Chapter Fifteeen:You never really know your friends from your enemies until the ice breaks.

   St-Etienne-du-Mont shook from within and without. The bell tower rocked on its foundation, chiming a discordant song that showered over the parish. The loud ringing sliced jaggedly through the storm that whipped black hail around the gothic and renaissance facade. The pouring rain jumped suddenly, as violet lightning struck the roof. The water rushed down, and around the marble lacework like electric veins until it spewed from the mouths of the protruding gargoyles.

   Inside the crypt not a person noticed. 

   Not even the doppelgänger noticed.

   For when she raced at Antonio, two things happened. She lunged up through the air, with a squeal of delight, stretching out her tiny fingers like ten, tiny ivory daggers, sneering as they dug into his pink, fleshy neck, and then - 

   She was surprised.

   A silent, and suddenly violent and billowy concussion ripped her back and away from her prey just as she was shrieking in triumph. 

    All of this happened in as much time as it took Antonio’s cane to crash down onto the sarcophagus four times.

   The explosion seemed to come from everywhere, a thunderhead had blossomed in the crypt, and though nothing was destroyed, everything had changed. The air was suddenly fused with a thousand foreign perfumes. Oriental perfumes that clouded the darkness. The scents swirled and suffocated the damp, mildewy smells of decay and age. The doppelgänger sat up in shock and clawed at her nose, pinching her tiny nostrils shut with such violence that they bled little rivers that dripped down her chin. 

  The opaque scents simmered, and choked the crypt with incredible bouquets. Cherry blossoms, thought Francesca, then, jasmine, she coughed, as the fragrant odours spun around her. Amber, and vanillas, the smell of the forest in autumn, tobaccos, iris, and the unmistakable scent of the Damask rose.

    The scented air conspired to smother the mausoleum and its occupants into insensibility.

    Antonio waved a handkerchief in front of his face, clearing away the fragrant whorls, as Gaspard held a protective sleeve in front of his and Francesca’s face. Rudolpho, however,  turned his large nose into the cloud, snuffling through his moustaches, and looked as if he quite liked the new aromas. 

   The doppelgänger clearly did not. 

   She pulled herself up to her knees, making ineffectual sweeping gestures to clear the odiferous cloud away. 

   Her eyes stung.

   She peered into the haze, trying to understand what had happened. A gentle light covered everything, a warm, periwinkle glow that stole throughout the mausoleum. Her eyes flicked around the room, searching, darting, until she spotted Francesca partially hidden away behind the boy. Next to them she saw Rudolpho brandishing his sword protectively over Antonio ... and next to them, there was a woman.

   The woman sat, or rather, she reclined across the sarcophagus next to Antonio, lounging and looking a little bored. She had almond shaped eyes, the muddy green colour of the Seine. Her long blonde hair fell heavily over her forehead, partially hiding her thinly painted eye-brows and cheek-bones that were almost too high for her tiny face.

  She too was quietly looking around the room. Her eyes dancing as they took in the various tombs, broken sarcophagi and crumbling bricks that littered the damp floor. She twisted her body, stretching, and then cocked her head to one side as if listening for something before she spoke.

   ‘Clotilde, je crois que vous avez fait tout le désordre, non?’ She smiled to herself, but as  the scented haze settled, only one set of eyes were locked with hers. The doppelgänger’s.

   Francesca started, covering her mouth in surprise. 

   The woman was addressing the doppelgänger. 

   Clotilde Suavegothe grimaced while absently wiping the blood from her chin. She stood up and brushed at the glimmering dust that had settled over her dress, sending it swirling, and sparking before her.

    ‘Geneviève,’ she said, with a small nod at the new arrival. ‘This is ... unexpected.’

    Geneviève pulled a thin and crooked alabastrine cigarette from her creamy bodice and placed it gently between her teeth, holding it there while searching about her person for something to light it with. Her eyes took in Clotilde, this artificial Francesca. She noted the slim nymph-like legs pressed through the tattered, stained skirts, and the raspberry knees that were bruised and cut like those of a common boy. Geneviève remarked upon the hazel and olive skin, shining with perspiration, and the glossy, tangled hair that lay matted and wet against impossibly smooth cheeks. Beautiful, she thought. In fact, even in this state, if not for the sneer that twisted in her direction, this doppelgänger could be remarkably attractive.

   Rudolpho obliged her with a matchstick that he expertly lit with a quick scrape across his brother’s scalp. 

    Smiling, she leant forward, the cigarette end silently burst a bright, cherry red. She inhaled deeply, the smoke racing up her nostrils, and then she exhaled, a violet cloud that hung heavily in the air between them. The vapour lingered there a moment, before it fell backward, spiralling around her figure, coalescing, giving the impression that she was only as solid as the smoke that enveloped her. 

   Turning back to Clotilde, Geneviève smirked. ‘Isn’t it though?’ Her accent was thick, masculine ... Parisienne. She glanced back at the startled faces of Antonio and Rudolpho. ‘Very unexpected.’  

                                                       ***

    Rudolpho shifted nervously. He was hopping from foot to foot, and doing his best to discreetly whisper a question from behind his moustaches. His efforts only succeeding in his being shushed by his impatient brother. 

   Francesca wasn’t as keen on this new arrival as much as the men seemed to be. She snorted at this new vixen, and wrinkled her nose whilst doing it. She took stock of the situation, while Geneviève expertly blew curls of violet smoke from between her crimson lips. 

  ‘Gaspard?’ Francesca whispered. ‘Mmm?’ He grunted, his expression was a little too dazed for her liking, and not in the usual “Oh look at me, I’m a boy pretending to be a man dazed.” But in a “Oh my, who is that?” Sort of dazed. Francesca fired an angry eyebrow at him and stomped his toe with the heel of her boot.

