Authors' Note : Hello ladies and gentlemen. See, we haven't forgotten about you, we've just been away from our computers for the last little while. Hopefully this chapter will prove to be entertaining...and plot developing. We aren't trying to drag this out, we promise. Our muses have just been on stress leave for the last month or so. Sorry. Enjoy the chapter.

The Nightrunners



...and New Friends

Soundtrack:





"Miss Sarajevo"

Is there a time for keeping a distance
A time to turn your eyes away
Is there a time for keeping your head down
For getting on with your day

Is there a time for kohl and lipstick
A time for cutting hair
Is there a time for high street shopping
To find the right dress to wear

Here she comes
Heads turn around
Here she comes
To take her crown

Is there a time to walk for cover
A time for kiss and tell
Is there a time for different colors
Different names you find it hard to spell

Is there a time for first communion
A time for east 17
Is there a time to turn the mecca
Is there a time to be a beauty queen

Here she comes
Beauty plays the crown
Here she comes
Surreal in her crown

[Pavarotti]
Dici che il fiume
trova la via al mare
E come il fiume
giungerai a me
Oltre i confini
e le terre assetate
Dici che come fiume
come fiume
L'amore giunger
L'amore
E non so pi pregare
E nell'amore non so pi sperare
E quell'amore non so pi aspettare


[Bono]
Is there a time for tying ribbons
A time for Christmas trees
Is there a time for laying tables
When the night is set to freeze







"That was fun."



"It was."



Anyone who'd been tailing them would have smiled at the couple, and a little romantic whimsy in their hearts would have sighed. Paris, the city of lovers.



Of course, one of these lovers tried to kill the other on a regular basis, but that shouldn't have been held against them.



Alice had unconsciously slipped her hand into Adam's as they left the skating rink. She wondered if it was Adam or Aragorn walking with her down the crowded pedway in the fading afternoon light. Ultimately, she decided she didn't care.



"So what should we do now?" she asked as they dodged a gaggle of laughing teenaged girls.



"There's a café a few blocks away where I used to hang out with some friends. We could make an appearance, see if the Elves are watching there."



Alice turned to look at him, but her patented glare had lost its effect on Adam some time ago. "Are you asking me out?"



"Will I get smacked off the wall if I say yes?"



She thought for a moment. "I haven't decided yet. Probably."



"Even still...yes, I am asking you out."



She smiled, just a little bit. "Lead on, Gordon."



The café was small, dark, and packed with kids on the way home from school. Rock music was blasting from speakers, and they had to yell to be heard over the laughter and conversation of teenagers.



Alice grinned as she sipped her latte. "Great place, Gordon."



Adam laughed as he punched her arm. "Shut up. Last time I was here, it wasn't infested with kids."



"Last time you were here, you *were* a kid."



"Don't mock me." He smiled. "I'll be back in a second. I have to run to the washroom."



"Don't get lost, Ranger of the North."



He threw a glare over his shoulder and vanished around the corner towards the washrooms. Alice was leaning across to the next table to snag a newspaper when something odd caught her eye.



There was a pretty young woman sitting at one of the corner tables. She had reddish-blond hair and was reading a magazine. Although she was the picture of innocence, she somehow set alarm bells ringing in Alice's head.



The witch picked up the newspaper and pretended to read, but she sent a surreptitious seeker spell flitting over to the corner table. The results came quickly, flashing through her mind, though she kept her features carefully impassive. Female, younger than her, didn't smell of magic or Flight or anything unusual, but there was something that wasn't quite...right about her. Apart from herself and Adam, Redhead was the only adult in a café overrun with kids.



She looked almost familiar.



Alice took a sip of latte. Was it her imagination, or was the woman watching her? Call it witch's intuition, but Alice was getting jumpy. Was she one of the Nazgul?



Alice mentally replayed the scene at the JFK. Was the woman there? Was she one of the Nine?



So caught up in the memory, she almost jumped out of her skin when Adam laid a hand on her shoulder.



"Hey, easy, easy! It's only me. What's wrong?"



Alice stood up, smiled as though they were talking, but the look in her eyes was urgent. "There's a woman over there--no, don't look! She's sitting in the corner and she's watching us, I know she is."



Adam nodded, maintaining a smile that no longer reached his eyes. "Okay. Let's get out of here." He slipped an arm through hers and they threaded their way out through the mass of teenagers towards the door.



They were nearly a block away when Alice cast the seeker spell again. "She's forty feet behind us. There's two men with her now. Don't look back."



"Are they getting any closer?"



"Yes. Are you armed?"



"Yeah, I have my gun and one of Gabe's knives. You?"



