Free Flight of the Crow by Melanie Thompson

Bryn stepped across the threshold and gasped. Mistress Chat lay on the floor in the middle of the room. Her arms were at her side and her skin was a frightening gray. Bryn rushed across the room and knelt beside her. Chat’s breathing was shallow, her heartbeat barely detectable.
    When Bryn lifted the older woman’s head, her eyes fluttered open. “Fenix?”
    â€œGone. Did you see what happened?”
    â€œHe took her.” The older woman’s voice quavered as she shuddered and shook. Death was fast approaching.
    â€œWhere? Do you know where he took her?” Bryn hated to torment the woman with questions, but if she knew anything, it was of the utmost importance.
    Chat’s eyes rolled up in her head. Her lips moved but Bryn heard nothing. Then she collapsed and her last breath rattled out of her throat. Bryn laid her tenderly on the ground, removed her cloak and laid it over the body.
    She stood up and dusted the front of her deep purple dress. “I think she said something before she died, however I was unable to hear it.”
    Fingle nodded. “She said church, Miss Bryn. Heard it clear as a bell.”
    â€œChurch? What church?”
    Fingle pointed at the window. “Mayhap it be that one.”
    Bryn glanced out and saw stained-glass windows in the tower of Saint Sulpice glinting in the morning sunlight. “Why would he take her there?”
    Fingle began licking his hand. Bryn blinked. His tongue was at least eight inches long. He stopped licking and looked into her eyes. “It be an old church. Think you, he knows a secret?”

Chapter 9
    Fenix woke when her head banged against a rough, pitted limestone wall. She groaned and opened one eye. Wasted effort, there was no light. Where was she? The last thing she remembered was riding in the horseless carriage with Mistress Chat. Thinking about the dominatrix brought memories crashing into her head. Mistress Chat was dead. Draak Priest had killed Chat with a snake or maybe with some kind of spell. It was all fuzzy and out of focus. When Chat fell to the floor, he’d touched Fenix’s forehead with the tip of the dagger and she’d passed into darkness.
    Hands suddenly grabbed her and tossed her over a masculine shoulder. It was broad and strong so it couldn’t be Priest. The back her head rested against was broad and heavily muscled. A huge hand gripped her legs tightly. She decided to play dead and hung there like a sack of flour as the huge man shambled forward, turned and started to climb down a ladder. Far below, she glimpsed a beckoning light.
    The descent seemed to take forever. At the bottom, the giant stopped and waited. “This way, imbecile.”
    Fenix easily recognized the voice of Draak Priest. The tunnel they traveled was dark but she knew where she was. Bones were sorted and stacked to the ceiling on the walls lining the passage. They were deep in the catacombs beneath Paris. The dank air lay on your skin like filthy linen and left you feeling dirty and besmirched. It smelled of dust and ashes with undertones of rotting meat and sewage. She knew the smell of death had to be imagined, but she thought she scented that as well.
    They continued down tunnels that twisted and turned, by rooms filled with candles and more bones, by altars and walls covered with the graffiti of the ages. She was soon completely lost and allowed herself to flop listlessly against the giant’s back. She was doomed. Whatever Priest had in mind for her was going to happen. There was no way she would be saved. Bryn could not track her into the depths of this ossuary. When she heard the sound of running water, she whimpered with fear. They’d descended all the way to the aqueducts under Paris. Priest was going to throw her in and leave her.
    * * * *
    Draak Priest smiled and stroked the cross hanging from a cord around his waist. This was the culmination of years of scheming and planning. He had captured one of the