[Name]'s POV
"Make [Name] do all the work," I grumble while jumping up and grabbing the stone trimming on the wall above the stone I'm on.
I climb across it to my right and scale the pieces of stone on the wall, until I have to jump onto the wooden beam above the window. I grab it and jump up again, grabbing the railing of the balcony and vaulting over it. I land on the stone floor and jog to my right across a wooden board, jumping off the balcony and grabbing the wooden beam that runs above two windows with a small pipe going down between them.
I grab the old pipe above the wooden beam and climb to my right, across it. "What about that window above you?" Sully calls up to me and I look at the window with sharp glass in it.
"I don't feel like becoming the victim of a slicer today, so no thank you," I say with a fake sweet smile down at the guys.
"Seems we pissed her off," Harry mutters and I chuckle.
"Weren't you guys just concerned like twenty minutes ago about my feet?"
"Oh shit! She shouldn't be climbing," Nate says, and I drop down and grab the stones on the wall below the pipe I'm on, making my way around the side of the chateau, back to the front-facing part.
"Too late now," I state, jumping and grabbing the pipe that wraps around the tower.
I climb around the tower, jumping and grabbing the stone a meter or so above me. I scale the tower wall up to a window and pull myself inside, landing on a wooden floor with a big hole in the middle. I pick up a diamond and pearl bracelet that was on the floor and tuck it in my bag on my back. I drop down through the hole and land on the floor below, the sun hitting me through the hole in the wall.
I run through the demolished room, and drop down through another hole in the wooden floor. The floor I land on below- collapses, and I fall and land in a pile of wood, rolling down it onto the stone floor below.
"Ah, fuck... ow that hurt," I groan and look to see that one of the sharp edges on the wood left a deep gash on my arm.
"Dammit," I mutter, taking off my bag from my back, opening it and pulling out some disinfectant spray and some bandages.
I spray the wound, hissing at the stinging feeling of the spray to the open wound. I quickly wrap the bandage around my arm and finish it off by tying it. "What the fuck happened?!" I hear Harry and Nate call from outside.
"Floor gave out and I fell. I'm fine though," I yell back to them, jogging over to the window with a chain and lock on it.
"Make sure you only shoot the lock off," Sully tells me while backing up from the window.
I chuckle and shake my head, taking my lock-pick and tension wrench out of one of my pouches. I quickly work the lock and once I hear all the clicks, I turn the lock-pick and release the lock. I take it off the chain, backing up and letting the chain fall to the ground.
"Who said I was shooting anything?" I smirk as the guys open the window.
"I forgot how good you were at that," Sully sighs, and the three guys come in.
Harry and Nate jog over to me immediately and look at my bandage arm. "You told us you were fine," Nate says and I sigh.
"I am. My arm just got cut up a bit, no big deal," I reassure him, but Harry frowns.
"No big deal? Love, this bandage is already soaked with your blood," Flynn says and shows me my arm.
"It'll stop. I promise it's nothing to worry about," I tell the two worrywarts who look at me skeptically.
"Fine..." Nate trails off and looks around the room of the chateau we're in, "Okay. We gotta make our way through the chateau to the gardens. That's where we'll find the old keep."
We nod and I walk over to a door with a wooden beam blocking it off. "If we can move this beam, we could probably get through the door," I say while looking back at the guys.
"I'll get this one," Harry says, and him and Nate lift up an old cupboard. Harry climbs up it and pulls himself onto an old spiral staircase, walking up to the second floor landing, "From what I can see, it looks like the chandeliers are on some sort of pulley mechanism."
"Can you get to it?" I ask, and he jogs across the floor.
"I believe so," Harry says and jumps off the landing to the chandelier that hangs from the ceiling.
"Careful up there, Flynn. Don't want your hair to get messy," Nate jokes while taking a seat on a nearby chair.
"Oh, ha ha. At least I'm the one dangling off the chandelier while your lazy arse sits on that blotched chair," Flynn retorts and I chuckle as they banter with each other. Harry jumps off the chandelier and grabs onto the edge of another part of the landing, pulling himself up. "I have a bloody idea!" He grins and starts turning a crank, making the chandelier that was on the floor raise up.
"Be careful, Harry. That's not exactly a stable ceiling feature," I call up to him and he smirks at me.
"When am I not, love?" Flynn asks while jumping onto the chandelier first chandelier.
He grabs it, and almost falls off, making me face-palm while Nate chuckles, "Off to a good start, Flynn."
"Fuck off, mate."
