towards the barred door. Mireille
noticed now that the door had a small peephole in the center of
the door, currently closed.
"Lift the bar."
"I can't lift that," Mireille bluffed. "Not without help."
"I don't believe you. Do it!"
"I CAN'T!"
Gafori, frowning, approached Mireille, who waited, listening. At
what she judged the correct moment, she lashed back at him with
an elbow to the throat. Unfortunately he was ready for her, and
caught it easily with his left hand. Almost simultaneously, he
riposted with a vicious sidekick to her stomach, driving Mireille
into the door. "None of that, now, or the girl dies. You have
ten seconds to open that door, or I shoot her left kneecap."
Mireille caught her breath, then stood and did as he asked. The
man had reach and strength on her, and was a trained fighter.
The bar WAS pretty heavy, Mireille thought, though she did manage
to lift it and open the door. The bar seemed to be solid oak.
"Inside."
The front room was not large, Mireille saw, perhaps five meters
deep by ten wide. The door was in the center of one of the long
walls, recessed from the room since it opened in the direction
they'd come from. There were no other doors, and no windows. To
Mireille's left was a narrow metal bedframe with a ragged mattress
on top. The head and foot of the bed, also metal, just barely
overtopped the mattress. Adjustable metal cuffs, for someone's
ankles and wrists, were welded to the top of the head and foot of
the bed.
To Mireille's right were several sturdy wooden chairs, one
currently occupied by a woman tied to it by a thick rope. The
only light in this room came from a single, dangling, overhead
yellow bulb.
"Lie down on that bed, face up, and fasten yourself into those
cuffs," the man said, pointing with his gun.
Doing her best to look intimidated, Mireille put her ankles into
the cuffs at the foot of the bed, being careful to not quite
fasten them, then lay back and put her wrists into the cuffs just
above her head. If she could lure the man into approaching her...
Studying her carefully, the man smiled nastily, then abruptly
gave Aditi a vicious backhand, sending her flying to the stone
floor. Producing a knife from another pocket, he cut Aditi free.
"Now, girl, I'll be right behind you with this gun. You're
going to walk up to your blonde friend and fasten those cuffs
for me. I'll tell you exactly what to do, understand?"
Aditi nodded, then stood slowly and approached Mireille, eyes
hopeful and mouthing something. Mireille shook her head; Aditi
would just get herself killed trying something now. After Aditi
had done her best, their captor threw her aside and inspected her
work, checking that all the cuffs were tight.
Finally smirking approval, he hauled Aditi over and tied her into
a chair near the other woman, who was now awake and looking at
them.
The man left the room for a moment, then returned with a sharp
carving knife. He carefully inspected the knife, running his
thumb along the edge, humming in satisfaction. Holding the tip of
the knife against Mireille's throat, he slowly moved the knife
down the length of Mireille's chest, slicing through her blouse
and bra. The point left a red smear between Mireille's breasts as
the fabric parted.
Gafori kept the knife point going past Mireille's waist, though he
redirected the point slightly, slicing through her panties along
one leg. Once they were sliced, he pulled the point back from
Mireille's skin and ripped through the rest of her skirt in a
quick swipe.
Almost as a whimsical afterthought, Gafori pulled the remains of
her bra and panties out from under Mireille and casually threw
them to the floor.
"Now," Armand Gafori smiled lazily as he looked Mireille in the
eyes, "you'll pardon my rudeness, but I'll need your skirt and
blouse for my next trick." He took the blouse and skirt with him
when he left, barring the door behind him.
Mireille turned her head to look at the other prisoner. She was
an adult woman in her mid-twenties with shoulder-length light
brown hair. Her dress, once nice, now looked worn and dirty.
"Are you all right?" Mireille asked the woman in French.
"As well as can be," the woman replied. "My name is Charlotte,
Charlotte Merril. Does the Indian girl not speak French?"
"No, but she does speak English and Russian. My name is Mireille;
hers is Aditi."
"What is that man going to do with us?" Aditi asked in English.
"Something very bad, I'm afraid," Charlotte said sadly in accented
but understandable English. "I've been here for five days, I
think. There was another girl, a teenager, here when I arrived,
but he took her away yesterday. I think he killed her."
"Ewww," replied Aditi, making a face.
"He kidnapped me in Toulouse," Charlotte added. "I was there
researching medieval manuscripts. Did you have a chance to see
where we are? I'm not even sure what city we're in, or if we're
even in a city."
Aditi shrugged. "Sure; we're in the old part of Bordeaux. We're
only a few blocks from where he grabbed us."
"Did you say Charlotte Merril?" Mireille asked curiously.
"There's a woman in Paris by that name I've heard of. Some sort
of police consultant."
Charlotte's eyes shifted away as she replied, "I'm just a medieval
historian, I'm afraid."
- - - - - - - - - -
The Citroen pulled up next to where Kirika and Tati were still
impatiently walking up and down the street, eyes peeled for any
sign of Mireille or Aditi. Armand Gafori got out, Mireille's
red blouse and black skirt draped over the gun in his right hand.
