We are so sorry for how long this chapter has taken us to post. We aren't dead, and we are still writing. Things have just been a little slow lately. The next chapter *will* be up faster, we promise.

The Nightrunners



Tunnel Vision



Soundtrack : Wherever you will go ( The Calling )





Five hundred metres below the surface of Paris, an argument was taking place.



"'Keep your heads down,' his lordship says. 'Try not to piss anyone off', he says." Peter's grumbling was muffled somewhat by the low-ceilinged tunnel, but not enough to suit his companion. "Easy for Adam to say, he's not the one who actually has to put up with the bloody mages."



"Peter, I'm going to kill you for this."



"What was I supposed to do, Mark? Let that mage make me his personal lightning rod? I don't think so!"



"Taking a swing at a pissed mage in a freaking mage *bar* still isn't the best idea," was Mark's only reply.



"Hey, it's not my fault. Didn't you hear what he said?"



"Pippin, you have no idea what he said. He was speaking French. Anyway, we're not in Necropolis anymore. You can't take a swing at someone for looking at you funny."



"No, I know what he said, Mark, and it wasn't polite at all."



"Since when do you know French?"



"I don't, not really. Just a few of the choicer words. Remember Amelie?"



"Oh, yeah, that singer you dated once. The blonde."



"Whenever we fought, she'd scream at me in French. I looked up some of the insults. That mage wasn't half as creative."



"So we're lost. What do we do now?"



Mark and Peter were dressed in baggy jeans and hooded sweaters. Peter had made concessions to the climate by adding a fringed green scarf to the ensemble. This far underground, the two ex-hobbits weren't in danger of freezing to death, but a quick escape through one of the less-used pedestrian tunnels had landed them in the middle of nowhere.



At least they'd lost the enraged magic-users. Drunk teenage mages that they were, they still presented a threat. Mark and Peter had opted for a hasty retreat, owing to the fact that there were two of them and ten mages. They also didn't want Parisian police records in their first week in the city.



Unfortunately, they'd ended up somewhere where you couldn't exactly ask for directions. The pavement underfoot was cracked and pitted; graffiti and ancient advertisements dotting the walls. The entire underground rumbled with the distant echo of the Metro trains, and of cars. Pippin sniffed the air. "Smells like home."



"You're not really helping, Pip. Try calling Adam."



Peter flipped open the small cell that the cop had acquired for them. He shook his head. "No reception. We're too far underground, I guess."



Mark groaned. "Maybe we can try retracing our steps. We'll end up where we came in. Once we find some other people, we can find an Information Terminal and make some queries about White City Enterprises. We can't go back to the apartment empty-handed."



Poor Mark had no idea that the statement concerning backtracking had been made by Lost People for thousands of years, and most of their remains have never been found.



An hour later, the two rockers found themselves wandering through what appeared to be an abandoned subway station, a place they *definitely* hadn't seen before. They found a set of broken escalators. One led upwards, another downwards.



Peter raised one eyebrow. "Well? Up or down?"



Mark paused to think. "I don't know. Up will lead us to the surface, and we're not exactly equipped to deal with sub-zero temperatures right now."



"Down, then?"



"Adam said there's dozens of levels under the city, and abandoned tunnels that run everywhere. We've just got to find our way back to one of the main transit lines."



//At least there's some light.// Mark mused some time later. Incandescents lined the ceiling overhead, adding a dim glow to the passage. It was, unfortunately, *very* dim.



They wouldn't have gotten out at all if Peter hadn't tripped at what turned out to be an extremely fortuitous moment. He swore as he hit the ground and rolled onto his side. His arms, however, went right through the wall.



Peter drew himself into a crouch. "Hey, Merry, look at this."



Mark cocked his head. "It's a hole. In the wall."



"Yeah, but it's really bright at the other end!"



Mark glared at his friend. "Oh no. There's no way in *hell* that I'm *crawling* through a little hole in the wall because there's *light* at the other end."



"My dear Merry, this is where I point out that this tunnel could run for miles, with no way in or out. I also point out that I don't want to die in the bowels of Paris. Let's go through the wall."