   ‘Ow!’

   Geneviève, her eye’s twinkling, smiled a little, but did not turn her head, instead she pointed her chin toward Clotilde. ‘So ...’ She flicked an ash from her cigarette into the air in front of her. ‘... are you so lonesome you need pets now?’  Clotilde narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘Pets? I have no pets.’

   ‘Oh no?’ Said Geneviève, ‘Then what is that?’ She stretched a long leg out and gestured with the toe of her shoe (a shiny mauve ballerina slipper, noted Francesca perhaps a little jealously) Clotilde turned her head. ‘I see nothing,’ she sneered. ‘There is nothing here ...’ 

                                             Something was there.

   It scurried over the glistening floor, disappearing beneath the hem of Clotilde’s skirts, causing her to grab at them in alarm. She jumped aside with an oath as it appeared at her side. It sat back on its haunches, and preened at its soft, furry, orange, and white fur. And then it inspected her with perfectly round, luminescent eyes.

   ‘Principessa!’ Exclaimed Francesca. Her hand rising to her mouth in surprise. Gaspard grabbed for her wrist, missing, as she suddenly stepped toward the tiny cat. Geneviève, however, stopped her with an arm that shot out like a viper.

   ‘No.’ She said.

   Francesca’s eyes popped from her head. How dare she ... how dare this ... she thought she might scream! She didn’t though, she coughed instead. The pungent smoke of Geneviève’s cheroot curled out from between the fingers of her outstretched arm and licked the bottom of her nose. 

    She sneezed.

   ‘Principe -’ She started again, but Geneviève turned an eye on her that flashed shades of green, ending on the angriest tint of jade Francesca had ever seen.

   ‘Shh!’ Geneviève hissed, turning back to Clotilde. ‘Clo?’ Her Parisienne accent thickened as she spoke, ‘I think you ought to leave, and leave the cat alone as well.’ She paused, and then added  ‘S'il vous plaît.’ Clotilde considered this for a moment before chuckling, and then laughed out loud. ‘I?’ She giggled, and then almost hiccupped with glee, ‘I will do as I choose!’ She was laughing now. ‘You know, I will do as I choose, and if I choose to touch this petite chat ...’ She stretched a finger toward the perfectly, pink nose of Principessa, punctuating each word with a pause. ‘Then - I  - shall!’ Her finger hovered. It sparked and glistened cerulean as it hung in front of the petite feline. Francesca’s eyes widened in horror, she tried to yell out, but couldn’t, her throat tightening at the prospect of her Principessa turning to ice.

   Clotilde watched them all. The two Italians stood stupidly, mouths agape, Gaspard, his sword in hand, and too far away to use it, and Francesca. Poor, lovely Francesca, unexpectedly well-behaved next to Geneviève, who appeared in the crypt, beckoned like an animal by the two idiot brothers ... and? She looked down at her feet. Her lips twitching. This cat with the bulbous, yellow eyes ... She had had enough. Her hand struck out and snatched at the neck of the orange cat, she held the struggling animal above her head as brilliant, blue sparks fired around her wrist. 

   Francesca couldn’t believe what she was seeing, she couldn’t believe no one had moved. Her throat went dry as she tried to yell out. ‘No, no, no’ She croaked, pushing at the arm of the French hussy. ‘Principessa!’

   The poor cat went rigid, the pink toes on her little paws blued and spasmed, the ivory claws snapped out from their sheathes, her fur stood on end, and her whiskers spun out into an icy web, clouding around the little feline’s face like a miniature bridal veil.

    Clotilde’s grin began slowly. A terrible tremble that grew from the centre of her lips, spreading quickly outward over her dusty cheeks, until it reached behind her dark curls and touched the bottom of her ears. She stared defiantly at Geneviève, and then threw her free hand up in a mocking wave at Francesca. ‘Francesca!’ She bubbled. Her hand waggling like a wet, puppy’s tail. ‘Why, look what I have here!’ She spun the rigid cat’s face toward her and touched her nose to the cat’s own. ‘Isn’t she just adorable? I’ve never seen such a well behaved cat before ...’ She paused then, propping her free hand beneath her chin, pretending to be lost in thought. ‘Didn’t you misplace her? I seem to think you did ... Well, all’s well that ends well, I don’t think she’ll become lost again!’ She howled with glee at her own joke. ‘Now, if we can just find ... what was that other cat’s name? Oliver? She looked about herself, and raised a boot up off the damp ground, pretending to peek under it. ‘Oliver? Ohhh, Oooliver, where are you? You know?’ She grinned. ‘If I can find him, we could make such nice bookends with these foul creatures, n’est-ce pas?’

   She suddenly spat at the earth, and it crackled to ice before hitting the ground like a misshaped diamond.

    Francesca felt it before she noticed anything. Geneviève was trembling beside her. Not the sort of trembling from the damp, she thought. Nor was it a trembling from the cold. In fact, she was the only one of them that didn’t seem affected by the cold. 

    She looked into Geneviève’s face and saw that her regular, slow breaths did not cloud into the cool air. Only the pungent, violet smoke from her cheroot made any impression on the dank atmosphere. Trembling. She noticed it again, and if she didn’t know any better she would have said that Geneviève had shivered as well. 

   But somehow she did know better. She knew that this painted ... she bit her lip, and swallowed the obscenity before it reentered her throat. Well, Uncle Antonio wouldn’t have conjured her unless he thought she might be a friend, and now that she thought on it, she knew she ought to know who she was. There. The tremor vibrated around Geneviève, and then it was gone just as quickly. But Francesca sensed it wasn’t gone, it was moving. It moved like a wave rolling up against a soft, sandy beach. She looked up at Geneviève’s eyes, but they hadn’t moved, they were frozen. Two muddied, unblinking emeralds that would not leave Clotilde’s face.