Kirika had her gun out and pointed at Gafori's face before he
could blink. She held that pose, arm outstretched,
expressionless, awaiting an explanation.
"Please make no hasty decisions," he spoke quickly. "I have
confederates who will act on our hostages if I do not return
soon."
"You have Mireille?" Kirika asked.
"That would be the delightful blonde lady? Yes, she is unharmed
at present, and will stay that way provided you accompany me."
Kirika lowered her gun and stood waiting.
Gafori beckoned Tati over to him. Tati glanced over at Kirika,
who nodded. Tati walked over and Gafori put a heavy hand on her
shoulder.
"Now, get in the front seat of the car," Gafori said. "You'll
be driving. I'll be in the back seat with the girl. And I'll
take that nasty gun of yours; put the safety on so I can see you,
then slide it under the seat."
Kirika was not used to driving; indeed, she was not sure she ever
HAD driven before. Mireille made it look easy, but not hitting
other cars in these narrow streets took most of her attention.
The man holding Tati was doing something in the back seat; she
couldn't spare the time to determine what.
As the car came to a stop inside the garage, Kirika found out:
one hand snaked around her head from behind and held a damp cloth
against her mouth. In her remaining moments of consciousness,
she recognized the scent: chloroform.
- - - - - - - - - -
Mireille looked up as the door opened. It was their captor,
carrying Kirika and pulling Tati along by one arm. He carried
Kirika over to the bed and dropped her on top of Mireille, then
turned his attention to tying Tati up in one of the remaining
chairs. Mireille sighed in relief once she was sure that Kirika
was still breathing.
Once finished with Tati, the man came back over and picked Kirika
up again. He glanced down at Mireille and pursed his lips in
amusement. "Given how comfortably we have you situated, we
certainly mustn't slack our duty to our other guest here." So
saying, he again produced a knife and cut Kirika's clothes from
her body in the same way he had Mireille's.
"I was quite surprised to see this little demoness here in
Bordeaux, you know," he said conversationally.
Mireille's eyebrows shot up. Kirika, rather than herself, was
the reason they'd been waylaid? "You know her?"
Gafori chuckled. "One of my lungs made the acquaintance of one
of her bullets two years ago, in Marseilles. She missed my heart
by less than two centimeters. You wouldn't happen to know for
whom she was working on that occasion, would you?" he asked
hopefully.
Mireille shook her head. "I only met her about a year ago," she
said truthfully.
"A pity," Gafori said regretfully. "We had such a nice business
going, too: the importation and distribution of certain
substances which, although frowned upon by society's earnest
guardians, never seem to lack demand."
As he spoke, he arranged Kirika atop Mireille to his satisfaction,
face down, then began tying her arms and legs to the bed.
"I suppose I shouldn't complain, though. As sole survivor of the
event, and being privy to the whereabouts of our ill-gotten gains,
I was freed up to pursue my current, more artistic pursuits.
After the months it took to heal up, that is."
"If Kirika killed your entire gang, why did you risk seizing her?
Why not stay as far away as possible?"
Gafori smiled in delight. "Ah! Now there you touch upon one of
my core principles, as it were: eliminate possible threats early,
even unlikely ones. She might have been here in Bordeaux to
finish the job on me, for all I knew. Much the same reason I
picked the delightful Ms. Merril up," Gafori continued, gesturing
at Charlotte with a thumb. "A tattly little article in one of the
trashier tabloids claimed that she helped the police find my
immediate predecessor in the business of widespread feminine
disappearances, by means mysterious and supra-mundane. My
curiosity aroused, I investigated, and found her just comely
enough to warrant extending an invitation to enjoy my
hospitality."
"You wouldn't happen to have featured on the front page of today's
Le Monde, would you?" Mireille asked.
"Ah, you saw that? Yes, I must confess: I am the cause of the
disappearance from their loved ones' embrace of so many fair
flowers of France. They seek me here, they seek me there, the
French do seek me everywhere. Though I must say, I've never had
so many guests at one time before. Fortune favors me." Nodding
satisfaction with his ropework, Gafori left the room and barred
the door.
- - - - - - - - - -
Kirika came to gradually and much more slowly than she normally
did. She was lying face down on some lumpy surface. Something
was restraining her arms and legs.
"Kirika?" Mireille whispered. "Are you awake?"
"Mireille?" Kirika felt a momentary wave of relief. "Where are
we?"
"We seem to be in that man's private dungeon. Aditi, Tati, and
another woman are prisoners here as well."
"Wha- what's holding my arms back?" Kirika opened her eyes and
raised her head. Her arms were stretched out in front of her,
her wrists tied to two strands of thick fibrous rope which ran
to the foot of the bed and down. A bit of experimental tugging
proved that the two strands were in fact one long one.
Looking back down, Kirika found that she was lying on top of
Mireille, head pointed towards Mireille's feet. Mireille's thighs
lay on either side of her head. Mireille's ankles were bound to
the foot of the bed as well, cuffed in solidly, it appeared.
