Two shadows in bloody Paris.
Rolling bandages by day and fighting in the darkness, she is an angel with a gun in her hands and blood on her soul.
Hidding from the sun and hunting under the stars, he is an empty shell.
But before either can see the truth, they must find their way on the winding path of ...
The Linen Road
Prologue: By the Sweat of My Brow
Three dark figures made their way in deathly silence.
A young man led the way. The two women behind him could barely discern where the dim planes of his face ended and the dark of this dungeon began when he turned back to glance at them. His gait was halted and mechanical, his mind disbelieving beneath his dirty cap and straw colored hair. He resembled the dilapidated scarecrows that lined the rural streets, far removed from the pain of a bleeding Paris.
The dusty, patched condition of his vest and breeches wordlessly gave testament to the life he had led in the recent past. Despite his youth and an innocent face, he had braved many fierce skirmishes and faced heavy gunfire. But never in his short life had he been so terrified as today.
Fear was a consistent theme that ran its threads through each of them, but only Ghislain gave any evidence, his brow heavy with sweat in the chill of the January morning.
The woman who brought up the end of the strange procession concealed her anxiety with a practiced skill, perfected by many years of service in the hospital wards. The flickering lantern in her age worn hands illuminated the many creases that gently adorned her olive complexion. The years had only served to enhance her beauty, softly dulling the intense edges of her strong chin line and authoritative nose. Only her eyes were unchanged, their deep brown irises still vibrant and expressive.
But now her dark eyes were eclipsed by a furrowed brow beneath a pristine white wimple. The hem of her charcoal robe was sodden from being carelessly dragged though the muddy puddles, and the back of her neck was damp with worry.
The slender woman before her was a stranger, a demon that had possessed the body of a child she had all but raised. Sister Inez desperately prayed that her little hermanita had not lost what little sanity remained in her tormented head.
She kept her worries silent, fingering the beads of her wooden rosary in quiet agony.
The underbelly of the unfinished opera house was dank and moldy. The current occupants had tunneled many extra passages in to the unformed walls, using its vast cellars as storehouses and sleeping quarters. The proud structure was now a hopeless maze of secondary halls.
"It's like a terrible beehive." Thought the woman who was second in line.
Unbenounced to her, a wasp was indeed present in the dark and the cobwebs. And his eyes followed her with a lazy fascination.
"Or perhaps an infested rat hole." She mused unaware, as a specimen of said species scuttled into the shadows that hung on the rough walls like tapestries in a castle. She could barely conceal her urge to shudder, biting her inner lip and contracting her forehead, but some how she managed. And it was fortunate that she did, for she held the lives of two men in her painfully slender hands.
In truth, they hung from the clammy tip of one finger.
Author's Notes:
♫Well, this is the teaser. Hopefully a better start that my last fanfic. Please review, I could really use some encouragement as I am still a bit unsure on how this came out. Are you intrigued?