   The gentle vibrations spiraled around Geneviève, slowly undulating beneath the sarcophagus she was sitting upon. They found their way along the ground, and pirouetted like infinitesimal ballerinas beneath the earth and stones, quietly rolling toward Clotilde and Principessa.

    An almost imperceptible creeping of warmth began to flow out from the cat, a subtle warmth that was followed by tiny, white puffs of smoke that began to circle each follicle of the cat’s pudgy, peachy body. Clotilde opened and closed her mouth, pausing in mid-gloat. What is this? She frowned, tightening her grip on the cat’s rigid body, and began to smile again as icicles grew from her fingertips. She would skewer this cat like a Turkish kebab! And then, much to Clotilde’s astonishment, Principessa Pesca burst into flame. 

                                                             Fire. 

   The brightest of whites, followed by the heady scents of the hyacinth, quickly turning into a blazing, blinding tangerine. Principessa Peach’s round, yellow eyes glittered back to life. She stared at Clotilde, and the cat’s black irides narrowed into pointed, angry slits.

    Clotilde shrieked and threw the cat across the catacomb, waving her burnt hand in front her face. She thrust as many of her seared fingers as she could between her ruddy lips, and glared. 

   Peaches huffily turned away from her, and, with her tail held high, walked and then bounded into Francesca’s outstretched arms.

    ‘Oh Principessa,’ Francesca happily cooed. ‘Principessa Pesca, you are all right?’ She buried her face into the small cat’s soft, white belly and wept.

   ‘Tsk, Clotilde,’ said Geneviève. ‘You look like someone has snatched the buttered croissant from between your lips, and ...’ She paused looking over at the emotional Francesca. ‘They were not even your lips to begin with.’ She ran a pale hand over Principessa Pesca, and then brushed a finger against Francesca’s wet cheek. ‘There, there my dear,’ she smiled. Geneviève pushed Francesca’s dusky curls behind an ear. ‘Hush now.’ She turned her gaze back to Clotilde. ‘In fact,’ she said, taking a long pull from her cheroot, ‘I think your lips are pale raspberries compared to the original here.’

   Clotilde blinked in disbelief, opened her mouth, but all that bubbled out was a squawk. She swallowed twice, and then, unsurprisingly, she wailed like a banshee.

                                                         ***

    Gaspard had seen enough. He exchanged a look with Antonio, and saw the fat Italian signaling him with a surprisingly subtle hand gesture. Antonio then prodded Rudolpho with his elbow, making a less than discreet attempt at putting a plan into action. Life never does gets boring, he thought. What I’d give to retire to some quiet estate along the coast, or ... He closed his eyes, imagining, to soak away my twilight years, taking the waters at Évian ...’ 

    His reverie was interrupted as Gaspard jumped forward now, landing and skidding across the moldy ground at his side, his sword held aloft, and that reckless smile shining almost as brightly as his yellow hair. Rudolpho looked over at the boy, and couldn’t help but laugh from behind his luxuriant moustaches. ‘Ah, now we are having a fight, no?’ Antonio grimaced at the two of them, shaking his rapier free from its holster, and jostling for a little room. Geneviève pulled Francesca to her, and whispered into her ear. The young Italian’s eyes widened in surprise, but she nodded, and hopped up onto the sarcophagus, tucking Principessa Pesca safely away behind her.

   Clotilde took a step forward, each petite foot crossing over the next. She doesn’t look like me anymore, thought Francesca. She looks too ... she struggled for the word ... unnatural. Clotilde didn’t run this time, she took her time, each tiny footfall carefully placed, her toes slowly digging in among the loose stones and dirt. She watched them all huddled before her, like so much frightened cattle. She whipped her head about, the thick, dark strands of hair had begun to dry against her skin, and now they twisted free like serpents covering the scalp of Médousa. 

   ‘You think, you can come here Geneviève?’ She spat again. ‘And save the day?’ Clotilde grimaced at the woman, running her fingernails through the ancient letters etched into a stone sarcophagus of a long forgotten soul. Her gaze lingered upon the grey stones around her, before her eyes snapped upward. ‘You haven’t even the energy to conjure yourself!’ She purred now, enjoying the attention. ‘You rely ... on prayer, on magik! You’re at the beck and call of men.’ She jeered at Antonio, taking another step forward. 

   Geneviève turned away, disinterested. ‘I remain at the beck and call of no man Clotilde, I come when there is need. I do not decide this.’ She fixed her emerald eyes on her. ‘God does.’ 

   ‘God? God?!’ Barked Clotilde. ‘God didn’t save you from becoming a pile of old bones, now did he? He chose to put Napoleon upon the throne of Europe; and ...’ She gloated, her words echoing throughout the crypt. ‘He chose me to make sure he becomes Emperor of the world!’

    Geneviève smiled at the doppelgänger, and, ignoring her, pulled another cheroot from her bosom, and leant over to Rudolpho, who quickly produced another match. ‘Merci, Signore.’ She smiled. Rudopho felt his face burn, and Gaspard noticing his distress muttered into his ear ‘You Sir, look like a hairy beetroot.’ Which caused the normally nonplussed Antonio to chortle contentedly, but before Rudolpho could think of a retort, Geneviève spoke again, her accent sprinkling gravel over each word.

   ‘You are an abomination Clotilde, a plaything of this Napoleon.’ Geneviève paused to take another measured pull from her cheroot. ‘In fact,’ she exhaled a cloud into the air above her. ‘He is less a man than any of those here.’ She waved a hand over the men beside her. Gaspard exchanged a look with the two brothers, whispering. ‘Did she just insult us? Rudolpho shrugged, and Antonio hissed back. ‘Of course not, you ninny!’ Which seemed to amuse Rudolpho to no end.