"I'm cuffed to the bed in a spread-eagled position, face up,"
Mireille said. "He cut my clothes off me with a knife, and then
did the same to you: your nice new sun-dress is in tatters. Our
captor is NOT a nice man, I'm afraid."
"The house?"
"Stone. Foot-thick walls. We're in a front room of the basement,
only door has a bar outside which I could barely lift. No other
doors, and no windows."
"I can get out of this rope if we have enough time," Kirika
murmured.
"We'll also need a way out of this room. If he looks through
that peephole and sees we're free, he can just leave us in here
until we starve. We have to make sure he opens that door, and
he's really paranoid about you."
"Ummn." Kirika tugged experimentally on her bonds, alternately
pulling on one arm, then the other. "The light is dim. Can we
use that? Aditi is almost my height."
"Good thought. Aditi," Mireille spoke up a bit, "can you bounce
your chair over to your left so you're over by the wall? You
other two stay where you are. Aditi, it's very important that
this man get used to the idea that he can't see you from his
peephole, understand?"
Kirika wrinkled her brow as something occurred to her. "He said
he had confederates."
"Not to me, and I haven't seen any. Charlotte's been here for
days, and she hasn't seen anybody else. I don't think he can
afford to have any, based on what he seems to be up to."
On the other side of the room, Aditi, Charlotte, and Tati had been
holding a whispered conversation of their own.
"Don't worry, they'll rescue us!" Aditi assured Charlotte.
"Those two?" asked Charlotte, confused. "They're prisoners just
like we are. How are they going to rescue us?"
"They'll get free, you'll see," Tati expanded, "cause they're
spies or detectives or jewel-thieves or something. They haven't
told us which yet."
"And why do you think they are any such thing? How long have you
children known them?"
"Just since yesterday, when they rescued us from the Baxes!
Bang, bang, they shot all the bad guys dead, just like that!"
Aditi said enthusiastically.
"Basques, not Baxes!" corrected Tati. "And we weren't supposed
to tell anybody about that!"
"We have to prove they can rescue us!"
"No, we don't! She can see for herself when they do!"
Just then Mireille called for Aditi to move her chair. Straining,
Aditi managed to get her toes to touch the floor. She see-sawed
her way across the stone floor until her chair was touching the
wall to the side of the door.
Charlotte was unsure how much of what the girls were telling her
she ought to believe. Two women, one a teenager, outfighting a
Basque terrorist group? Preposterous! But then their captor
had seemed to know the younger woman from some previous, violent-
sounding encounter. The two women looked normal enough. "If you
don't know what their job is, how do you know they're not
criminals themselves? "
"We know part of their job. They were talking about it and
thought we couldn't overhear them."
"Yes. It was in French, but we looked some of it up this morning.
They said something about an oath, and a ceremony the day before
yesterday," Tati remembered. "They were wondering whether the
ceremony was responsible for them meeting us just in time to
rescue us."
Aditi scrunched up her face in thought. "What was it they said?
Something about black hands and 'the peace of the newly born'..."
Charlotte lifted her head abruptly. "WHAT!? Was it 'les mains
noires protegent la paix des nouveaux-nes'?"
"That sounds right," Tati said thoughtfully.
"And they underwent a ceremony based on that oath TWO DAYS AGO?"
"Umm, we think so."
"Incredible. A group still engaging in religious practices based
on the Langonel manuscript. What an incredible find!"
Charlotte's eyes gleamed, but she bided her time rather than
asking questions of the two women right away. Villagers
practicing archaic religious forms, in her experience, did not
respond well to questions from complete strangers.
After a few hours, Kirika heard the faint sound of approaching
footsteps. She sensitized herself to that sound even as she
turned her head away from the peephole. She heard it open; their
captor's eyes were sweeping the room. Could he see Aditi?
As he opened the door, Gafori craned his neck around, checking
for Aditi's whereabouts before entering, then relaxing. "My
darlings, a precious opportunity has occurred to me, which I don't
wish to waste. I'll have to ask these two lovely children to
assist me in the preparation of my evening meal."
Mireille and Kirika tensed involuntarily, then consciously
relaxed themselves again. There was nothing they could do.
"I shall untie you two children. My wants are quite simple, just
go out the door to the freezer you'll see in the outer room and
open it. Inside you will find a carcass; simply hack off a chunk
of meat using the cleaver I keep there."
Gafori untied Aditi, then Tati, then shepherded them out the door.
Aditi approached the table and lifted the cleaver, then nodded
to Tati, who grabbed Gafori's arm. Aditi rushed him, cleaver
held high.
"Children, children, children," Gafori admonished, shaking off
Tati and then kicking her, hard, in the side. She collapsed to
the floor, clutching her side. He caught Aditi's wrist on the
downstroke, removed the cleaver from her hand, then wrenched her
arm behind her back and marched her forward to the freezer. "You
two are no match for me, and don't forget it. Now," he said,
opening the freezer, "start chopping."
