Note: Okay, I'm back! Real life got in the way in rather horrendous fashion (if you really want to know, read my LiveJournal, all the ugly details are there). But now that I am once again gainfully employed (the annoying part about being a contractor is that you have to wait for all sorts of legalities to get hammered out before you can start working a new position), my muse is making her presence felt. And since for the last couple of days I have been having weird dreams and conversations with myself as I usually do when I have the urge to write, it's time to pick things up again!

In All the Empty Places, Part XV

Abel cautiously peered around a corner at the bottom of the stairs, his ears alert to any sound that might indicate they were being followed. "It's clear," he whispered, and he heard Johanna's footsteps move up behind him. "Come on..."

For once not moving in his usual bumbling manner, he crossed the large salle until he could see into the corridor, but immediately pulled his head back.

"They're still there?" Johanna whispered in frustration. "Damn it, I would feel so much better about this whole mess if I knew who they were!"

"Would knowing do all that much good?" he pointed out. "We're still unarmed, and we don't know how many of them there are chasing us around in here."

"Well, that's true," she admitted, rubbing her eyes against the darkness. "But we're not completely helpless. I mean, if you had to, you could always use your Crusnik abilities, and I-"

"NO!" he hissed, whirling around to glare at her. "We're in the middle of the Louvre, Johanna! Think about what would happen if it turns out our opponents are Methusaleh!"

"But-"

"Absolutely not. You turn that power of yours on a vampire in here and the consequences would be disastrous. Not even for a last, last, LAST resort." As Johanna opened her mouth to protest yet again, he fixed her with another glare, and she subsided unhappily. "Besides, you don't think I didn't come up with a plan while we were sitting around up there, did you?"

"Which is?"

He pointed across the corridor, and Johanna could see the security guards' office just across the way. One of the guards was still stationed in there, watching the monitors while another was seated across the desk, going through paperwork.

"Okay, so?" she asked softly. "What's the plan?"

"The plan is, our weapons are on the desk," he murmured. "Now, I'm willing to bet I can run faster than you can. So what I'm going to do is duck back down this corridor and open one of the emergency exits. That should set off the alarms and draw our opponents toward me. When they do, you get into that office and grab our weapons. I'll double back to you and we'll escape out the front door."

"You make it sound so simple," Johanna said sardonically. "And I'm not a total invalid, you know. I can run if I have to."

Abel turned around and placed his hands on her shoulders. "You'll have to run soon enough when we get out the front door. I intend for us to head straight to Notre Dame, and even running, it'll take us several minutes to get there. Save your strength for when we need it."

"Wrong - YOU'RE going to Notre Dame. I'M going to Sacre-Coeur. That's what we agreed!"

"I didn't agree to that!" he shot back, barely managing to keep his voice down. "You absolutely cannot go running off by yourself, not under circumstances like these!"

"Abel, our chances of finding the right cathedral are one in four. If we split up, it's one in two. So spare me the male ego overprotectiveness and let's just get on with the job at hand." Abel glared at her, but she refused to back down. "The longer you stand there and glare at me, the longer this is going to take."

Abel turned on his heel and took one last glance both directions down the corridor, then began making his way toward a distant fire exit while Johanna stepped back into the shadows of the salle. As his footsteps receded, she began to shiver, hating the sickening feeling of waiting, but she knew that the time for action was close at hand. Sure enough, a few minutes later, alarms began blaring all over the museum, and she saw the two guards in the security office leap to their feet. But Johanna's heart sank when they pulled the door closed behind them and locked it before running down the hall toward the source of the alarms.

"Oh damn it all to hell," she said in despair, running across the corridor and trying without success to open the door. Rattling it, she tried to force it to open but it remained obstinately closed, and she pressed her hands against the window of the office, staring at their guns lying on the desk. "So close and yet..."