Nate laughs harder, and Harry jumps to the chandelier that he raised up. He grabs the edge and slides around it, jumping to the platform above the door we need to go through.
"All right, here we go," Harry grunts and pushes the beam away from the door.
Sully opens the wooden door and him, Nate, and I go through it, Harry joining us a few seconds later. "Is that a popcorn machine?" Flynn asks and I shrug.
"I don't know, but now I want popcorn," I state, and we walk past the machine into a room with some stairs going down.
The four of us jog down the staircase, and we climb over a knocked over refrigerator in an old kitchen. "Okay, let's see if we can find a way to that tower," Nate says and we make our way through the flooded kitchen and up some collapsed stone.
We jump and grab the edge of the floor above us, pulling ourselves up and jogging over to an opening in the floor. The five of us drop down through the hole into the foyer room with a grand staircase in the middle. We jog up the stairs, and Sully walks over to the window, gesturing us over and pointing out to a tower, "Look, square tower... looks pretty old."
"Yeah. That matches the one in Lawrence's notebook," Nate says, and Harry crosses his arms.
"That must be it then," he states, and we walk over to an open window and take turns dropping out of it.
I walk through a hole in the side of a wall on my left, and through the room to where some wooden planks block another hole. "All right. You guys go through," I say while lifting up the beams so the guys can go pass under.
I go through after them and the beams collapse along with some stone on the wall, behind me. "Well... seems we're not going back that way," I point out the obvious, and we enter a room with a symbol above the fireplace that's the same as the one on the tower.
"Maybe a secret passage?" Sully suggests and Nate gives him a funny look.
"In a fireplace? Kinda on the nose, don'tcha think?" Nate questions and I hum.
"Yeah, but, it's still possible," I say while examining the suits of armor in the room. "Hey, Nate... can I see Lawrence's journal?"
He hands me the book and I flip through it, stopping on two pages that show the suits of armor and the ways each one should face. I turn all of the knights in the room so they face the correct way, and when the last one is in the correct position, it opens a secret path behind in the fireplace.
"Well, well, a secret passage," Sully says and sends Nate an 'I told you so' look.
"All right, I gotta hand it to you, Sully," Nate responds while Harry and I push the fireplace door open some more, so everyone can get through.
I step in first and the floor collapses from beneath me, making me tumble down some rocks, falling off a small cliff onto the rocky ground below. "[Name]!!" Nate, Harry, and Sully call down to me.
"Are you all right, love?!" Harry asks, voice filled with worry.
"Just peachy!" I shout while standing up the hole I fell down and looking up to see if I can climb back up, "Yeah, there's no way I'm getting back up there. I'm gonna head through the cave down here, you guys can meet me on the other side."
"I swear if there's any zombies down here I will lose it," I mumble to myself while walking with my flashlight on. A scurrying sound fills my ears, and I stop walking and look around the cave with a glare. "What the hell is that noise?"
I look around for a few more seconds, before stepping over a rock and jogging down some stones. I start to squeeze my way between two rocks when some giant spiders land on my shoulders and back. I shriek and stumble through the rest of the way, falling off the ledge and into some water below.
"Fucking spiders," I scowl, standing up and walking deeper into the water, before diving down and swimming through a murky underwater cave. I keep holding my breath, before starting to swim up when the water becomes lighter and shallower.
I resurface and take some much needed breaths while wading through the water and into another area with a small waterfall. I walk to my left and out of the water, jogging up the path and smiling when I see light shining down into the abyss below.
"Now that's a good sign," I sigh while jumping off the ledge, grabbing the edge of the ground across from me. I pull myself up and walk over to the wall on my right, climbing up the stone ridges and making my way up and across them.
"A way out," I cry out in happiness, looking behind me, before jumping off and grabbing one of the stones on an old well. I start to scale the wall of the well as it collapses from under me and I grab the edge of the stone and peek out to see mercenaries.
"Oh, shit," I whisper while ducking my head.
"They're here somewhere. Hunt them down," I hear Talbot order, making me frown.
'How did they find us? I need to warn Harry, Nate, and Sully. Holy shit! Chloe and Charlie, I hope they're okay as well' I mentally flip out as my thoughts run rampant.
I peek back over the edge of the well and grab the agent by the edge, yanking him over and letting him walk to his death. The AK-47 he has falls with him and I smirk, praising myself for actually coming prepared. 'A sniper rifle, an M4, my two desert eagles, and my daggers. Finally, I have everything I need for my job' I grin while launching sneak attacks on all the guards.
I slash the throat of the last agent, before tucking both of my daggers in the holsters on my inner thighs. "Easy enough," I murmur while climbing up the wall of a lookout tower.