Aditi gaped in horror. Inside the freezer was the naked body of a
girl, a dead teenage girl, with most of one leg already chopped
off. She collapsed, stomach heaving its remaining contents onto
the floor.
"If you're quite finished," Gafori said impatiently. "we can
resume. Both of you children simply MUST cut me an additional
slice of leg, if I have to swing your arms for you. Do we have
an understanding?"
Aditi wiped her mouth clean on the back of her right hand, grimly
eyeing Gafori from where she huddled on the floor. She
understood, all right. She understood what kind of a monster they
were dealing with. What would Kirika and Mireille do in her
shoes? Aditi knew the answer the moment she asked the question:
Kirika, at least, would simply do as the man requested, biding
her time.
And so would she.
- - - - - - - - - -
A few hours later, Gafori again returned to the prisoner's room,
this time wearing pajamas. Again, he craned his neck through the
door and around carefully, making sure of Aditi's whereabouts
before entering the room. At the sight of his pajamas, Charlotte
let out a despairing moan.
"I'm afraid it's time for my evening relaxation, ladies. Now,
as visually appealing as I find the two of you," Gafori nodded
towards Mireille and Kirika, "I find I really have no desire
whatsoever to approach either of you closely. So I shall again
make do with the not-quite-as-young Miss Merril."
"Not in front of the children!" Charlotte cried, sobbing.
"None of that, now, or I shall do it TO the children."
"You would... you MONSTER!" Charlotte sobbed.
With quick, practiced motions, Gafori untied Charlotte from her
chair, then retied her, kneeling, to the back of the chair, tipped
forward onto the ground. Another quick motion flipped her dress
back over her head, then he kneeled behind her.
"The view is missing something," Gafori commented as he set to
work. "A dynamic element. Ah, I have it. You two ladies will
have to get busy yourselves, or I shall hack off one of the
children's legs as soon as I'm through and let her bleed.
Protrude those talented tongues of yours and start licking."
"Mireille?" Kirika whispered uncertainly.
"Just do it," Mireille whispered back as she raised her head.
"Buck your hips after a few minutes and cry out my name."
When he was finished, Gafori retied the sobbing Charlotte to her
chair, then left.
Kirika set to work, alternately pulling one arm as tight as she
could while stretching the other out. She tried raising her arms
as far as possible. Ah, there: the rope was caught on something,
a part of the bed, probably metal, possibly rusty or sharp, to
judge from the parts of the bed visible to her.
Kirika worked away into the night, not knowing how long her task
would take, ignoring the desire to sleep, ignoring fatigue. This
had to be done.
As the hours passed, Kirika put herself into a trance, as she
kept her arms moving. She had to stay alert enough to stop
instantly when the peephole opened again.
Finally, after what must have been quite a few hours, Kirika heard
the faint noise of approaching steps and the sound of the peephole
being opened. She hastily relaxed all her muscles and turned her
face away from the door.
The door opened. This time Gafori walked right in, turning his
head to his right as he saw Aditi's chair against the wall. "Ah,
there you are again, my delicate Indian flower. Anyway, your
attention please!" Gafori clapped his hands for their attention.
"It is now nine in the morning. I admit to having been somewhat
stumped at just how to go about entertaining two such delightful
children, but I have had an amusing thought. It involves two
former business associates of mine, a venture of my misguided
youth, you understand, involving the liberation of excess currency
from vendors of intoxicating beverages. Those were great times."
Gafori smiled reminiscently. "We got away with murder.
Repeatedly."
"Anyway, it has occurred to me that my two former compadres may,
just may, have some slight inkling of my current preoccupation,
and, given proper incentives, might be inclined to share what they
know with the constabulary. And we just can't HAVE that, now can
we?
"The entertainment I have in mind involves two ordinary letter-
openers, which items I shall busy myself in sharpening. You two
little lambkins get to practice with this pencil, one rather
incapable of impairing my health or your ropes. I will, of
course, happily supervise this practice, as it necessarily
involves freeing the two of you from your ropes. And we can't
have any nimble fingers working away at the knots holding certain
people captive, now can we?
"The rules are as follows: I shall return at eleven o'clock this
afternoon for said practice. At one o'clock I shall take these
two charming children with me on a drive. Once we reach a
suitable spot, I shall remain in the car with child number one and
my gun; child number two will be equipped with said sharpened
letter opener and depart the car. Former Business Associate
Numero Uno, we hope, will be lunching at his usual spot, and the
child number two will casually approach my former comrade, letter
opener in hand, and hasten his departure from this doleful vale of
woe without fanfare or fuss.
"Should Child Two fail to expeditiously end my former comrade's
life, I shall kill Child One. Should any alarm be raised before
Child Two clears the area, I shall kill Child One. In either
event I will return here to kill the rest of you.
"Should all go exactly according to plan, we will go in search of
Former Business Associate Number Two and repeat said procedure,
only with the children's roles reversed.