   Francesca was, she decided, a lip person. She thought you could understand a lot from the curve, colour and shape of a person’s lips. Where other people usually noticed the eyes of the person they met, for her it was always the lips. She liked to see their texture, the moisture ... if they held little surprises, like tiny freckles. ‘They are,’ she mused, pursing her own lips. ‘They are not the windows to the soul, but the cupboard doors that sustain us, and it’s what we keep in those cupboards that can reveal so much.’ Her own lips were heart-shaped. They would be perfect kissing lips, though they were, as yet, untried kissing lips. Geneviève? Well, her lips, she noticed with some envy, were practically perfect lips. They curved just so, and they had a crease that ran from the slightly smaller top lip, that then flowed outward, down and up and over the lower lip. They were perhaps even better kissing lips than her own. She pouted. She was absolutely certain that those lips had the experience her own lacked. 

   Clotilde’s lips, on the other hand, should have been a perfect facsimile of her own. They weren’t though. They were ruined. Francesca decided there and then, that she would make an effort to be not quite so venomous when she was unhappy with others, because it could only be venom that had burnt away at the surface of her doppelgänger’s lips. Clotilde’s lips still had that lovely heart shapeliness, but the plump, red cherries she saw in herself were scabbed and bruised, bloodied and cracked. Clotilde was not keeping herself well, she thought.

   Clotilde sensed what Francesca was thinking about, and raised her hand, tugging at her lower lip, and twisted it between her fingers. 

   A bright, red drop of blood suddenly escaped. A little bead of claret, that ran over her fingers. ‘Enough of this ineptitude,’ she murmured. ‘I have had enough of you all.’

   The noises from the group’s collective mumbles and movements ceased. They all faced her anew. 

   Clotilde bent to the ground and grabbed handfuls of cool, wet earth. The soil fell between her fingers into little piles in front of her feet. She pressed her fingers into the clay and twisted them around and around, burying them in the ancient dirt. ‘Francesca dear?’ She looked up at her twin, revealing her tiny white teeth as she smiled. ‘It is time for us to go.’ Francesca tried to squeeze herself into the tiniest, most inconspicuous ball she could, and if it were not for Principessa Pesca popping out from behind her, she might have succeeded. Gaspard and Rudolpho both stepped forward from the gloom, interrupting each other with protestations at this announcement. 

   Geneviève stretched out a slender leg, blocking the two men, and lightly hopped off the sarcophagus in front of them. ‘She is not going anywhere Clotilde.’ Clotilde grinned, and startled them, as she jumped up from the ground, and danced a little pirouette in the air, that sent her skirts billowing out like the petals of a daisy. ‘Of course she is Geneviève.’ She said with a smirk. ‘Aren’t you Francesca dear? We’re going to have so much fun together ...  you’ll see.’ 

   Francesca quickly placed Principessa Pesca down onto the ground and shushed her safely away. She then turned to face her doppelgänger, her hands placed firmly upon her hips. ‘You are mistaken!’ How odd it was to be speaking to herself! ‘I have no intention of going anywhere with you Mademoiselle.’ She looked at her uncles who smiled encouragingly. ‘I am staying right here with my family.’ She glanced at her uncles with a grin, and then at the far too lovely Geneviève ... and then at Gaspard too. 

   ‘My friends ...’ Clotilde immediately mimicked her. ‘Ooh! Francesca, ha ha, little Francesca! Such fire you have, why, we will be fire and ice, we will!’ Her eyes sparkled at her own cleverness. ‘Yes, how perfectly divine, don’t you think?’ She took another step forward, and the men all raised their swords as one, defying her to come further. Geneviève crushed her cheroot out beneath her slippered foot. ‘Oh please Clotilde, you can’t win this battle, you are outnumbered, and ...’ She gestured around her. ‘Out of place.’ Rudolpho leant in front of Gaspard and whispered into Geneviève’s ear. ‘Shall I skewer her for you Madame?’ Gaspard pushed him aside irritatedly with a grunt. ‘No Rudolpho I shall.’ ‘Stop!’ Ordered Geneviève. ‘Not a person need bleed here today.’ She directed her attention back to the doppelgänger. ‘Clotilde I won’t ask again. 

   ‘Leave us be.’

   Clotilde dug the toe of her boot among the tiny, loose stones, and rotated a little. ‘Oh well,’ she began dejectedly. ‘Yes, perhaps you are correct, what with all your strong men to protect you ...’ She suddenly threw her head back, and howled with glee. ‘Y-you ...’ She spluttered, and started laughing again. ‘Oh my!’ She was laughing so hard, tears ran down her dusty cheeks, leaving little shining trails that raced down through the filth and dirt on her slender neck.

   Without warning she ran at them.

    Rudolpho and Gaspard both jumped forward, blades held out. Antonio was startled for a only a second before he too joined in, his sword held protectively in front of Francesca, but Clotilde seemed to dissolve as she came at them in the darkness. Her skin burnt blue, then turquoise, sparks brightly radiating from her pores as she gathered speed. Rudolpho suddenly broke rank, and ran at her. ‘Uncle no!’ Screamed Francesca, too late, they clashed! He bore down on Clotilde, his rapier a thin, barely visible slash in the air, she laughed out loud, easily out-manoeuvring him, and melting into the shadows as he swung confusedly this way and that. 

