With his P229 shoved in his waistband, Damien sprinted into the shopping mall after Sophia. He slowed down just enough to check the shops on both sides. A narrow corridor split off to the left, leading to restrooms and a change room. He jumped over a spill of deodorant cans from a toppled display and kept running. Sophia would never risk a possible dead end.

Damien reached the center of the shopping mall. There were three possible escape routes. And tubular glass elevators behind a fountain. The fountain shot water four stories high. He checked the faces inside the elevator as it shunted them to the third floor. No Sophia.

Lots of couples in the mall, holding hands. He ignored them, scanned the singles, and only then scanned the couples in case Sophia was improvising.

There was a muffled explosion from his left. A garbage bin burst into flames. Gray smoke plumed from the top. A weak explosion. A deterrent.

He moved towards it. Probably a deodorant can from the spilled display, and a cigarette lighter. He drew to a halt. Not a deterrent. A distraction.

He spun around in time to catch sight of Sophia sprinting off in the opposite direction. She had a good head start. He took off after her, relaying her position to Jay and Grace as he ran. By the time he reached the exit, Sophia was already behind the wheel of a taxi. She pulled out from the curb and took off. The taxi driver ran after her, swearing in French.

A gray van pulled up next to Damien. Jay was driving; Grace had the side door open. Damien jumped in.

‘Stay back! Let her think she escaped!’ he said.

For once, Jay didn’t argue. He slowed, then turned right onto another boulevard. One more block and they were turning left onto another main road. This one had two lanes to move between.

Grace blew hair from her face as she checked her pistol magazine. ‘She’ll know what we’re doing. She was one of us. Let’s not forget that.’

‘And there’s three of us and one of her, let’s not forget that either,’ Jay said.

Damien shook his head, then realized neither of them could see him from where they were sitting. ‘Yeah, but where she’s taking us, there could be more of them.’

‘Right, so one kill each then, yeah?’ Jay said.

‘We just need her DNA,’ Damien said. ‘Not a severed head.’

***

Sophia made it across the river to the center of Lyon and ditched the taxi. She sprinted down a laneway. It narrowed, delivering her to a magnificent eighteenth-century building: a merchant bank that, strangely enough, had been converted into a church. Its shadow swallowed her.

Slowing to a brisk walk, she worked her way around the back of the church and continued south to her rendezvous point. She considered throwing in another diversion, but shedding possessions would give Denton easy access to her DNA. She didn’t want him smelling a rat. At least not yet.

She couldn’t get the little boy out of her head. She had something in common with that boy: they’d both stared the person responsible for the death of someone they loved square in the eyes. She thought of Leoncjusz’s dead body. And Denton leering at her from the balcony. It snapped everything back into focus. She was going to hunt Denton down and torture him in the way he’d commanded her to torture countless others. Then she would extinguish him. Just like he’d taught her to.

Sophia walked as fast as she could down a lane jeweled with restaurants, barbers, candy and toy shops. She didn’t want to attract any—

Pain exploded in her right shoulder. She froze, her breath stolen from her. Jay was standing at the other end of the lane. A hundred feet away. Pistol in both hands. She cursed herself for not seeing him first.

Before he could squeeze off another shot, she dived to the side, into the café on her left. The pain was excruciating; she felt blood soaking her shirt.

Dodging a waiter, she made it behind the bar. Jazz music was playing, sending sparks of rich blue and purple light over her shoulders. She seized a bottle of white rum and ran into the kitchen. Racing past the line of chefs, she pushed open the back door and found herself in a traboule. These passageways had once been used to transport silk in Old Lyon; now they provided access to a maze of apartments.

She opened the bottle, sprinted through the narrow traboule and decanted the rum over her shoulder wound. Her arm went numb. She held the neck of the bottle with her mouth and pulled the belt from her waist with her working hand. Up ahead, the traboule spilled into a courtyard. There were balconies on the floor above. A van was parked beneath one. That would do.

She ran, fastened the belt over her wound and slipped the hasp into the nearest notch. Staunch the flow.

Bottle in hand, she climbed onto the van’s hood. Pain shot through her. Over the windshield, onto the roof. She scaled the balcony railing, sweat pouring from her, stinging her eyes. Covering her face, she smashed the bottle on the balcony’s glass door. It caved in, spitting fragments back at her. She stepped inside just as Grace reached the courtyard.

Rounds cracked behind her.

She dived from the lounge room to the hall. She was slower getting up this time. Opening the front door, she ran along the corridor. Slower than she would’ve liked. On her way she hit the elevator buttons. A decoy. No way she’d take the elevator, or the stairs. Damien and Jay would have them covered. She had to find another way out.

She rounded the corner and found herself staring down the barrel of another P229.

‘Hands in the air,’ Damien said.