"At the successful conclusion of the above, we shall all three
return here triumphant." Gafori smiled winningly, both hands
raised, fingers beckoning. "Any questions?"
"You CAN'T! They're just CHILDREN!" Charlotte pleaded.
"Yes, yes, I know, my dear, I did notice. Now, if no questions,
the lecture portion of your lessons may commence."
- - - - - - - - - -
Aditi and Tati looked at each other grimly, then looked at Kirika
and Mireille. "Teach us," they said in unison.
"You can't!" Charlotte cried. "You can't let these children
commit cold-blooded murder!"
"It's their decision, not mine," Kirika replied. "I don't have
the right to decide what they should do. In their shoes..." she
trailed off, unwilling to say it aloud.
"They can't possibly succeed, they're too young! That monster
will just kill them when they fail! Better that they not even
start!" Charlotte pleaded.
"They are both too young to have to do things like this," Mireille
agreed sadly. "If we knew of a way to spare them, we would."
"They are NOT too young to succeed," Kirika added sharply.
Charlotte was about to reply nastily to that, but something in
Kirika's tone shut her up. Everything she'd heard since meeting
them agreed that this woman, barely eighteen, was supposedly an
experienced, capable killer. How old had Kirika been when first
sent on a similar mission?
Mireille turned her head to the girls. "You don't have to do
this, Aditi, Tati. If you do decide to, be sure you know what
you're doing and why. This isn't like shooting back at people
who are shooting at you. These men have done you no harm. If
you kill them, it will change the rest of your lives. It must
be YOUR decision. It's okay if you decide you can't."
Kirika added, "Don't think of them as bad people. They may be,
but everyone has someone who will be sad when they're gone."
Tati looked somber, but Aditi looked defiant. "Are we beating
your record or something? Are we younger than you were when you
first killed?"
Kirika stiffened. Mireille sighed.
Tati replied to Aditi sharply. "Don't be such a jerkface!"
Mireille spoke slowly, "I would not answer that question in any
other circumstance I can imagine. But if it helps you two decide
what to do..."
Mireille felt a few hot tears fall onto her thighs. She saw first
Tati, then Aditi, stiffen, their eyes widening.
"I was a few years older than the two of you when I first killed
someone in cold blood. His face still haunts me, sometimes."
Mireille took a deep breath. "Kirika was younger than you are,
by several years. I may be haunted, but Kirika carries wounds in
her soul that she will never know the full extent of, sins she
despairs of ever adequately atoning for."
"Mireille..." Kirika cried. "I..."
"Hush," Mireille whispered. "I'm here, Kirika. If I could hold
you right now, I would. But we need to get out of this, Kirika.
Just do what you have to."
"Ummn." Kirika sniffed, recovering. "Well, you have to hold the
letter opener horizontally. The best way is to slide it into the
heart from the back, between the ribs, with one quick push. The
hard part is missing the ribs. If he's sitting with his back on
a solid chair, or wearing a bulky jacket so that you can't see
his ribs, that won't work. In that case you have to either cut
his spinal cord in the back of his neck, or cut the carotid
artery in his throat."
The lesson continued. As Charlotte listened to horror after
detailed horror come from the mouth of this teenaged girl, she
felt a growing sense of unreality. This couldn't be happening.
It COULDN'T be that easy, that simple, to take human life.
Tati and Aditi just listened, concentrating.
When Gafori returned and untied them, the girls began practicing
various one-handed thrusts of their pencils through the air and
into the mattress of the bed.
Two hours later, Gafori checked his watch with satisfaction.
"Are we all quite prepared?" he asked brightly.
Aditi and Tati scowled at him, but nodded in determination.
- - - - - - - - - -
Gafori drove the black Citroen slowly down the Allees de Tourny,
then pulled into a free parking spot. The streets were busy at
this time of day with shoppers and businesspeople enjoying a late
lunch. The sidewalk cafes were doing a brisk business on this
warm, sunny day. Birds flit about in the upper air, or swooped
down to feed on stray crumbs dropped to the ground.
"That's him, in the cafe to the right. The corner table. Sandy
hair, clean-shaven, with the wife and kid. Rolled sleeves,
drinking a beer. Got him?" Gafori asked Tati, who nodded slowly,
eyes fixed on her prospective target.
"Then get out slowly and do it. Remember, your friend here dies
immediately if anything goes wrong. I'll be watching you with
binoculars."
Whitefaced, Tati nodded. "I understand."
Tati opened the curb door slowly. Her right hand held the letter
opener using a scrap of black cloth (a fragment of Mireille's
panties), her fingers holding the handle so that the point rested
against her right forearm.
The man had a wife and baby! She took a deep breath, then,
following Mireille's advice, she pushed the wife and child out
of her awareness and focused only on her target. She had to do
this, and without raising an alarm, or Aditi was dead.
The man wore only a shirt, and was leaning forward, right arm
gesturing wildly, as he angrily explained something to his wife,
who nodded, once, eyes lowered.