"Knife. In my boot. They're thirty feet behind us now."



"Okay, here's what we'll do-"



"Twenty-five feet-" she said sharply.



"We'll break, you head left down the alley, it'll take you to le Boulevard Ste. Catherine. It'll lead you deeper into the Quartier-"



"Twenty feet-"



"I'll break across the street and lead them towards the eastbound Metro tunnels. Try to lose pursuit, and don't go back to the apartment unless you're sure they're gone-"



"Fifteen feet, be careful, Adam-"



"You too-"



"Ten feet, ready?"



"Now!"



************



"Shit!" Erin could only watch as the pair suddenly broke apart and tore off in opposite directions.



"Oh, *damn*." Finn caught her arm and pulled her along. Beside him, Barry broke into a sprint. "We'll take Adam. You follow the girl- shit, that's Arwen! They must think we're dark agents, otherwise, they wouldn't be running."



"Wait a minute! How come *I* have to take the witch?"



"Well, you can have a girl talk!" Barry, unfortunately, seriously lacked comprehension of the female psyche. Erin spared him a withering glance, and he continued hurriedly. "Besides, Adam's our brother, or close enough. He'll listen to us."

"Well fine, but we can't lose them again. If they vanish, God knows how long it'll be before they surface again! Go! Be careful!"



Erin watched her husband and Barry vanish across the street in pursuit of their almost-brother, who he hadn't seen in ten or thirty thousand years, depending on the point of view. She growled a few creative curses on both their heads before she turned and bolted up the alley after Arwen.



Erin had never fought hand-to-hand with a witch, but she was about to get a first and painful lesson.



As she rounded the corner of a second alley, hot on the tail of Arwen, Version 2.0, she skidded to a halt. There was no sign of the witch, but a flicker of movement alerted her to a presence overhead. Instinctively, she glanced up.



Arwen grinned at her and dropped a loaded garbage can.



She leapt sideways, but the heavy metal can clipped her and sent her spinning towards the alley wall. Arwen floated to the ground some distance away; she threw a glance over her shoulder and began to run again.



Erin extricated herself from the mass of garbage bags, and took up pursuit again, but with considerably more caution. The II files had ranked Arwen as a Class 2 Elemental Spellcaster. In the range of offensive possibilities, that could mean fireballs, wind, water, or lightning, all combined in new and nasty ways. It also meant a lot of magical endurance; she could probably fight for quite a bit before she'd be tapped out.



So Erin just continued to follow at a fairly good clip, considering the hit she'd taken. The witch was half a block ahead, dodging startled pedestrians as she wove her way across the pedway. At the moment, Arwen was obviously more concerned with fleeing than fighting. Erin guessed she was trying to lead her away from the Fellowship's apartment, which also explained the tactic of splitting off from Adam.



//I'll just have to wear her down. If I catch up with her now, she'll just hit me with a spell before I get close enough to reason with her.// Erin swerved to avoid a cyclist, who shouted abuse over his shoulder, all in French, probably impolite.



Ahead, Arwen had reached a Metro station. She continued down the steps, heading deeper underground. Erin followed her down.



The station was deserted except for a few late-afternoon commuters standing at the far end. Arwen was nowhere in sight, but Erin spotted the characteristic flicker of the ceiling lights. She wasn't about to fall for the same trick twice. As she reached the bottom of the steps, Erin used the rail and her own momentum to vault upward. Her right hand caught a handhold in the rough stone, and she used her other to reach around the top of the doorjamb on the other side.



She hit pay dirt. There was a startled gasp, and Erin yanked down hard and swung her legs at the same instant. Both feet connected with Arwen's midsection, and the witch flew a few feet into the station before crashing to the floor. She'd been hovering over the door, hoping to pull the same stunt that she had in the alley.



Arwen managed to turn the fall into a shoulder roll, and she still had enough of a lead over Erin to recover her balance. Tumbling to her feet, she pivoted and cast a spell.



The agent dodged, expecting a lightning bolt, but nothing happened. Instead, the lights overhead whined and blew out, throwing the station into darkness.



There were some startled screams from the Parisians at the far end, and a low sound that might have been a laugh. Then the ring of footfalls, the sound of a body jumping, say, off the subway platform and onto the tracks. A voice floated out of the darkness. "Hey honey, catch me if you can."



//Mother Mary, she's fucking insane!//



Erin's eyes had nearly adjusted to the gloom, and the incandescents within the tunnel beckoned her. The Metro tunnel yawned like the mouth of some great shadowy beast; Arwen's bootheels were echoing, fading away as she lengthened her lead.