   Her hand suddenly lashed out, holding the silver blade of the rapier fast. She gripped the blade, and stared hard at Rudolpho as blood trickled from between her fingers. ‘Allora, Signore?’ She breathed into his surprised face. ‘How would you like to die?’ Before he even opened his mouth, however, Gaspard and Antonio came crashing through the darkness, forcing Clotilde to back away from them. She sneered, her breath escaping her lips in ever denser glacial clouds as she paced back and forth in front of the three men like a wild animal. 

   Geneviève strode forward, and tapped Antonio and Gaspard upon their shoulders, nimbly squeezing between them. ‘Quit us Clotilde, this fray is ended. Francesca is to remain here.’ Her eyes found Francesca’s, and she smiled at her. ‘We will not tolerate you upon this sacred ground.’ Clotilde’s eyes hardened. ‘You ... will not tolerate me?’ ‘Look at your hand Clotilde, you bleed. You bleed from the injury a man has wrought.’ Clotilde did look now, this was blood, real blood ... her blood. ‘But how?’ She started. ‘How is this possible?’ ‘It is possible, Clotilde, because your are here.’ She looked pointedly about her. ‘Here beneath my church, at the foot of my crypt. I swear you will now die a mortal death, and, you will not be able to kill with your hyperboreal soul.’ 

   Geneviève let Clotilde reflect on these words before she started again, her gaze now including Gaspard, Antonio and Rudolpho. ‘You are also ...’ She directed an ivory finger at the three men. ‘Sorely outnumbered. So I entreat you once more, Clotilde to ... GO!’ She yelled, shocking everyone, and with such ferocity, that Francesca jumped and Principessa Pesca dashed away into the shadows.

   Clotilde inspected the cut on her hand with care, and then spoke. She spoke slowly, quietly, deliberately. ‘How,’ she began, looking this way and that, as if searching for something. ‘How many men do you think I would need to defeat you? Hmm? Geneviève? Her face flushed a little, her olive pallor became decorated with dots of colour as her pacing quickened, each step leaving a faint icy imprint that shimmered behind her. A delicate blue haze began to rise from the ground. ‘Do you think I need one man to win?’ She looked directly at each of them. ‘Do you think I would need two? Three? Do you think I am too ...’ Her voiced lowered threateningly. ‘... weak to defeat you all by myself?’ 

    The fog coalesced around her faster and faster, whipping up the dirt and debris from the floor in their direction. Gaspard ducked as a stone flew past his ear. Geneviève spread her arms protectively in front of them all, and suddenly clapped her hands together. A gust of warm air rushed around, protecting them from the onslaught of flying rubble. 

   The fog, however, rose higher still, thickening and spinning like a tornado that filled the underground crypt. Lightning blazed within it, mirroring the electrical storm outside the cathedral walls, and it shot outward, jagged, around and around Clotilde. Her dark curls twisted like August thunder clouds. ‘Do you think I need help Geneviève?!’ She screamed now. ‘How many men does it take to defeat the great Geneviève of Paris?!’ Her smile turned ugly, and the elements suddenly silenced, as if they too wanted to hear what she had to say next. ‘I think perhaps ... six? Yes, six should do it.’ Said Clotilde.

   ‘Oh!’ Francesca gasped in horror. The wind rose higher and higher, and from within this icy storm came the clatter of hooves, the crypt was suddenly filled with men, men on horseback! They were soldiers! Soldiers Franceca recognised! There was ... Davide? ‘Oh God,’ she breathed. ‘Oh my God. No, no, no!’ Her eyes shone as she tried to squeeze back tears. ‘Michael!’ It was Sergent Michael Condé and his colleagues of the Eighth Division.

   One by one the horsemen stepped from the crackling, electric haze. Broken, bent, bloodied. The spectral riders formed around Clotilde, swords and pistols at the ready. She had conjured her own personal guard.

   Clotilde grinned at the stunned expressions in front of her. ‘What say you sister?’ She leered at Geneviève. ‘What say we ruin this hallowed ground of yours with the blood of your friends?’ Geneviève froze, unsure of herself for the first time that day. The wicked cyclone still threw debris all around them, lightning still drilled blackened holes into the ancient walls and now ... now she was certain she wouldn’t be able to defeat her, not with all these cadaverous soldiers under her spell. She cast about searching for a plan, any plan! 

    ‘Gaspard!’ She grabbed the youth by his collar and pulled him closer. ‘Gaspard I need you to get help.’ He blinked at her, not comprehending. ‘Help? What? How? Who? Where?’ He stammered, looking  frantically about. ‘I need you to get help from Leo Tigullio.’ She said. 

    He couldn’t believe his ears. Geneviève, still clutching at Gaspard’s tunic, then yelled over his shoulder. ‘Antonio! Throw down that rapier and bring me your cane, quickly!’ He wasn’t sure he heard her correctly above the constant crashing of thunder and exploding rubble. ‘The ... cane?’ He yelled back at her. ‘The cane? I ...’ ‘Yes!’ She interrupted, hurriedly pushing at him. ‘The cane, where is it?!’ Antonio turned, desperately looking around, and then fell to his hands and knees scrabbling along the damp floor. ‘Rudolpho!’ He shouted behind him. ‘Help me find the cane! Where is my cane?!’ The lanky Italian threw himself next to his brother, crawling, and ducking as more debris whizzed by overhead. ‘And you!’ Geneviève turned back to Gaspard, looking irritated that he hadn’t moved, though he could hardly have moved as she still held him fast. ‘Where is the other cat?!’ ‘What?!’ Gaspard was a little puzzled at this question. ‘I want you to ...’ Gaspard couldn’t hear the rest of her sentence, her face nearly touched his, the scent of tobacco flower and perfume dripped from her lips. He felt dizzy. 

    Francesca suddenly appeared between them, inserting her body so that Geneviève was forced to let go of Gaspard.  ‘Just what do you think you’re doing?’ Her words trailed off as an icy-cold bolt of lightning shot past her ear, sending her hair flying wildly around as the air was consumed with electricity.

