Free The Graves of Saints by Christopher Golden Page A

friends died along the way, but it worked.
    ‘That’s the way it’s going to be again, Leon, starting with Allison and Charlotte, if she’s willing. As soon as we’re done here, I’m going to make some calls.
I have a funeral to plan. My old friends are going to want to be there, but it’s going to have to happen fast. Once Nikki is laid to rest, my friends and I will be going after Cortez,
starting with whatever intelligence you can gather in the meantime.
    ‘When Cortez is dead, I’ll worry about the rest of the world.’
     
     
    * * *
    September 22
    Saint-Denis, France
    Hannah Barclay leaned back in the passenger seat of the battered blue Renault, relishing the view as they wended their way out of Paris and north to the small commune of
Saint-Denis. It was a picturesque suburb famous for the presence of the country’s national stadium, and for the Cathedral Basilica of Saint-Denis. Hannah loved soccer – or football, as
Europeans called it, always with enough emphasis so Americans knew they were being corrected – and she wished she were on the way to the stadium for a game. Spending the day doing research at
the Basilica was not her idea of a good time, but she only had one semester to study at the Sorbonne and if she wanted to make the best of it, screwing up a research paper before September had even
ended would be a terrible idea. Already she had spent too much time drinking wine in cafés along the Seine. She needed focus.
    ‘. . . you even awake, yet?’ Charlie was saying from behind the wheel.
    Hannah frowned and turned to look at him. Twenty-one, perpetual two-day stubble, hipster glasses, not bad in bed. They were both students at Columbia University in New York and had spent much of
the fall semester of their sophomore year fucking each other’s brains out. It had been gloriously uncomplicated, or so she had told herself. When Charlie had found himself interested in
someone else and drifted off in that direction, Hannah had responded with the same combination of aloofness and sarcasm that she brought to everything she did. She was just self-deprecating enough
that her friends didn’t complain about her snark. Not much, anyway.
    But she missed him. Maybe it wasn’t love, but she liked Charlie a lot more than she had ever let on. Now here they were, both juniors doing a semester abroad at the Sorbonne. His
girlfriend, Brittany, was back in New York. But instead of taking the opportunity to get closer to Charlie, maybe tell him how she really felt about him or at the very least seduce him, all she had
to offer was snark. Sarcasm was the only arrow in her quiver, and that sucked.
    You’re such a coward
, she thought.
    And accepted it.
    ‘What are you saying?’ she asked.
    Charlie said to her, ‘You didn’t look like you were sleeping, but your brain certainly isn’t awake.’
    ‘Must be the oh-so-stimulating company,’ Hannah replied. ‘I was ruminating. It’s something intelligent people do when trapped in the car with drooling morons.’
    He laughed and shook his head. ‘Isn’t it too early for you to be such a bitch?’
    ‘I don’t have to be awake to be a bitch.’
    Charlie smirked. ‘I remember.’
    ‘Oh, please, my friend the scintillating conversationalist. What was it you wished to discuss this fine French morning?’
    ‘I was just bitching about having to get up so early to come out here. I wish I hadn’t put my research off so long.’
    ‘You’ll be fine,’ Hannah said, more warmly. ‘You do better under pressure and you know it. That’s why you wait until the last minute. I have no idea what my excuse
is—’
    ‘Too much wine and too many cute Parisian guys.’
    Hannah smiled. ‘And one girl.’
    ‘You’re such a tease. I know you did not make out with that girl. You’re just toying with my helpless male brain.’
    ‘Maybe. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. We’ll both be fine. Me more than you, of course, because I picked something easy and you