The ribs, then. Tati entered the cafe slowly, sweeping her head
from side to side as if searching for someone, then walking
briskly towards the table where her target sat, aiming to the
right of him. Reaching the back of her target's chair, she
purposely stumbled, left hand out to catch herself. Her left hand
landed on her target's back, fingers spread. She found the fourth
and fifth ribs by touch, then brought her right hand around as if
to help pull herself back up. The letter-opener went in cleanly.
She released its handle, leaving it in place, and palmed the
cloth.
"Pardonnez-moi," she said in carefully memorized French, then stood
and brushed herself off without haste. Out of the corner of her
eye, she saw the target's wife's eyes upon her. Gritting her
teeth, she looked up and smiled at the woman.
"Are you all right?" the woman asked in French. "Your face looks
pale."
"So-so," Tati replied, then hurried off at a brisk walk.
She was out of the cafe and almost back to the Citroen when she
heard the woman's voice call, "Bertrand? BERTRAND?!"
- - - - - - - - - -
Back in the basement, Charlotte watched Kirika methodically work
her arms back and forth. What WERE these two women? What was
their connection with the Langonel manuscript? She went back
over the text on the page her old professor had faxed her a few
weeks previously.
'Ce mot designe depuis une epoque lointaine le nom du destin.'
Some word (which word was not stated) designated a name of
destiny during former times; this didn't seem to mean much.
'Le deux vierges regnent sur la mort.' Well, that was clearer;
two maidens... Oh.
Charlotte thought it over, but really, what did she have to
lose? "Do the two of you really think you reign over death?"
Kirika ignored her. Mireille turned her head towards Charlotte,
perplexed. "WHAT?"
"Your black hands, protecting the peace of the newly born. Do
you really believe in all that?"
Mireille's eyes widened. "You know about the Soldats?"
"Who? All I know is one page of the Langonel manuscript. You're
the two maidens, right? Who reign over death? Whose black hands
protect the peace of the newly born?"
Mireille paused, pursing her lips while she considered her reply.
Any knowledge of the Soldats would put this woman in great danger.
Best to say as little as possible. "We know about the manuscript.
In fact, we may be the source of the page you saw, if you got it
from Professor Chatel."
"He said you were looking for the whole book, right? So that you
could perform the ceremony the girls mentioned! You must have
found more of the book! Where? Where did you find it? Can I see
it?"
"We don't have the book," Mireille replied neutrally. "We were
told that it doesn't exist any more."
"Altena had a copy," Kirika helpfully interposed. "It's probably
still there, at the manor. Unless those men took it."
Charlotte quivered in her bonds. "An intact copy? You must tell
me where it is!"
Mireille rolled her eyes. Great; an obsessed scholar. "We have
to get out of here first. Then... we'll talk about it."
- - - - - - - - - -
The Citroen was now out into the suburbs. Tati now sat next to
Gafori, shivering, while Aditi was next to the passenger door,
left arm around Tati, trying desperately to comfort her.
"He was a bad guy, Tati, just think of it like that," Aditi said
pleadingly.
"He had a wife and a baby," Tati murmured, miserable. "I looked
her in the eyes. I heard her scream when she found what I did."
"Tati, please: please snap out of it. You're alive. I'm alive."
"I can't ever face her again, undo it. I can't ever make it
better."
Aditi glared at the monster tormenting them. "Can you PLEASE find
this second guy? I have to- I have to join Tati. Be together
with her again, in guilt. We have to be murderers together."
"DO you now?" Gafori replied, smiling with delight. "Well, we're
just coming up on him now." This afternoon's entertainment was
proving to be more than he'd hoped for. "That's him helping the
old woman with the cane, the thin guy in the sharp clothes.
That's his mother on the other side, so the old woman's probably
his grandmother."
"You know JUST how to make it worse, don't you?" Aditi glared.
"I do my best," Gafori replied airily. "Reminder: little Tati
here dies if anything goes wrong. Get going."
Aditi emerged from the car slowly, grimacing. Tati would feel
better once Aditi shared her guilt; that was all that mattered.
Plus Tati's life, of course.
Whoops! While she'd been dallying, her target and his companions
had seated themselves on a hard wooden bench. The ribs weren't
going to work. It was going to have to be the back of the neck.
As she approached, she watched her target fidget; it was clear he
really didn't want to be there. Once he said something sharp to
his mother, who retorted angrily; his grandmother remained
seemingly oblivious to the exchange.
Aditi drifted towards the back of the bench, angling to pass just
behind it with the bench on her right. It was a small park: a
fountain in the middle, a pair of old men playing chess off to the
left, half-a-dozen kids to the right, running and shouting.
Aditi wondered if she would ever feel like running and shouting
again.
Walk, girl, she told herself. Slowly, but not too slowly.
Concentrate on the timing. Her target was just handing his
grandmother birdseed, she saw. Some was already on the sidewalk
in front of them, and a dozen birds had already landed and were
feeding. The grandmother was smiling in delight.