    Francesca looked up in shock, Sergent Condé and his soldiers had kicked their horses into action, swords held menacingly low as they charged at them. The phantom horses reared upward, their hooves showering sparks as they jumped over the smooth, marble tomb stones. Francesca surprised Gaspard, and before he could stop her, she grabbed for his rapier and ran forward, stabbing at the first rider. The sword cut, she felt it slip inside the horse’s flank, its nostrils flared angrily, and the horse screamed an unearthly scream, its mouth displaying great yellow teeth that hovered just inches from her face. Francesca fell backward, narrowly avoiding the horse as it snapped its jaws shut in front of her nose. A second soldier spun his horse round and raised his steed’s hooves up to crush Francesca, but Gaspard would not let that happen. 

    In an instant he was off, jumping and hopping across the sarcophagi, as nimbly as if they were the crooked rooftops of Paris. He sprang through the air and pulled Francesca away before the heavy, iron hooves could crush her. They rolled out of the way just in time to see Sergent Condé dismount. Francesca looked over Gaspard’s shoulder and made eye contact with Condé, she thought she saw, just for a moment, a glimmer of life, of recognition ... and a sadness, but then it was gone, as if his soul had been snuffed out like a candle. Sergent Condé pulled his pistol free from his belt and took aim at them.

    He fired. A loud Bang! was added to the already deafening din of the storm, and then Gaspard was ripped away from Francesca as the bullet hit him. She turned toward Gaspard screaming his name. 

    Condé fired a second time. A second Bang! The noise echoed inside the crypt. This time the shot missed, and now Geneviève was there at her side. She lifted Francesca with an effortlessness that belied her size, and dashed for safety from the crushing horses and Condé’s pistol fire. 

     As soon as the horses had started their charge, Rudolpho abandoned the search for the cane, leaving Antonio to find it himself. This was an opportunity for honour! This was an attack! This was a battle! He jumped into the fray wildly stabbing, yelling and punching. 

    The surprised soldiers fell from their steeds like rocks. A bang and a scream caught his attention, and he saw Gaspard hit the ground. Rudolpho didn’t hesitate a second, clobbering the nearest soldier over the head with a great fist, he leapfrogged over the backs of horses like hurdles to get to his comrade. He grabbed at Gaspard’s tunic with one hand and carried him like a carpet bag through the crypt, dodging debris and depositing him behind a blackened column. He knelt over Gaspard, his long, dark curls falling forward like curtains as he tugged at the young man’s shirt looking for a wound. Rudolpho frowned, he found none. He proceeded to tug at Gaspard’s eyelids instead. ‘Gaspard?! Do you live?’ He worriedly slapped the young thief on the cheek. ‘Gaspard?!’ He slapped harder, and harder still. The young man opened his eyes. ‘Wha-?’ He recoiled in such surprise at being in such close proximity to the great black moustaches of Rudolpho that he smacked his head against the back of the column. ‘Ow!’ Rudolpho breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Ahh, but you are all right! I thought the pistol did find you, no? Am I wrong?’ He chuckled and resumed his tugging at Gaspard’s clothes. ‘Rudolpho! Stop it! You’re ...’ He started to laugh despite himself. ‘You’re, ha ha, tickling me ha ...’ 

    Gaspard pushed Rudolpho away, ‘ouch!’ Rudolpho pressed a finger against Gaspard’s shoulder and found a bruise there. ‘I think,’ said Rudolpho. ‘I think I have the answer to this most misterioso question.’ He plucked an elegant worn wallet with the initials A.T. from the front of Gaspard’s many pocketed tunic, and turned it over. A handful of change and a bullet fell to the ground. ‘Ah.’ said Gaspard, a little sheepishly, the wallet was clearly Antonio’s, and it had saved his life.

                                                          ***

    Antonio’s knees hurt, his palms hurt, even his head hurt! He wanted to sigh, but he was too stressed for a leisurely suspire. The battle made so much noise! ‘How undignified to be scampering around on my hands and knees like a puppy in a coffee shop!’ He huffed, shifting another slab of marble that had just been displaced by a bolt of violet lightning that flew from Clotilde’s fingertips. ‘The witch ...’ He muttered, and then stopped. 

   ‘There!’ He saw the pink quartz glimmering a few feet in front of him. He half ran and half crawled toward it - it was the top of his cane! 

    It was partly covered by the fractured lid of a pale, blue sarcophagus. Antonio pushed his glasses further up his nose and looked around eagerly, hopefully Rudolpho was nearby to assist ..? No. He had just leapt at a soldier, and disappeared into the diabolical hurricane. Antonio turned his attention back to the cane and grabbed at its end and started to tug. ‘Oof!’ He grunted, slipping and falling backward onto his capacious bottom. He glanced about embarrassedly hoping no one had seen, and then decided to try to shift the sarcophagus lid instead. He ran at it and gave it a great kick and then howled in pain. ‘Cursed, poxie ..!’ He swore hopping up and down, and then slipped again, this time on the damp ground, and backward into the blue marble lid ... and it moved! 

    Antonio quickly took advantage of his good fortune and heaved against it. It slid along the debris covered floor! He pushed again, and again, and then yelped with joy as it crashed to the floor. His cane was left free for the taking! He snatched it up and turned back toward the battle... where had Geneviève gone, he wondered. ‘Ah, Signore.’ A voice breathed at his elbow, a familiar voice. ‘Would you mind very much handing that delightful construction of yours over to me?’ He jumped, and instantly regretted it, falling onto his wounded foot. ‘Ouch! Francesca?’ He gasped - it was Clotilde!

