Gabrielle led the little girl into Bahorel's apartment. Bahorel had given Gabrielle and Combeferre the key long ago, so it was the natural place to retreat after the Watchers left with Valjean.
She shut the door and pulled the curtains close at the windows, and then turned to regard Cosette, who solemnly returned her gaze, without saying a word.
Possibly this would be easier if Cosette knew "M. Enjolras" was actually a girl. This kind of thing was supposed to be her nature, Gabrielle knew. And she liked children. Especially if they were over the age of seven or so, and they could speak, and think, and control themselves a little.
Then Gabrielle could appeal to their reason and their better nature. Everyone could be moved by such an appeal, children as much so as grown men and women. Or perhaps more so, not having been taught incorrectly yet. Gabrielle had sneaked glimpses at the words of Robespierre and Saint-Just even before meeting Combeferre. Her own time in the convent with the other little girls had left a far deeper imprint: no one she had met deserved cruelty, or could be truly won over by fear and subjugation.
Cosette seemed fearful indeed, from the look on her face. Gabrielle resolved to sooth her by appealing to her reason.
"You're safe," Gabrielle said, kneeling down to look Cosette in the face. "Your father came to us with you because he knew we would look after you, see? You know your father takes good care of you."
Cosette nodded, still silent. "He trusts us for a reason, " Gabrielle said. "He left you with us because he knew we would take care of you."
Cosette opened her mouth and closed it. "What is it?"
"Where is my father?"
"He was taken away by some men, but we're going to try to bring him back."
"Is that where the other man is?"
"Combeferre's bringing help," said Gabrielle, and then corrected herself. "He's looking for help." It wouldn't do to lie to the child and tell her help was surely forthcoming, when that was still in doubt. "He'll come here when he's done, and then he and I will go look for your father."
Cosette frowned, and looked down. "And I'll wait here by myself, while you go?"
"I—" Gabrielle hesitated, taken aback. She hadn't thought about who would watch Cosette while they were gone.
"I can," Cosette said softly. "I'll be good, I'll be quiet, I'll sit here and not make a sound—"
Gabrielle winced. "No, we—" She broke off. She didn't know if Combeferre would find anyone and bring them back. Bahorel might be at one of his usual places, or he might not. Combeferre might find another willing to help Valjean, or he might not. If he didn't, then either Gabrielle would have to go after Valjean alone, or else Combeferre would go with her and Cosette would be alone…but no. Gabrielle looked at Cosette's scared, resolute, pinched face, and knew the child couldn't be left alone.
"Someone will stay with you," said Gabrielle. "If Combeferre comes back alone, then he'll stay with you." She paused. "The two of you can…play," she hazarded, with a silent apology in Combeferre's direction.
Cosette nodded, looking grave. "I don't have Catherine. My doll. But I can pretend something else is a doll."
Gabrielle had enjoyed dolls, as a child. She would make her dolls get into arguments, and then reconcile, and learn they must treat each other justly. She frowned, and looked around Bahorel's apartment. There was a figurine of some Polish fighter on a bookshelf. Gabrielle took it down and gave it to Cosette.
Cosette examined it in silence, turning it over to look at the details of the clothes. Gabrielle waited, feeling slightly awkward, not knowing what to say.
She was saved by Bahorel bursting through the door, followed by Combeferre, Feuilly, and a young man she didn't know.
"Thank God," Gabrielle said.
"Combeferre tells me you don't know where they took him, but I have some ideas," said Bahorel.
"You don't know where my father is?" Cosette's voice was a whisper.
Bahorel and Combeferre looked uneasily at each other. "No," Gabrielle said, "but we're going to look for him." Cosette bit her lip and nodded.
"Good day to you, mademoiselle," Bahorel said, kneeling in front of Cosette. "I'm Bahorel. And your name is?"
"I'm Cosette," she said, still whispering.
"Ah," said Bahorel. "Well—" He motioned the unknown young man forward. "This is de Courfeyrac—I beg his pardon, Courfeyrac." Courfeyrac had a black eye and looked generally battered, Gabrielle noticed. "Courfeyrac will stay with you while we look for your father."