Erin ground her teeth, leapt onto the tracks, and followed the witch into the tunnel. "There's no *way* I'm getting paid enough for this."



**********



Nearly fifteen minutes later, Erin had revised her approximation of Arwen's mental state. //Not only is she insane, she's sadistic, too.//



The witch had purposely led her on a merry chase straight into the bowels of Paris. Erin kept running, following the distant figure by the light of the flickering tunnel incandescents. Occasionally, she would dodge as Arwen sent a spell over her shoulder, but the witch was obviously tiring. Her spells were coming with less frequency, and with considerably less strength. One dodge hadn't been quick enough, and a lightning bolt had hit Erin's shoulder; fortunately, it had done little more than send a buzz through her system and stand her hair up a little.



Arwen's pace had slowed as well. Erin had seen her stumble, one arm wrapped around her bruised side, from where Erin has kicked her back at the station. It might be a ruse, to draw her pursuer in close enough to be taken out with one good spell. Even a well-thrown knife would do the trick.



//Doubtful, though. She's been intent on running, not on fighting. She's trying to lead me as far off-course as she can. But she's getting tired, drained...if I corner her, maybe I can get her to listen to reason.//



Erin grimaced as sore muscles in her legs and back made their presence known, most emphatically. //Either that, or she'll do something *really* crazy.//



The tunnel branched off several times, and Erin simply focussed on following her target, staying far enough behind to avoid any magical strikes, but close enough to stay on her tail.



The witch stopped dead in the middle of one intersection. Her head snapped to the right, and a sudden burst of adrenaline seemed to surge through her. Legs pumping, she tore around the corner into the narrow right passageway.



Erin followed close behind, confident now that she could win this chase. She rounded the corner...



...and her heart nearly stopped as she felt an icy wind blast up around her. Not a spell, but something much, much worse.





A Metro train was bearing down on the two women, its running lights filling the tunnel with a blinding glare.



It was less than a hundred yards away, and closing fast.



"Shit!" Erin could barely hear herself over the scream of the wind and the roar of the train. Just a few feet ahead of her, Arwen managed to power a leap with a quick levitation spell. She found two handholds in the mass of pipes that ran along the ceiling and hung there like a spider.



Erin felt her brain blank in panic; then instinct took over. She scrabbled frantically up the rough stone walls, tearing her fingernails and the skin of her hands. She heaved herself from the wall as the train bore down on her, praying she'd had enough momentum to reach the ceiling.



She did, barely. Her fingers locked around a pipe as the train thundered past underneath her. She inhaled deeply- then one end of the pipe ripped loose from its setting, dropping her two feet lower.



Only panic-peaked reflexes saved her as she yanked her legs just out of the train's path. It continued to scream and rattle its way underneath her, a long, long train with no end in sight. And now the other end of the pipe was starting to pull loose.



Erin swung around to face Arwen, her friend, who was hanging from her own secure perch. She was staring at her with a mild expression which might have been covering a bit of regret. "Arwen!"



The witch stiffened a little at that; her cool facade slipped just a crack.



"Lady Undómiel. Arwen, my friend, please, for God's sake, *help* me!"



Now those beautiful blue eyes widened, in disbelief and shock, and...recognition?



Erin screamed as the pipe ripped loose and she began to fall. The clinical part of her brain, the cool little voice that wasn't the least concerned with impending death, scolded her for such a pathetic series of last words. Finn would have undoubtably thought of something much wittier.



Then long fingers were locked around her wrist in an iron grip, and she was yanked upward. Arwen had somehow snaked one leg and one arm into the mass of tubing; with her other arm, she locked Erin tight against her own body. The train continued to rumble past, but the two women huddled against the ceiling were out of reach.



The last car passed, and the train vanished around the curve, the echoing rumble gradually dying away.



Arwen, still clutching Erin, worked her arm and leg free. She cast a levitation spell, which carried them most of the way to the ground before her composure slipped and the spell gave out, sending them tumbling the last few feet to the cement floor.



Erin lay on her back, hyperventilating, calming the hysterics that were trying to fight their way free. Arwen lay beside her, her fingers still locked around her arm. Panting, she managed to sit up, her limbs shaking.



"Okay, okay, just breathe, breathe, it's okay, it's all right, just breathe..."



Erin was unsure whether the string of soothing words were intended for her, or for Arwen herself. She finally managed to get her breathing under control, but Arwen needed to use her other hand to pry her fingers loose from Erin's wrist.



Erin looked into the witch's eyes, seeing terror and adrenaline and magic reflected like roiling storm clouds. Then she wrapped her arms around the other woman and they knelt for a few moments, the chill of the concrete seeping through their clothes.



"Hello, Eowyn."