The Light Within (Shadow and Light Duology #2)

30. Julien

thirty

Julien

F rom the fountain on the lawn, Julien stared up at his father’s manor house, its darkened windows the hollow eyes in the face of a cold, unfeeling giant. The stone walls, once grand, now seemed to sag under the weight of decades of silence and gloom. There was no warmth in this place, no light or laughter had ever graced its halls. Julien’s only comfort was that, in a couple of hours from now, this would all be over. This would be the last time he’d ever set foot in this house, the place haunted by countless ghastly memories from his childhood and beyond.

The sky had deepened into a bruised purple, the last traces of daylight fading. Upon arriving at the airport, Julien discovered that there were no seats available on any flights to Paris that day. Consequently, he flew to Brussels and then transferred. It really wasn’t his day, as both seats ended up being economy. In hindsight, Julien should have driven the awful rental car all the way back, but he’d left it behind in case the others needed it. He really was a saint, truly.

Before he could unlock the heavy door, one of the cleaning staff opened it, cloth in hand. “I saw you from the window,” they said cheerily. “Mr Montaigne is in the drawing room.”

The woman disappeared, leaving Julien to navigate through the corridors alone. He found his father and Carrie on lounge chairs near the lit fire. Carrie’s hand flew to her mouth as she stifled a gasp, jerking slightly in her chair. Her husband twisted his head, composing himself much more swiftly .

“Julien,” Carrie said. “This is a… surprise.” Then, with a glance at his father, she stood up, exiting towards the dining room.

After tentative, slow steps, Julien took her place opposite his father. The man appraised him in his standard way, eyes roving up and down before settling on Julien’s scarf that he was loosening. “That scarf of yours is rather peculiar. Am I really to believe that this is in vogue, presently?”

Julien flashed him a wide smile. “Perhaps if you’d step out of your comfort zone, you’d discover there’s a world of fashion out there, besides stiff suits.”

The air grew heavy with an unspoken tension as they engaged in a silent battle of wills.

It was his opponent who relented first. “I presume you’re not here to debate our sartorial preferences, are you now?”

“No,” Julien said softly, his voice steady as he assumed a mask of impassive calm. You’ve got this. “I’ve been considering your offer—the one from before Christmas.” He braced himself. Would his father really accept this direct conversational approach, bypassing any mention of hotel break-ins or car chases through quiet French villages?

“Go on,” his father replied, his eyes betraying a deep calculation behind their lined facade.

“I’ve thought about it, and you were right. We are all each other has left, and that does count for something.” The words sickened him to his core. “Plus, our interests and ambitions do align. I desire nothing more than to progress further at MEET, if the offer from Jonathan Steele is still on the table. Senior Executive, correct?”

Julien waited. His father nodded, idly swirling his whiskey glass.

“Jonathan knows the scope of my talents. He knows I can go all the way. Between the three of us, we can do great things. Keep improving the world, just like you said.” Julien was rambling now. Laying it on too thick. He clamped his mouth shut .

His father inhaled the scent of his drink before taking a large sip, rolling the liquid around his tongue before swallowing. “You may recall, during our conversation at that… quaint café, I inquired about the possibility of Cinnamon Saunders assisting with a matter.” His gaze pierced Julien like a knife.

“If I’m going to join you, I need to know exactly what I’m getting into first. I need all the information. Then I can decide if it’s appropriate for Cinn to assist us or not.”

His father’s effort to hide the slight narrowing of his eyes was nearly undetectable. “Certainly,” he replied smoothly. “As I mentioned, I’m confident this partnership will serve everyone’s best interests.”

“Alright then. I’m flying home tomorrow morning, so I want to see it all this evening. Learn everything there is to know about this project of yours.”

His father’s jaw twitched. Had Julien taken it too far with his demands?

“Well then, I’ll see what I can arrange. Feel free to help yourself to a drink.” Nodding at the cabinet, he left the room, presumably to make a phone call from his study. Julien did not take his father up on the offer of alcohol, as tempting as that was. This plan required the clearest head possible.

His father returned, marching straight back through the archway. He ran his hand over his salt and pepper beard. “Arrangements have been made. We can depart immediately.”

Julien’s heart rate rocketed. Was this all going to be that easy? Surely not. Calculating his next response carefully, lest he reveal any cards, he asked, “What? To where? Do you not have copies of the paperwork here?”

His father’s eyes lit up in that way they did when he delighted in having the upper hand.

Ha. He’d bought it.

“For this, it’ll be easier if I show you,” he declared.

The Machina Tenebris was evidently something he enjoyed showing off: one of his father’s many shiny toys.

His father collected his coat, then led the way to his garage. His driver had his feet up on the desk, newspaper open. Upon hearing their footsteps, he jumped up with a start, his face flushing with embarrassment. “Has there been a change of plan, sir? I thought we were done for the day. Where are we going?”

“Père Lachaise.”

The driver wasn’t surprised, but Julien was. Why on earth was his father taking him to the cemetery where his mother and sister were buried? But he kept quiet, slipping into the back of the car.

The drive was over half an hour of intense silence, against the backdrop of classical piano playing on the stereo. More than enough time for Julien to second-guess, third-guess, fourth-guess this ludicrous plan.