Without breaking stride, Aditi brought the letter-opener across
her chest, point out, with her right hand, then thrust it as hard
as she could into the back of her target's neck. She released it,
palming the cloth with which she'd held it.
She continued walking past the bench, suppressing the urge to turn
around, to see what she'd just done, as well as the equally strong
urge to run as fast as she could, and get as far away as she
could.
- - - - - - - - - -
Kirika relaxed her arms and looked up just before the door opened.
Both girls looked like they'd been crying, she noted, and were
very pale. They'd done it, then.
At their captor's brief instructions, both sat back down in their
chairs passively, utterly without energy. Neither displayed the
slightest will to resist as he tied them back up and left.
"We can't abandon them now," Kirika said to Mireille. "We know
how they feel. We can help them."
"And nobody else can," Mireille finished. "We have to get them
to talk about it. We'll have to know what kind of clues they've
left behind."
"Leave them alone!" Charlotte hissed. "They're heartbroken! It's
all your fault!"
Mireille ignored her. "Aditi, Tati, stop crying!" she commanded,
then continued in a calmer voice, "The job isn't over until we're
all free. There'll be time for sorrow afterwards. First thing:
Aditi, get your chair back over by the wall."
Still sniffling, Aditi nodded, then laboriously started moving
her chair.
"Did you leave any fingerprints?" Mireille asked both girls.
"We both held the letter openers with the pieces of cloth, just
like you said," Tati said. "And we both brought the pieces back.
The only other surface I touched was the back of his shirt."
"I didn't touch anything else," Aditi said.
"How about witnesses? Anybody get a good look at either of you?"
"I don't see how," Aditi replied. "Only the two women were close,
and they didn't look up. If they looked up after I passed them,
they could only have seen my back; I didn't turn around again.
That part was as hard as you said," she conceded.
"The target's wife," Tati broke into fresh sobs, "saw me up close.
She said something to me, looked me in the eyes."
"Before or after she learned what you'd done?" Mireille asked.
"Before," Tati whispered, head down.
"That's good. The chances are good that she forgot about you
immediately, then. Or at least won't be able to describe you
well."
"What ARE you?" Charlotte whispered, face white. "How can you
think this way? How can you talk about... what these two
children have done, been forced to do... so CALMLY?"
"Because I have to," Mireille replied, glaring back. "Kirika and
I are going to do whatever it takes to get all five of us out of
here alive. And we're going to win. Do you understand?"
Charlotte looked back at Mireille, into those feral eyes. Kirika
was giving her the same look, she saw. Something lay behind
those eyes, something enormous. She concentrated a bit more;
what was it? Something she felt rather than saw was settled like
a cloak over the two women's shoulders...
Sudden terror abruptly gripped her. Charlotte Merril screamed and
fainted.
When she came to, Charlotte didn't open her eyes immediately,
afraid of what she'd see. But when she did, she was still looking
at two ordinary women, naked and bound to a bed. "Did I really
see..." she trailed off.
"Are you all right?" Tati asked, concerned.
"I... think so. It was just so unexpected. I just thought I
saw, just for a moment, huge black wings, surrounding them like
robes. I thought I was looking at a pair of angels, angels of
death, coming in mercy. It was terrifying! But they're just
normal women."
"They're not normal," Aditi and Tati hissed indignantly.
Kirika said nothing, still working her arms.
- - - - - - - - - -
It was hours later when Kirika finished sawing through the rope
binding her arms. Gafori had not reappeared, either for dinner
or for his bedtime 'relaxation'.
Kirika worked her arms a bit to loosen them up, then knelt up,
knees straddling Mireille's face. She turned her head to see
how the ropes tying her legs were arranged, still wiggling her
fingers to restore circulation.
She flipped herself over so that she was sitting on Mireille's
chest, then reached forward and untied the knots around her
ankles. She briefly examined the cuffs around Mireille's wrists,
but it was clear that, without the key or a lockpick, nothing was
going to be done about them.
Standing, she went through a few brief stretches. Finally she
went over and knelt behind the dozing Aditi and untied her. Aditi
woke up when Kirika pulled her to her feet, with a hand over her
mouth.
Kirika led Aditi over to the bed. "I have to tie you down in
the exact position I was in," Kirika explained quietly. "Take all
your clothes off."
Aditi's eyes widened in understanding and she began undressing.
Once done, Aditi lay down on top of Mireille.
"A bit further forward," Mireille whispered. "That's it. Don't
forget to mess up her hair and take the bandages off her hands.
And rewrap them around her leg."
Kirika ran both hands through Aditi's hair, doing her best to
make it resemble her own mop-top. Then she tied Aditi's ankles
to the ropes at the head of the bed and her wrists to the ropes
at the foot. Kirika retied the rope strands together at the point
where they'd parted due to her sawing.
"If you leave the ropes loose, I can get up fast and help!" Aditi
hissed, annoyed at being tied back down.