Courfeyrac gave an exaggerated bow. "Is that your doll? But how very pretty—have you named him?" Cosette shook her head, smiling a little. "Well, then, name him we must—and then perhaps we can all have coffee and cakes together, you and me and our friend here."
He turned to Gabrielle, smiling. "You must be Enjolras."
"I—yes," said Gabrielle, finding herself smiling back, though unsure of why.
"Courfeyrac knows about vampires and the rest," Bahorel interposed, "but he's too injured to come with us on our search. He can stay and rest with mademoiselle here."
Courfeyrac let out a very dramatic sigh, but nodded. "It will be my pleasure, of course. Mademoiselle Cosette is much more fun than any of you dullards, aren't you, little one?" Cosette blushed and hid her face.
"Don't break anything," Bahorel said, with a near-convincing show of sternness.
As they filed out, Gabrielle lingered for a moment to draw Courfeyrac aside. She still felt forward, initiating conversations with men, though she willfully ignored the feeling. "The child is very scared," she told him. "Do what you can to comfort her."
"Of course," said Courfeyrac. He looked both deeply amused and deeply kind, as if he sincerely felt for the girl and for her father and even for Gabrielle herself, yet still thought them all a good joke, and himself an even better one. There was something very appealing about that.
But Gabrielle couldn't think what to say, so she just nodded at him, and left with the others.
Javert stood, arms crossed, as the holy water dripped onto Valjean's forehead with a hissing sound.
"The carcasses in Montparnasse," Javert said. "You can't make me believe you had nothing to do with them."
"I told you." Valjean's deep, guttural voice sounded more like a groan than spoken words. "I've killed no one in nearly ten years. The Montparnasse carcasses…they're likely the work of…"
Javert snorted. "There's no sense in repeating your accusations. Your word means nothing."
A fat drop of holy water struck Valjean's wounded skin; he cried aloud. "Kill me," he said. "Why don't you just stake me?"
Allowing himself a small, rare smile of satisfaction, Javert said, "No. We have given our word."
Valjean jerked his head sideways, in a near-spasm. His eyes narrowed. "To whom?"
Javert, not deigning to explain himself to the vampire, turned on his heel and left the cell. "Keep questioning him," he told the guards at the door, as he left.
"I think I've read of this place," Combeferre said, as they approached the rough medieval building.
Bahorel pressed his hand to the wall, as if testing its strength. "It's an old Watchers' Council prison."
Enjolras, coming back from a quick reconnaissance around the building, cocked her head at Bahorel. "How do you know of it?"
A lupine flash of Bahorel's teeth answered her. "I know a former inmate," was all he would say.
Feuilly, pulling his cap down further over his ears, glanced around nervously. "Enjolras, did you find any way to get in?"
She shook her head. "There's a window, on the other side, but it's too small for any of us to fit through."
Bahorel nodded. "We won't get in by sneaking or breaking anything," he said. "We'll need to be let in."
Combeferre's mind immediately conjured up pictures of them sneaking in dressed as tradesmen, or perhaps even laundresses. It was a ridiculous notion. "And how are we going to do that? A…disguise of some kind?"
Grinning, Bahorel shook his head. "You overcomplicate the matter, my dear. I have a very simple solution. We will simply wait by the door. If Valjean is here, at some point, someone will have to come out."
"And then what?" Enjolras, confoundedly, didn't even sound skeptical. She sounded as though she was confident Bahorel had a plan worth considering, and was simply waiting to hear what it was so she could evaluate it.
"And then we will persuade them to hold the door open to let us in. The only question is, where can we wait?" Bahorel looked around.
"Over here, in this shrub," Enjolras said, pointing. She stepped back to allow Feuilly to go before her. Combeferre suspected this was because whoever went in first, deepest into the hedge of shrubbery, would be the last and least likely to be caught and seen; for Feuilly, an arrest meant the loss of several days' wages at least.