A few moments later, the tunnel was once again empty. However, a voice was being slowly muffled by the walls. "This...would be a lot...easier...if we were still...hobbits!"



"Shut up and...crawl!"



Thankfully, they didn't have very far to go. Peter squeezed out through the narrow gap at the end and straightened up, brushing dust off his sweatshirt and out of his hair. Behind him, Mark stifled a groan as he wormed his way through the opening in the wall.





"Ow, ow, ow...woah..."



Mark trailed off as they stared at the room where they'd ended up. It was extremely vast, running for hundreds of feet in either direction. Tall shelves lined the walls, packed with crates and boxes and glass cases. Overhead, incandescents glowed with steady amber light.



"This looks like some sort of storage warehouse." said Mark, standing on tiptoes to peer into one of the crates. Some sort of stuffed bird, a hawk or an eagle, stared beadily back at him. "Weird."



"Very weird." said Peter. He tugged Merry's sleeve. "Come on. Let's have a look around."



Several paces away, there were half a dozen oil paintings mounted on the wall, looking extremely out of place. Mark paused and frowned. They were surrounded by dry sponges, rather than frames.



//Weird.//



Peter picked up a wooden crate and rattled the contents: small shards of pottery, each one bearing a tiny label. "What kind of place *is* this?"



Mark blew the dust off a glass display case, and his eyes widened. Inside, meticulously arranged on a bed of blue velvet, was a collection of stunning Egyptian jewellery. Peter was examining a row of marble busts, depicting men with short, clipped hair and laurel crowns.



There were small, exceedingly detailed tags attached to everything in the room. Peter picked up a blue vase and read the tag: Dragon-Head Vase, 12", 14th-century Ming Dynasty, China. Archaeological dig, Bankok, 1902. Property of the Louvre, Paris, France. Do not Remove.



Their eyes met, comprehension dawning at the exact same moment.



"Holy shit, we're in the basement of the Louvre!" Peter was incredulous.



"We have to be. All this stuff is labelled as Louvre property. It must be one of the storerooms."



"Christ, do you know how much some of this stuff is *worth*?"



"Hands to yourself, Pip," was the only reply, yet Mark's eyes gleamed with laughter in the dim light.



They wandered down the aisles, stopping to poke at some of the more interesting items. There was one long table covered with fossilized bones, from some sort of creature that must have been larger than a bus when it was alive. The two rockers were duly impressed.



Suddenly, Peter stopped and pointed. There was an old metal staircase running along the wall, leading to a door. A little red sign glowed above it, featuring a figure fleeing stylized flames. It read 'Sortie de Secours'.



A smile bloomed on Mark's face. "Is that what I think it is?"



Peter nodded. "It's our way out of here."



They headed towards the exit, happy to have found a way out of the labyrinth that was the Paris Underground. As they brushed past one narrow shelf, however, a box fell to the floor, knocking some of the contents loose.



"Oh, dammit." The two ex-hobbits waited nervously for an alarm to start blaring, but nothing happened. Mark breathed a sigh of relief, and picked up the crate. Inside, it was divided into little compartments. It was labelled: Jewellery, Unknown Origins.



Peter picked up a carved gold torque bracelet and held it up to the light. "Nice," he said appreciatively, and dropped it into an appropriate slot. It bore the label 'Southern Mongolia, 1972. Culture: unknown. Age: Unknown.

This continued for several moments, as jewellery was sorted into the appropriate compartments. Then they both stopped dead, as Mark lifted one pendant by its fine-spun silver chain and swung it gently.



"Holy...shit."



"Is *that* what I think it is?"



The rusted old fire exit clanged shut several minutes later, the two rockers stumbling out into a major transit tunnel shortly afterwards. Car horns blared as they ran across the lane, and Peter swung around and offered a one-finger salute to the swearing drivers.



Four months later, someone finally noticed that item T-002389 from Storage Room 4C was missing. A search was made, but no trace was found.



It had, it fact, left the premises in the pocket of one Peter Taylor, and not even Mark Anderson Brand had protested.



After all, it wasn't stealing if you had every intention of returning the thing to its *proper* owner.