The lady in the fur coat slipped her sunglasses on. It was time. She paid the bill for her untouched coffee and stepped out of the shadow cast by the street lamp towering over her and silently walked onto the damp cobblestone street of downtown Paris.
Hot dog carts and mini pizzerias lined the sides, taking any of the space available. The aroma of cigarettes and freshly baked bread rose up to the misty air. It had finally stopped raining, and the stars twinkled through the remains of the clouds above. The lady’s destination was at the end of the street, and she strode towards it in a purposeful way. She had an air about her that wasn't anything above ordinary, yet was one that made people part away from her subconsciously and make way for her long, leather boots as if some otherworldly force pushed them back, the scent of Albin du Roy overpowering their senses. She reached the building, briefly glanced up to the towering mass of marble and steel, and pushed the mahogany doors inside.
The lobby of the building was grand and spacious. Large, towering columns of the finest granite rose up imposingly from the cream tiled ground, thrusting upwards into the domed ceiling as if an omnipotent being was holding it up itself. Exotic plants and trees lined the sides, and all the flags of the world showed off their colors, hanging in huge canvas banners from the glass dome, or "Le Plafonte du Monde" as the building staff affectionately called it. The lady ignored all this and walked right to the ladies' restroom, looking back and peering through the black lenses before marching in.
Slipping into one of the cubicles, she put down her purse, slipped her coat off, and put it beside the toilet in a small heap. Unluckily there were a few other people on the restroom with her, so she had to do things speedily and silently.
She looked up at the mirror in the door and stopped. She had the clothes of a rich and pampered woman, from her Liz Claiborne trench coat which lay in a crumpled heap beside her, to her diamond earrings, and her silk gloves, which housed a set of long fingers, one of them which had been wrapped around a handgun in the left pocket of her pants. She was tall and slim, a small but pointed nose accenting her smooth and blemish free face. She had long curving eyebrows and piercing dark blue eyes, and if one looked into them it would feel as if they were looking at the depths of a calm, dark ocean, yet today they seemed sad to her, almost pleading. She quickly looked away, shaking her head a bit and taking out her gun.
She loaded it, trying to make as little noise as possible, yet her long, frail fingers were trembling horribly. I have come all the way here, she thought, and I'm not going to give in to fright. She took a deep breath, and stepped out of the cubicle.
Miles away, an alarm blared. A handsome man in his thirties pulled himself from the couch, stumbling about for a while in a daze. After tripping on a few soap opera tapes that Madame Bladina had been watching, Garonce stood at the end of his couch for a few seconds trying to clear his head, when it all came rushing to him. He twirled around, his eyes dancing around and locating the clock. 7:30. Merde! Why was he so stupid? He rushed downstairs and slipped on his coat, grabbed his wallet, and seeing that his car keys were missing, ran outside instead for there was no time to look. He called for a taxi in the busy street, and after 5 minutes of desperate shouting, one of them slid to a stop. He dashed in it, almost tripping on the street lamp and breaking his ankle. "Plaza Aenir, s'il vous plait," he said, out of breath, falling back into the taxi's seat and staring out the window as the taxi sped away from the small flat. Please don't do anything stupid, he thought desperately as he shut his eyes.
"Mon dieu!" exclaimed the lady, stepping back in surprise. The man before her was… no, that wasn’t right. Why was he here? She stared at him for a few seconds when realization sank in. Her shoulders sagged a little, yet she had been prepared. Damian had warned her about this, but, but, the man in front of her was Damian! Her mind slowed down with the information. The very man she had trusted, relied on, her friend, her leader. All this time. "Well, isn’t this a pleasant surprise," he said in his deep, gravelly voice. He looked up at her with his large green eyes, and she seemed drawn forward and almost took an involuntary step forwards but stopped herself in time. A distraction, she needed a distraction, but couldn’t think of any. Damn! Where had all the other occupants of the restroom gone? She glared at him coldly, trying not to shake, and slowly raised her gun. "So it was you all along, wasn’t it?”
~*~
Garonce stuffed a few bills into the taxi driver's waiting hand and sped out. After stumbling and sliding through the wet sidewalk he pushed through the heavy doors of the Hotel de Crillon, the most luxurious hotel in Paris. Heavily panting and heart racing, he looked around, his eyes darting here and there wildly. He was about to run to the receptionist when he heard a gunshot. Stopping hard on his tracks, he saw a cloaked man dashing out the ladies' washroom.
The world stopped suddenly and he saw several things happening at once; a small pool of blood started seeping under the restroom door, a couple of people ran in through the door, a woman screamed in surprise, and the cloaked man slipped through the mahogany doors. Garonce stood, stunned for a few seconds, before his body sprang into action. He quickly jumped past the surprised receptionist standing agape in her chair and skidded to a stop outside. His eyes flitted through the throng of people in the street and quickly spotted the culprit running to the other side of the street, taking off his coat and dumping it aside. Garonce ran like he had never before, forcing his way through until he was starting to gain on the man. He was not getting away from him today, not today, not after he had hurt Lucienne-
With a mighty leap and a cry, he tackled the man to the pavement just as an explosion that had emanated from what seemed to be the man’s abandoned trench-coat rocked the street, a fireball scorching anything unfortunate to have been in its path. Garonce neither felt nor heard anything, the people screaming, windows shattering, the cars crashing into one another. The man had slipped from his grasp and had started to run again, speedily crossing the street and disappearing down a dark alley. Shaken and disoriented, Garonce stumbled around a bit and followed suit, and seeing that the man had run through the alleyway and was starting to cross the street ahead, sped up. He saw the man run into another alleyway and vanish, and Garonce, intent on catching him, forgot to look both ways before racing across. He heard the loud blaring of a horn, people shouting, and a giant truck slammed into his side.
The world spun into a stream of colors crashing into each other, he heard the screech of tires and the sound of glass breaking as he felt what it was his entire body being torn to pieces. He tumbled in the asphalt for a while until he smashed heavily into the side of a nearby car.
The last thought that crossed his mind before he slid into unconsciousness was,
“Why…”
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