Growling in frustration, Johanna turned around, her eyes sweeping the corridor. Next to the office were two chairs, presumably where people could sit while waiting for security, and she seized one of them, took a step back, hefted the chair, and swung it as hard as she could at the glass. Her first attempt cracked the window all the way across, but it wasn't enough, so she let it fall to the floor, got a firmer grip, and swung it again, putting all of her weight behind the attempt. This time the window shattered, glass splintering to the ground in a resounding crash, and she threw the chair aside to scramble through the office window. She nearly slipped and fell on the broken glass as she landed inside the office, but she barely paused as she snatched up their guns. She didn't take the time to buckle the holsters on properly - instead, she slung both of her holsters over her left shoulder, threw Abel's over her right, and drew her .45. Without stopping to think, she dove back through the window again, and it wasn't until she landed on the floor with a muffled thud and a curse as her feet slipped on the tile that she started berating herself for not just going out through the office door.

"ARRETEZ!" she heard someone shouting in the distance, and the faint approaching sound of running feet, so she turned as well and began sprinting toward the near end of the corridor. But her run was abruptly cut short when she spotted someone standing in front of the doors that led outside, and she skidded to a halt.

Only to let out a startled and completely involuntary scream when the figure seemed to blur and leap through her... and then something suddenly wrapped itself around her neck from behind and lifted her off her feet.

"Ab-" was as much as she got out before the arm around her neck tightened, cutting off her cry.

"Most unorthodox, Sister, but I'm afraid your gambit was unsuccessful," Johanna heard in her ear, and twisting and struggling in her captor's grip, she saw a tall, thin man smiing down at her.

With an extremely long set of canines.

The sound of running feet was getting closer, and she could hear the shouts of the security guards yelling at Abel to stop.

Gritting her teeth, Johanna writhed and kicked, trying without success to free herself, but the Methusaleh was far stronger, and he only laughed.

"Such spirit for a nun... killing you would almost be a waste." His smile deepened. "Almost."

"Let me go!" she choked, struggling to draw enough breath to scream, but it took most of her effort just to draw enough breath not to pass out.

"Now why would I want to do that?" he mocked. "Even if you were to escape us, after the bells begin to toll, a great silence will fall, and the Vatican along with it."

"No-"

His chuckle was cut short as Johanna closed her eyes, mentally braced herself, and just as Leon had taught her in their combat lessons, slammed her head backward as hard as she could, straight into the vampire's face. She felt his nose break from the impact, a sudden hot rush of blood sprayed across her neck, and his howl of pain in her ear was nearly deafening, but his grip slackened just enough for her to slide to the floor. Swaying on her feet and groaning in pain, all she wanted to do was sink to her knees and throw up, but there was no time for that.

"YOU BITCH!" he snarled, reaching for her, but bringing her gun around, Johanna whirled around and opened fire on the vampire. However, he'd recovered his presence of mind with disturbing speed, and moved in a haste-induced blur out of her line of fire so that her shots went wild, riccocheting off the walls. Shaking her head to try and clear it, she took a two-handed grip on her gun, aimed, and fired again, but again she missed, and she abruptly stopped firing when she heard Abel's voice coming down the corridor.

"JOHANNA!" he yelled as he sprinted toward her. "RUN!"

Firing one last time at the one who'd attacked her, Johanna turned and made a dash for the doors, Abel hot on her heels.

She was only dimly aware of Abel passing her as they vaulted down the steps, and the priest snatching his holsters off her shoulder. All of her concentration was going into staying on her feet and following Abel as they ran along the Quai de Louvre, leaving the museum behind them. It wasn't until they'd put several blocks between themselves and the Louvre, and reached the Rue de la Cite, that Abel finally slowed down.

Johanna nearly collapsed in a heap as they stopped, one hand pressed to her chest as she gasped for breath. "W-w-wait..."

Abel stopped and turned to look back at her, his blue eyes going wide as he took in her pallor. "What's wrong?!"

She put her hand to the back of her head and winced, then grimaced as her hand came away bloody. "T-there was... a vampire. He tried to choke me... but I hit him..."