I go to pull myself in when an agent kicks down the door in the room and slowly walks in. He starts making his way to the window I'm hanging out of, and once he's close enough I yank him through and let him fall, his head splitting open on some rocks below. I pull myself through the window and walk through the door he kicked open, taking cover by a half wall.
I open a case full of grenades on top of the wall, and I pull the pin, tossing one down at two mercenaries behind a wall and some crates. The explosive goes off and kills both men, and I take a whole bunch of grenades and attach them to my belts that crisscross each other. I drop down on the ground and start to make my way down the path the agents came from when someone starts shooting at me through a hole in the wall.
I pull out one of my pistols and shoot him in the head, killing him instantly. "Through here," I murmur to myself while running over to a crevice in the wall.
I squeeze through it, and when I'm inside the building some rocks collapse and block the way I came through. I groan when I hear gunshots coming from outside and I run up the stairs and out onto a balcony. I look down to see Nate, Sully, and Harry engaged in a shoot-out with some agents, making me sigh and grab my sniper rifle. I take aim at one of the agents running down some stairs into the courtyard we're in, before pulling the trigger and killing him.
The three guys look at me, and I smirk and send them a small wave. "Sorry I'm late! Traffic was bad."
"Thanks for showing up, kiddo," Sully says, and I shoot two agents in the head that started sneaking up the stairs that I took onto the balcony.
I take out the last few agents on the stairs and balcony across the courtyard, before jumping over the railing and jogging over to Nate, Harry, and Sully. "How the hell do you think they found us?" Sully asks while the guys collect ammo for their guns.
"They must've followed us. It's the only way," Nate says and I frown.
"That means they followed Charlie and Chloe to Syria. We need to try and contact them right away," I point out while running a hand through my hair.
"Dammit!" Nate sighs; and Harry nods.
"At least the tower is right here. All we need to do is get inside," he states, and I smile faintly.
"I guess that's some good news," I chuckle, and we jog across the courtyard and up the stairs to the tower door.
Nate and Harry shove it open, and we walk into the dilapidated tower. "Which way now?" Sully asks, and I raise an eyebrow.
"Down seems to be our only option so let's go that way," I respond while running down some old stairs and dropping off the landing to the wooden floor below.
I walk into the room to find one of Talbot's mens' dead bodies. "Guys, look at this," I whisper while crouching down near his body.
"What the hell?" Nate asks while we stare at the bodies zombie-like look.
"That's one of Talbot's men," Sully says, and Harry's eyebrows furrow.
"But they just got here. What the hell happened to him?" Flynn asks and we stand up.
"Nate..." I trail off and he looks at me.
"I don't think there's any descendants in France," he tells me, and I huff.
"She refuses to let those things go," Sully chuckles, and I pout.
"Let's just go down this hatch," I say, before dropping down onto the stone tiles of the floor below.
"The tiles have Sabaean script on 'em. I bet there's a pattern," I state and Nate pulls out Lawrence's journal.
"[Name]'s right. It seems there's an order to the symbols," he says and steps on the tile with a yellow crescent and a circle on it.
He slowly makes his way way around the tiles that depress when he steps on them, and when he steps on the one at the very end- some stones on the wall open to reveal a secret passage. "You did it, mate," Harry smirks and we walk into a dark hall.
I turn on my flashlight and shine it around while entering a room on the left. "Whoa. Looks like some sort of laboratory, doesn't it?" Sully asks while I light a few torches in the room with my lighter.
"Let there be light," I chuckle, and we walk over to a stone alchemist's lab. I look around the room and my eyes slowly widen in realization as to where we are, "Holy shit... This was John Dee's lab."
Nate's head snaps in my direction and he looks around, "She's right."
Sully extends his arms to his side in confusion, "All the way out here? In France?"
"So, just like Lawrence, he traced the clues back to the Crusades. Smart bastard," Harry chuckles, and I look at some small pieces of paper on the table.
"There's some sort of message written here in Enochian script," I say while picking up the papers and looking at Nate, "Think you can decipher it?"
"I'll try," Nate states and pulls out the deciphering object along with his ring. He deciphers the message, muttering the words to himself before looking at the rest of us, "'The alter guards the entrance to the underworld'."
"The alter moves," I realize, and we push the stone alter to reveal a dark hole in the middle of the floor with an old ladder on the side. I look down the hole, a dark smile coming to my face, "I don't like this whole underworld thing. You know I will be extremely pissed off if I run into another zombie-like thing."