Bahorel and Enjolras were at the outermost edge, sensibly enough, as they would be the ones to seize whatever unlucky soul came out that door. They all waited. Combeferre tried not to sneeze, or fidget too much. He noticed, irritably, that no one else seemed to have as much difficulty staying absolutely still as he did.
Almost as soon as Combeferre noticed Javert's large frame half out the door, he saw Enjolras fly toward him in a blur of yellow hair and dark coat, followed by Bahorel. Enjolras pushed past Javert to grab the door before it shut, while Bahorel pulled Javert to the ground.
Feuilly's nudge reminded Combeferre he should move too. He ran to the door, Feuilly a few paces behind with his shorter legs. Javert, who had grasped Bahorel about the knees to pull him down too, struggled to his feet, and stood to block Combeferre's path.
Combeferre tried to dodge about Javert, but Javert was too broad, and his reach too long. He seized Combeferre's arm. Combeferre pulled away and kicked out at Javert's shin. Feuilly, who had ducked under Javert's outstretched arm and run behind him, struck him in the back of the knees, making him buckle.
With another sharp kick to Javert's shin, Combeferre ran past him to the door. Enjolras and Bahorel were already inside. Combeferre held the door for Feuilly, and then shoved it closed on Javert's face behind them, slamming the thick iron bolt into its hole.
The silence inside was thick and heavy. They stood in a hallway lit by a sole wall-sconce. The hallway stretched in both directions, and had no more lights in either. Enjolras, seemingly at random, chose to turn left. The rest of them followed, feeling their way along the unlit corridor. Combeferre saw nothing ahead, and heard nothing but his own breathing and his companions'. It was quiet enough that he began to distinguish the different sounds of their breaths: Enjolras's, so quiet as to be nearly inaudible; Feuilly's, short and fast, possibly due to some weakness of the lungs; Bahorel's, rhythmic and unhurried.
Then there was a splash of light against the wall, pale and weak, and an equally weak man's voice echoing towards them. It sounded like a groan.
They all pressed closer to the wall, and went forward. As they moved, Combeferre saw they were approaching a corner. Enjolras cautiously peered around it before turning it. Around the corner there were two more sconces affixed to the far wall, casting enough light to see an unguarded metal door with bolts on it, but the bolts weren't shut.
From behind the door, Combeferre could hear another faint, far-off-sounding groan.
As one, Enjolras, Bahorel, and Feuilly made as if to go to the door. Combeferre flung his arms up to block them. "It may be locked from the inside," he whispered. "If they hear you rattling at it, they'll know you're there. And it's iron, too strong to knock down with just our strength."
"You know they're torturing him," Bahorel said, jerking his chin at the door.
"We won't help him by alerting them to our presence when they're out of our reach. We don't know how many they are—Javert had several men when he took Valjean away."
"Hmm," Bahorel said, not disagreeing, simply sounding disgruntled. "So we wait, I suppose."
"As we did before," said Feuilly. He made a face. "I suppose even torturers must stop and take some rest, now and again."
Enjolras, who had remained silent until now, put her hand on Combeferre's shoulder. "Listen," she said.
Combeferre heard the creaking and shifting of someone on the other side of the door, beginning to pull it open. Enjolras darted to the wall beside the door, ready to pounce. Bahorel, wordless, went to the other side, while Combeferre and Feuilly moved to the shadows by the sconces.
The door swung open. Enjolras subdued the two guards who came out easily, with Bahorel's help; together, they held the snarling men pinned to the wall, while Combeferre and Feuilly went into the cell. It was obviously a cell; that was plain even before Combeferre's eye fell on Valjean, tied to a table, with holy water dripping onto his face. Combeferre and Feuilly quickly untied him and helped him up.
Enjolras and Bahorel shoved the two guards, who were now cursing them all and swearing dire vengeance, into the cell, and bolted it from the outside.
Turning to Valjean, Enjolras asked, "Can you walk?"
"Yes," he said hoarsely, "they didn't hurt my legs."