"Too risky," Mireille replied. "Kirika won't need any help,
Aditi, but your role here is very important. He'll never open
that door again if he has the slightest reason to think that
Kirika is free, understand? We'll all die here unless he believes
that you're Kirika, and that Kirika is still tied to the bed.
Just go back to sleep, but keep your face turned away from the
door."
"I got it; okay, already," Aditi muttered, then lay her head down
and tried to go back to sleep.
Kirika walked back to where Aditi's chair still sat. Two swift
kicks dismantled it and produced a couple of sturdy, sharp sticks.
She moved the remains of the chair back against the wall, then
moved to the other side of the door, so she'd be on Gafori's left
as he entered.
- - - - - - - - - -
Gafori woke with the sun, yawning and smiling with delight.
What amusement should he treat the little lambs to today?
Freshly showered and shaved, Gafori descended into the basement.
On a whim, he picked up the cleaver from the butcherblock table
with his left hand, testing its sharpness with his right thumb.
Should he threaten with it? Or actually use it? Could he get
one of the girls to cut off the other's leg? The very thought
brought a smile to his lips.
Gafori carefully checked through the peephole. Yes, the little
demoness was still there on the bed. As usual, he couldn't
see the little Indian lambkin at all. Perhaps it was time
to punish her for her waywardness? Confident everything
was as it should be, Gafori lifted the bar, opened the door
wide, and strode in, turning his head to the right and opening
his mouth to bestow a tart comment on his wayward guest. When
the Indian girl's chair did not immediately meet his eye, he
started to tilt his head in mock puzzlement.
Pain. A hot, searing slash in the side of his neck; a
deep stab into his left hand. Dimly, he felt the cleaver
drop.
Gafori snapped his head around. God! The little witch was
loose! He reflexively backhanded her with all his strength,
only to find that he'd missed; she'd ducked by just enough
so that the wind from his strike mussed her hair.
Desperately, he struck out, kicking, punching, trying every
dirty trick he knew from alley-fights all over the south of
France. The little devil was like mercury; nothing hit her.
She just slid between his strikes like she could see them
coming. He was bleeding from his neck and hand wounds, he
knew, but nothing to serious yet.
Abruptly that changed when something tore into his stomach.
He looked down; she'd stabbed him with one of the wooden
chairlegs, sharpened somehow. No time to pull it out until
he was free of her. Could he get back outside and close
the door on her?
Gafori grabbed the doorhandle with his left hand, keeping
his right cocked. Where was she? The witch was just
straightening from picking up his dropped cleaver, outside
the arc the closing door would traverse.
With desperate strength he heaved at the door handle. The
cleaver came down in an overhead strike at his left wrist.
He moved to block his right hand to block the strike, but
at the last moment the witch turned the cleaver so that
its sharp edge struck his right hand, chopping off several
fingers.
Gafori grabbing his bleeding right hand with his left,
letting go of the door. Glaring at his tormentor, he tried
another kick, this time a roundhouse so it wouldn't be as
easy to dodge.
Somehow she anticipated the kick and stepped inside,
swinging the cleaver up into his crotch from below. The
shock of the encounter drove the breath from his body;
his spine froze. Slowly, he doubled over. No, this couldn't
be... It COULDN'T end like this, it COULDN'T...
Gafori never saw the downward swing which broke his neck.
His body collapsed to the floor with a dull thunk.
Charlotte was gaping, her mouth working silently like a fish,
Kirika noted absently as she recovered her breath. Kirika untied
Tati, then let her see to Charlotte and Aditi.
She stooped and checked the man's pockets and belt. She found a
keyring, then tossed it to Tati. "Try these on Mireille's cuffs.
I need to check out the rest of the house."
Carrying the cleaver, Kirika ghosted out of the room. By the time
she returned, everyone else was untied and stretching, and Aditi
had her clothes back on. "There's nobody else in the house.
We're clear to go."
"You and I need clothes first," Mireille noted in amusement.
"Let's head upstairs; we'll wear his. Ms. Merril, may I ask just
what are you planning to say about this episode? And to whom?"
"Me?" Charlotte Merril stood, hugging herself and slowly easing
herself from one foot to the other. "I can't believe it. We're
free. Alive. The monster's dead. You did it." She shook
herself. "What CAN I say? If this ever made the newspapers, my
name would be in print as a rape victim, and pointlessly so, with
the perpetrator dead. The girls' names would be in print as cold-
blooded murderers. I may not agree with everything you did, but I
can't, I won't, see that happen to them. Not to ten-year-old
girls. You don't have to worry; I won't say anything, ever."
Mireille nodded. "Then let's get out of here and on the road to
Paris as fast as we can. We'll take his car. Do you need to make
any other stops here in Bordeaux?"
Charlotte Merril shrugged. "Nobody knows I'm in Bordeaux at all.
I just need one thing: can I have a bath first? I've been
wearing these clothes for a week now!"
Mireille laughed. "I think we can manage that."
End.
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(
geocities.com/tokyo/dojo/5058) (
geocities.com/tokyo/dojo) (
geocities.com/tokyo)