    Antonio hastily stumbled backward, crashing against the side of yet another sarcophagus. ‘Stay back doppelgänger!’ He brandished the cane with both hands in front of him. ‘Stay back, or I’ll ...’ ‘You’ll what?’ Clotilde skipped, and hopped lightly atop a nearby tomb stone as if she were playing in the hay on a summer’s day. ‘What will you do, Signore? Bash me?’ She smiled at him, her eyes reflecting the electricity in the air. It was uncanny how much alike she was to his niece. He flinched as a thunder-strike suddenly exploded over his head, and he took advantage of the bright flash to carefully pick his way around the sarcophagus and away from Clotilde. Bashing her would probably be a good idea, he thought. He glared at her over the top of his spectacles, deciding what he should do next, when he was suddenly surprised by the sudden appearance of a thousand complicated perfumes. ‘Antonio?’ He jumped again, this time cracking his knee against the hard marble. ‘Damnation!’

                                Geneviève had appeared behind him. 

   ‘I see you found the cane,’ she smiled. ‘May I?’ She held her hand out, as three, bright bolts of electricity illuminated the air. ‘Non, non, non!’ Clotilde sprang from her perch, and landed across from them. ‘Geneviève, vous savez ... you know I found it first!’ She was in a petulant mood thought Antonio, and I am between two potentially very dangerous women. ‘I ...’ He began, looking up at Geneviève, but found himself distracted by her eyes instead. Those eyes are incredible, he thought, so mossy, a perfect chartreuse ... he stopped himself, and held the cane up. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course, here you are.’ Much to Clotilde’s disgust, he offered up his brass and silver creation to Geneviève, and then backed quickly away. Clotilde’s lips curled into a perfect sneer, and she spat at his feet, a sputum that turned to ice, ricocheting off his boot.

    ‘Step away Antonio.’ Geneviève led him by the elbow. ‘Go attend to your friends, they need you, and only I can banish this creature.’ Antonio hesitated only a moment before he nodded, pulling free his rapier, he turned around and ran to join the fray. That is, he thought, if Rudolpho has left me anyone to do battle with!

    Clotilde placed her hands on her hips, and looked like she was about to say something. Frowning, she kicked at the ground instead, her eyes fixed on Antonio’s cane. She carefully picked her way around a greying sarcophagus, her mouth twisting into an expression of deep concentration, until she abruptly stopped, hopping atop a conveniently crooked tombstone. Sitting down, she began to cross and uncross her feet at the ankle. ‘Alors, ma soeur,’ she said plucking at the skirts of her dress. ‘What have you in mind? A fight? I promise you -’ She raised her eyes and looked at Geneviève through those thick, dark eyelashes that flattered Francesca so well. ‘I promise I will break you like a mirror.’

    Geneviève pressed her lips together so that they became a disapproving, thin, raspberry slash. ‘Oh, ma soeur ...’ Now it was her turn to mimic. ‘I don’t think so. You know as well as I that you have no power to kill me alone, and ...’ She gestured at the battle that resembled an angry monsoon behind her. ‘Your soldiers seem to have their hands full, n’est-ce pas?’ She propped the cane against her thigh and plucked a cheroot, as if from behind her ear, and held it toward Clotilde between her long, alabaster fingers. ‘Ah, s'il vous plaît, but would you mind?’ Clotilde snorted as a bolt of lightning suddenly shot through the air, igniting the roll of tobacco. Geneviève closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, the smoke curling up her nose. ‘Merci bien de votre assistance,’ she said exhaling the violet vapour. ‘Je vous en prie.’ Clotilde sniffed, and then, glancing at her soldiers with a look of disgust, she muttered under her breath. ‘Well, what did you expect? They were already dead to begin with.’

    If there was ever an argument in favour of the evils of smoking, encouraging pleasant idleness must be a the top of that list, because being distracted by the tobacco leaf’s charms was Geneviève’s one great flaw, and being French was no excuse. She was just about a three-quarter’s way between a deeply divine inhale, and an equally divine exhale when it happened.

    Clotilde had been waiting and watching for a moment, the moment where the tobacco smoke sailed up over Geneviève’s lip, split into two diaphanous streams around her septum, and shot straight up her nostrils to her brain, leaving her momentarily befuddled under the tobacco’s spell.

   Clotilde roared out and galloped like an antelope with its tail aflame, her skirts held high, and her bruised knees almost reaching her chin as she sprinted for the cane resting at Geneviève’s side! 

   She almost caught Geneviève unawares ... almost. Geneviève choked, coughing out a cloud of lavender smoke when she saw the daemonic doppelgänger speeding at her. She snatched at the cane at the same moment Clotilde’s fingers wrapped around it, and was instantly pulled to the ground, both spirits tumbling over each other as they skidded across the sodden soil of the crypt. ‘Give it to me!’ Clotilde panted. ‘I will not let you ...’ Geneviève retorted through gritted teeth, pulling hard at the cane, and only succeeding in dragging Clotilde over a particularly greenish, and mouldy tombstone that lay embedded in the dirt.

   Clotilde dug her feet into the earth, and plucked an egg sized piece of broken marble from the ground and flung it at Geneviève, hitting her full on the chin. Geneviève saw a tiny explosion of stars and her head snapped back, her eyes instantly tearing at the shock and the pain, and ... 

                                                    she let go.