"With what?"

"The back of my head." She shuddered. "I think... I broke his nose... but it... was gross. Leon could have... at least warned me."

"You could have said something!" he said in exasperation, turning her around so he could take a look at her head. "How hard did you hit him?"

"My head hurts like hell... and I just want to throw up," she groaned.

"You might have a concussion," Abel said, concerned. Tilting her head back so he could look at her eyes, he didn't at all like the half-unfocused look he saw there, and the slightly swaying movement of her posture. "Sit down for a moment. You're in no condition to run to Notre Dame, let alone Sacre-Coeur."

The Sister shook her head, and immediately regretted it as she would have sworn her brain was sloshing around inside her head. "No... I have to..."

"Johanna, it's three times as far to Sacre-Coeur, you'll never make it like this. You'll be lucky to make it a mile, let alone three."

"We're running out of time... that Methusaleh... he said... he said..." Johanna frowned in concentration, trying to remember his exact words, but she felt as though all the bells of every cathedral in Paris were ringing inside her head. "He said something like... after the bells start to toll, a great silence will fall... and the Vatican will fall along with it."

Abel went absolutely pale, and he turned away from her to stare down the shadowed street, his eyes narrowing as he tried to gauge the remaining distance to the cathedral. "And it's just after eight, isn't it?"

"What?" The apparent non sequitur puzzled her for a moment, but she nodded, this time being more careful about moving her head. "Yes... yes, I think so."

"Compline."

Johanna frowned, recognizing the term but wondering where he was going with this. "Well, yes, if I remember right from what Father Vaclav has been drilling into me about services..." According to the schedule of canonical hours, Compline was the last prayer of the night, the chance to meditate upon 'the final sleep.' "But I still don't..."

Her voice abruptly died away as she finally caught on to Abel's reasoning.

"Tell me, Johanna," he said slowly, "wouldn't it be the height of Rosencreutz irony to destroy Paris just before what we refer to as 'the great silence?'"

"The night that falls with no dawn to follow it," she murmured, her own face going pale. "I still don't know how they found us this quickly, but it seems their goal was to slow us down. Damn, I could almost admire the poetry of it if the concept weren't so heinous." Using a nearby wall, she pushed herself to her feet, gritting her teeth with the effort. "Let's go."

"Johanna-"

"I'll be all right..." She gave him a weak smile, trying to look reassuring, but the effect was ruined by her sudden wince as her brain seemed to shift inside her head again. "Come on, we've got a city to save, I can manage. Besides, it's my fault we're in this stupid mess in the first place. If I hadn't suggested going to the Louvre, we might not have gotten caught."

"You don't know that for certain, and you still look like hell."

"I've got my breath back."

"And you still look like a strong breeze would knock you over," he argued.

"Fine, then YOU go to Sacre-Coeur, and I'LL go to Notre Dame. It's only a couple hundred yards-"

"Even knowing that it's the most likely of the four targets?" Abel shook his head emphatically. "No, Johanna, absolutely not. You can't take on a Rosencreutz agent by yourself, and especially not in your condition."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll be elsewhere."

"Do you really believe that?"

She sighed. "No. You're right... and you need to get moving... if Notre Dame really is their target, we've got less than twenty minutes before all hell breaks loose. I'll give myself a few minutes to rest, then I'll make my way - slowly - to Sacre-Coeur. Okay?" Abel still hesitated, and she forcibly turned him around and shoved him a few feet toward the cathedral in the distance. "Go on, I'll be fine... I promise I won't die on you."

"Are you sure about that?" he said, more harshly than he'd intended, as he looked back at her.

"Me dying means that the RCO has the last laugh. That I won't tolerate, my ego would never stand for it. Go." This time her smile had a bit more conviction behind it, and he gave her a faint smile in return before turning and sprinting down the Rue de la Cite toward Notre Dame.

To be continued...