But it’s working!

Is it, though? Is it really?

When it came down to it, Julien was banking on his father being egotistical enough to believe that, of course, his son had come to his senses and seen that partnering up with him was the logical thing to do.

They arrived at the cemetery, the car dropping them off before speeding away to park elsewhere.

Julien studied the enclosed perimeter of the cemetery, with its high walls and metal gate. When he’d dragged everyone here to dig up Béatrice’s rib, they’d blasted the lock on the front gate. Now, he half expected his father to march up to it with a key. Instead, they walked on to where the tall stone wall descended into a line of bushes lining the pavement. With one glance around him, his father pulled a branch to one side. “After you.”

Julien dove through the bush, battling the prickly branches that snagged in his hair. Through the darkness, a small hole in the brick wall revealed itself. He had to crouch down so low that it wasn’t clear how his aged father was going to pass through it, but by the time he’d turned around, there he was.

The man brushed down his suit, glaring at a loose thread now present on his overcoat. “I seldom make this journey myself.” His father sounded rather put out by the trouble.

“I can see why.” Julien surveyed the rows of grave markers. “This… wasn’t where I expected to find myself this evening.”

“There are at least three access points to where we’re going. This cemetery is but one of them. It is the most suitable for us on this occasion, however.” His father chose a winding path. “It’s not too far.”

Although Julien didn’t have the map of this place memorised, he had been here enough times to know they were heading towards his mother’s and sister’s resting places. They’d entered through a western edge, and so first passed Oscar Wilde’s grave, with its modernist tomb and sizeable angel. When his mother died, Julien had been too young to grasp the vanity of his father securing plots in this exclusive cemetery. Now, he could laugh at the pretentiousness.

Cloaked in a twilight hush, they walked on through the pathways lined with weathered tombstones and creeping ivy. Shadows danced among the elaborate mausoleums and ornate graves. The whole place felt more solemn than last time, as if the graveyard knew the weight that rested on the visit that night.

They reached Division Twelve, and the spot where Béatrice’s gravestone lay next to his mother’s smaller one. Julien had never visited either grave with his father, and this was certainly an odd time to do so. For a while, the pair stood there, in cool, still air, accompanied only by the faint scent of damp earth mingling with that of the flowers that littered many of the graves.

“I know that we’re not here to see Mère and Béatrice. I can only guess you built an ‘access point’ here, so that if you were seen, it would be viewed as though you were visiting her.” Julien delivered the statements in a monotone.

“You’re as perceptive as ever.”

Gazing at the pair of headstones, he prepared for his father to have built some sort of contraption into his mother’s grave—it could slide to one side to reveal a staircase or something. Then his father turned away, taking brisk strides to continue on the path.

The graves were a detour, not the destination.

After many more minutes of traversing the cemetery’s extensive pathways, they reached the entrance to the cemetery’s columbarium. Julien paused. Taller than the sea of graves, the building’s imposing stone facade loomed like a sentinel above them. Shadows from the overhanging trees draped the structure in an eerie gloom, and its arched windows were dark, obscuring the cremated remains that were housed within.

“Seems like a fun place to hang out,” murmured Julien.

From his pocket, his father pulled out an unlocking bar, not dissimilar to the one Malik had used yesterday to access the corner shop’s basement. Thankfully, Julien was visiting a much more highbrow establishment this evening, swapping boxes of biscuits for rows of urns resting in the stone walls.

His father approached one of the columbarium’s niches, seemingly indistinguishable from the others. With a swift motion, he pressed a hidden latch behind the urn, causing a section of the wall to shift. The stone slid aside with a muted rumble, revealing a narrow staircase spiralling down into darkness.

This is more like it.

“This way,” his father said quietly, as the passage to the underground chamber opened before them.

Impressive. Julien restrained his excitement to ask, “What is this?”

His father glanced back at him with a glimmer of satisfaction. “This, my son, is a true Parisian secret,” he replied as they began their descent. What little light they had vanished. His father bent down for a moment, fumbling around in the dark until he found a disk-like object. He tapped it, activating the lumenmotes and providing a modest amount of light.

Julien almost offered to amplify the light, or even to produce the light balls he was fond of making—he had a lighter in his pocket—then caught himself. His father didn’t know he was channelling again.

The stone steps were narrow and worn, spiralling down infinitely. His father’s voice filled the cool, musty air. “The catacombs beneath this city are vast, a labyrinth connecting countless underground chambers. But after the World War Two bombings, it was assumed that the passages to this particular area were destroyed. That assumption has allowed us to operate something here, undisturbed, and away from any prying eyes at Auri.”

Julien’s breath caught in his throat. This unexpected turn of events was as twisty as the staircase they were walking down. As they descended deeper, the walls seemed to close in, and the echoes of their footsteps grew fainter. The pace they’d set had turned almost into a death march to hell. However, turning back was becoming a less and less likely possibility.

Deeper and deeper they went, the air growing chillier. Julien tightened his scarf around him, running his fingers through the threads for comfort. This is all almost over, he told himself for the umpteenth time. But as they navigated through the maze of ancient tunnels, he found that sentiment harder and harder to believe.