"Good," said Feuilly, "then we must hurry, before Javert returns with reinforcements." They made their way back down the unlit hallway and, with caution, left the building, checking the street first for any Watchers Council guards.
"We will return to my apartment," said Bahorel, "we have your daughter there, and we can plan what next to do."
"She's safe? Cosette? Who's watching her?" Valjean asked, looking somewhat more animated.
"She's safe. She's with a friend." Feuilly cast a worried glance around the street. "Let's be off."
Sister Simplice was sitting quietly, reading a life of Saint Catherine, and drinking a tisane, when she heard the knock on the door to her rooms in the solid, furnished house kept by the Watchers in Paris.
She set down her book and her china cup. Gathering her skirts, she rose, and opened the door.
It was Javert. She stepped back to let him enter.
"Sister," he said without preamble, "the vampire Valjean has escaped."
She raised her eyebrows. Surely the Watchers' Council's security was better than that.
"The rogue Slayer helped him, with some companions," Javert went on. "They attacked one of our prisons, freed Valjean, and locked his guards in his cell—"
Simplice started. "Alive?"
"What? Oh, yes, they left his guards alive. But we don't know where they are. They didn't return to the rooms the Slayer and the rogue Watcher were keeping. Can you try seeing them for us? Any of them?"
Without a word, Simplice walked over to the barest, straightest chair in the room, and sat. She shut her eyes. Once more she fixed her thoughts on the vampire Valjean, and once more she saw only mist. Unsurprised, she changed her focus to the rogue Slayer-Watcher pair, and a vision took shape: the girl and the young man, yes, but also another man, a man who looked to be in his fifties, with a deep wound on his forehead. A man Simplice easily recognized as Valjean.
In her vision, Valjean held a small child in his arms. A human child, a girl. Simplice braced herself to see him snap the child's neck, or drain her blood, but it didn't happen. Instead he cradled her close, and she put her small thin arms around his neck.
Simplice's visions usually only showed her pictures. But on some rare occasions there were sounds or smells—or, even rarer, the feelings of those she saw. There were times when Simplice's visions would allow her to sense another's great anger, fear, hatred, or love.
This vision was permeated by a feeling so powerful, it made Simplice tremble, and so unexpected she scarcely dared name it, let alone believe it.
She didn't want to return to her surroundings. Her inner gaze was too drawn to the impossible sight of Valjean and the child to pull away. She didn't know how long she would have remained like that if she hadn't felt Javert's heavy hand on her shoulder, shaking her out of that glorious vision.
With a slight jerk forward, she came back to herself. She looked around in half-surprise: she was still in the quiet apartment allotted her, with its subdued furnishings of cool grays and blues, and the mid-morning light trickling in between the curtains.
Javert was talking. "Did you see him? Valjean?" From the slight edge of impatience in his voice, Simplice guessed he was repeating the question. She blinked.
"Are you unwell, Sister?" Javert asked, with a frown. "Did your visions show you Valjean?"
Simplice drew a long, deep breath. She was well out of her trance, but the little girl's face still floated before her eyes, as if on a cloud. Her gaze fell on the book of Saint Catherine on the table, on the crucifix on the opposite wall. God was Truth, and the Devil lived in every lie. Every drop of blood in her body seemed to have turned to ice.
She took another breath. "No," she said. "God didn't see fit to show him to me." She unclenched the fist she had made without thinking, and her fingers shook. Javert seemed to see nothing amiss, and there was no reason he would: sometimes visions were physically tiring, and the body was unsteady afterwards.
Javert nodded, disappointed but unsurprised. "But the Slayer? Did you see her?"
Simplice said a silent prayer before saying, "No. I saw nothing, only darkness."
"That is a shame," Javert said. "We've another seer in Lyon, perhaps we can ask him…"
"Yes," said Simplice, rising, "and no doubt your investigators are formidable."
"They are. Well, I will trouble you no further, Sister, and we will arrange for you to return home soon enough."
Simplice shut the door behind him, and sank to her knees, praying fervently.