   Clotilde laughed out loud, rolled to her feet and gave a whoop of triumph that reverberated throughout the crypt. She shrieked in triumph, a scream that momentarily drowned out the maelstrom and the pandaemonium of the storm and battle. Sergent Condé squinted into the storm, and spotted Clotilde and Geneviève, just as a sudden flash of lightning illuminated the catacomb. He fired his pistol in their direction. ‘Hey! Careful, Monsieur Condé! Shouted Clotilde, skipping and twirling the staff above her head. ‘This one is mine!’ She spun the cane in front of her and struck out at Geneviève, hitting her twice more across the head and face. ‘Hahaha, what a delight it is to play with you, ma petite soeur!’ She whacked Geneviève again, giggling at the spectacle she wrought. Geneviève rolled over, trying to lose herself in the darkness, but Clotilde kept after her, swinging this way and that, the lightning flashing brighter and brighter, with each, violent strike. Clotilde scampered atop a shining sarcophagus, happily prancing and singing to herself. ‘Ring a Ring O’ Roses ...‘ She abruptly stopped herself, smiling down at Geneviève. ‘Do you know this chanson, sister? Oh, I adore it!’ She poked Geneviève with the hard end of the cane. ‘Come now, don’t cry, sing it with me, A pocketful of posies, Atishoo! Atishoo! We -’ She poked Geneviève again. ‘I said sing ... We -’ She hopped down, staring hard at Geneviève, this was too easy, surely. ‘All -’ She studied Geneviève, had she knocked her out? She wasn’t moving, ‘Fall - Tsk.’ She kicked at Geneviève, and pouted, ‘Down.’

    Clotilde raised a hand and yawned into it. ‘Oh my,’ she breathed, staring up into the air. ‘I really must be going.’ She looked into the heart of the storm, trying to see who was left standing as another crash of thunder shook the basement crypt. ‘Francesca?!’ She called out into the lightening in her high, sing-song voice. ‘Francesca, where are you?’ She jumped excitedly, thinking she spied her, but then saw it was only the shadow of a lone horse trotting through the rolling mist. Clotilde raised herself up onto tip-toes and shouted again, ‘Francesca?! It is time for us to leave, my dear!’ 

   Clotilde suddenly gasped in surprise as she found herself knocked off her feet. Geneviève had not been unconscious, she had been waiting until the doppelgänger came just near enough, and then she kicked out with her legs, and smiled as Clotilde tumbled backward in shock, the cane bouncing and clattering away. 

    Clotilde sat up. Enraged pink spots appearing upon her cheeks, as the tempest boiled up angrily around her. ‘Geneviève, je ne suis pas très heureux, you know? Not happy.’ She lent back, her palms sliding along the cool, wet floor, and she stared up at the ancient ceiling, letting the rain fall over her face. ‘Francesca!’ She yelled.

   ‘Oh!’ Clotilde couldn’t believe her eyes. There she was! Francesca, but she wasn’t alone, that blonde rascal Gaspard was there too, both of them standing just a few paces behind her. How extraordinarily lucky, she smiled, and then Clotilde hissed. Francesca was holding the cane. She watched, alarmed as her twin dashed away with the cane, offering it back to Geneviève. ‘Why is this so important?’ Francesca asked, staring worriedly at Clotilde, as Geneviève gratefully accepted it, pulling herself up from the ground. 

   ‘It is really quite simple Francesca dear,’ said Geneviève, her eyes locked on Clotilde. ‘What is used to conjure one spirit can be used to banish another, isn’t that so Clotilde?’ The doppelgänger looked away in disgust. ‘You think you are so clever Geneviève? You are here to protect this girl? Her friends?’

   Francesca exchanged a look with Geneviève. ‘What was she getting at?’ She wondered. 

   Gaspard snapped her out of her reverie as he suddenly swore. She followed his gaze, and she almost swore too, for it would be very unladylike behaviour if she swore. A very angry looking Rudolpho and Antonio were pushed into view by Sergent Condé, a pistol trained on her two, beloved uncles. 

   Clotilde smiled a sickly, sweet smile, lying back against the cool ground, and closing her eyes to the storm as it boiled around them. ‘Well, dear sister,’ She happily purred. ‘What say you now?’ She laughed, and then she looked from the two uncles, and back to Francesca, ‘check and mate?’

   Geneviève shoulders slumped, a cheroot appeared between her fingers, but she snapped it in two, no longer in the mood to smoke. ‘I am sorry,’ she said to Francesca. ‘I have failed you.’ ‘No, no, no you haven’t.’ Francesca began, looking worriedly at her uncles. ‘Surely you can ...’ Her words trailed off. Geneviève was right, what could she do? Her uncle’s lives were too important, and she would not, and she could not risk losing them.

   Francesca took a deep breath, and turned toward Geneviève. She would protect them, she would protect all of them, and if protecting them meant she must go with Clotilde, then that is what she would do. 

   Geneviève studied Francesca, and understood the girl’s decision. She smiled at her sadly, and, before handing her the cane, she pulled her into a close embrace and whispered into her ear. ‘We will come for you, I promise you this.’ Francesca blinked away a tear, and with the cane in hand, turned toward Clotilde. ‘I am ready,’ she said, simply. 

   Gaspard couldn’t believe his eyes, what the Hell was she doing?! Antonio and Rudolpho too, were aghast, ‘Francesca! No!’ They cried, but Clotilde, still lounging on the ground, silenced them with a look. ‘Good girl, Francesca.’ She held out her hand, accepting the cane. ‘I’ve been waiting a long time for us to have this chance to play.’ She slowly got to her feet, brushing herself off, and the two girls, Francesca and Clotilde stood there facing one another, like the twisted reflections of night and day. ‘Come.’ She said with a giggle, ‘let us play!’ She slammed the cane into the ground and then ... 

                                       There was an incredible silence.

   The two girls had gone. Sergent Condé had gone. The storm within and without St-Etienne-du-Mont had gone, and Rudolpho and Antonio both cried out in anguish at the loss of their niece, as the bell tower high above them chimed out over Paris.