Flickering light from his father’s lumenmote disk cast eerie shadows on the limestone walls. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the distant drip of water and their footsteps, muffled by the damp earth beneath. After what felt like an eternity, the narrow passage widened, revealing a medium-sized chamber, with many dark tunnels leading out from it. Julien avoided looking at the walls lined with carefully stacked bones, remnants of the countless souls who had been laid to rest here centuries ago.

In the centre of the chamber stood a large stone table, a colossus of cold granite. It appeared to be their destination.

“So, you said there were a few different access points to this place?”

A few different ways to escape, should I need to.

“Yes,” his father replied with a nonchalant air.

Putain . The whole catacombs situation had slightly derailed his plan to destroy the machine and kill his father in one fell swoop. How on earth would he attempt to navigate his way back alone? He was too young and pretty to die, lost in a maze of bones beneath Paris.

A noise sounded from a nearby tunnel. A rat? An angry skeleton, reforming and coming to get them? His father leaned against the stone slab. He crossed his arms. Smiled.

“Do you know that you were named after my father, Julien?”

Warning bells burst into life. Something isn’t right here.

“I did know that, yes.” He’d never met his grandfather, but he’d heard the tale.

“You inherited your intelligence from me, and I from him.”

Julien really didn’t like where this was going. His chest tightened, a cold sweat creeping along the back of his neck. “Alright.”

“However, on this occasion, you have demonstrated a truly shocking degree of na?ve stupidity.”

His father didn’t move an inch.

Neither did Julien.

“It’s laughable, really,” his father added, a cold smile playing on his lips.

Julien’s heart pounded louder than the distant echo of dripping water. The walls seemed to close in, the air suddenly too thin, too suffocating. His mind raced, grasping at any possible exit plan, but every thought was like a flickering light swallowed by encroaching darkness. He could kill his father in an instant, that much he was sure of. He could manipulate a bone from the wall, send it flying through his neck. In fact, he was fairly confident he could straight up explode his brain, if he worked his extraordinary motes in the right way.

But that still left the machine operational, its location undiscovered, and Julien lost in the catacombs.

His father laughed, a cold, mocking sound that echoed through the chamber, reverberating off the stone walls, an ominous chorus.

“What’s so funny?” Julien threw out, buying time.

“Dear son. It’s almost a joke.” He stepped away from the slab, spreading his arms in mock grandeur. “The absurd notion that you could waltz into my house and win me over with a handful of insipid platitudes.”

Julien’s mouth dried. “I—”

“That you didn’t think I had that priest thoroughly interrogated for every scrap of information he gave you.”

Oh, God. Poor Father Gérard. Julien hadn’t been the most polite to him, but he didn’t want the old man harmed. “Is Father Gérard okay?”

A sharp-toothed smile was offered in response.

“You honestly thought I’d just walk you right up to the Machina Tenebris, and give you the grand tour? ”

Why yes, yes he had. His father was completely correct—Julien’s plan was downright stupid.

Without warning, both of his wrists were yanked behind him, a sharp click securing their bind. Cool metal touched his skin. A faint blue glow pooled on the floor.

If Julien could see his wrists, he’d find a pair of handcuffs identical to the ones he’d watched a gendarme attempt to bind his mother’s wrists with in the church. Moments before Julien killed them all.

He tried to twist, to discover who’d snuck up on him, but the person grabbed his neck, then shoved him, sending him tumbling onto the hard floor .

“I’d really rather not rip these trousers.” Julien’s humour felt hollow, the fear in his voice obvious.

Bound by these cuffs, he wouldn’t be able to channel. For a fleeting moment, he held onto the possibility that the motetech wouldn’t block access to his motes. That dream promptly faded when he reached for them, to be rewarded with nothingness. He couldn’t sense windmotes, even though there was a slight draft. He could see light emanating from his father’s disk, but he couldn’t detect a single lumenmote. For Julien’s entire life, he’d sensed some form of mote constantly, wherever he was, at any time. Now, it was like he’d been blinded, stripped of a vital sense.

Jonathan Steele stepped out from behind him.

He was wearing one of the grey outfits often offered to people who’d used the Displacement Baths.

“Hello, Julien,” he said in English. “I’d say it’s nice to see you, but I’ll spare you any games. I owe you that much, at least.”

Julien gaped at his boss, the man he spent years working under. “ Non ,” he whispered. He pleaded . “Don’t do this.”

A briefcase lay in the shadow of a wall. Clicking it open, Jonathan extracted a vial and a small cloth. He quickly soaked the cloth with the liquid.

“What is that?” Julien knew. He might have gotten himself down here, but he wasn’t that stupid.

Closing the space between them, Jonathan knelt on the floor with Julien, pressing the cloth to his mouth. A pungent, unfamiliar scent filled Julien’s nostrils, stinging and suffocating. He jerked his head backward, but Jonathan’s firm press followed.

This wasn’t how Julien imagined his death, far away from everyone he loved, his father leering above him, his final moments slipping away in a haze of chemical fumes and betrayal.

One thing was for sure—Cinn was going to track him down in the shadowrealm and murder him all over again.