"Believe me, love, we know," Harry chuckles, and I clasp my hands together.
"All right. Then let's head down," I say, and we drop down onto the floor below.
"By the way, [Name], I've been meaning to ask- but why are your clothes soaked?" Nate asks, and I frown.
"I had to swim in some water to escape that cave I fell down into," I explain while shining my flashlight around the stone cave path we're in now.
"You seem to always be getting wet," Nate chuckles, and Harry snickers. Nate realizes how his statement came out and I face-palm as he smiles sheepishly.
"I don't think anything can cleanse our dirty minds," I chuckle, and Nate grabs a torch from he wall.
"Can you light this for me?"
I sigh and pull out my lighter, touching the flame to the torch, "Nate, you should really get yourself a lighter. They're pretty useful in this line of work."
We jog down the path and over to a door with a liftable bar on it. "Looks like they wanted to keep something out," Nate says, and Harry shrugs.
"Or in..." he adds on slyly, and Sully and I lift the wooden bar and move it to the side.
"Shall we go in?" I ask while Sully opens the door.
"I guess so," Nate responds, and we walk into a crypt.
"Looks like the family crypt. Your pal Godfrey must be down here then," Sully says and I nod my head.
"Hopefully. If he knew anything about the Atlantis of the Sands, he took it with him to the grave," I say while shining my flashlight onto the floor. "Huh."
I stand in different positions around a square with a grate-like covering, noticing the images changing when I do. "What is it, darling?" Harry asks, and I look up at him.
"If I stand in different positions, the light from my flashlight makes this square show a different symbol," I explain before looking at Nate, "Let me see that journal."
He tosses me the book and I flip through a few pages and stop on one, looking behind me to see the symbol of a bird on a large tombstone shaped pillar. "Hmph I see now how to solve this," I say while memorizing the symbols that show up from my light by the pillars with an animal on it.
I move over to the mechanism in the middle of the room, and I arrange the emblems of the animals on the wall ahead of me over the symbols on the wall that match the ones the light from my flashlight showed. Once the last one is in place, all the animal emblems move to different corners and the stone blocks at the bottom of the wall move to the side.
"Got it," I say while handing Nate the journal back.
"You amaze me," he chuckles and pokes my forehead.
"That's because I'm amazing," I say dramatically while striking a pose.
"Won't disagree with you there, love," Harry smirks, and we walk over to the opening under the wall with the emblems on it.
The five of us crouch down and we go through the small opening into the hidden part of the crypt. "Lord Godfrey, I presume," Sully states and I nod while walking up to the coffin his body is in.
"The one and only," I say while pushing the lid of the coffin to the side and looking at the skeleton of a man who's been dead for centuries.
I pick up an amulet from inside the coffin and I wipe off the dust to see something written on it. "Nate. Journal," I say and he hands me it.
I pull out my pencil and sketch down the broken amulet along with the writing on it. "It's in Sabaean script," I state.
"Well, that would be from ancient Yemen, all right," Sully points out, and Harry smirks.
"Exactly where Francis Drake would've landed back in the 16th century," he says while rubbing my back.
"Could be the name of a city?" Nate questions.
"Yeah, from 3000 years ago. Without the rest of that inscription, we still don't know where to look," Sully frowns.
"Then let's hope the other half is in Syria," I say while we start walking back to the low opening in the wall.
"And that Cutter and Chloe can find it," Sully adds on, and we all crouch down and enter the room, going to pull out our guns when we see Talbot and a few of his men.
"Ah, I wouldn't recommend that," Talbot smirks and chuckles, "Nice work, lady and gentlemen. Harris, please relieve Ms. [L/Name] of the artifact."
"Yeah, Harris, come get it," I say with a smirk as the man walks over to me.
He goes to take the artifact when I kick him in the chest and grab his gun, shooting him in the chest. Another gunshot goes off and I move out of the way from the bullet Talbot shot.
"That's a warning, Ms. [L/Name]. Now- hand it over," Talbot orders and I look at Sully, Nate, and Harry.
"Just hand it over, love. This isn't worth your life," Flynn tells me with worry, and I sigh before tossing the artifact to Talbot.
The quiet room suddenly becomes filled with the sound of something crawling around and we look around to see large spiders filling the room. "What the hell?" Sully mutters, and I notice that the spiders don't come into the light.
"Stay in the light!" I shout, and Harry, Sully, and Nate make sure to stay within the torch light/flashlight.
Many of the spiders kill one of Talbot's men, and Talbot chuckles and looks at us, "Good luck getting out."
He smirks at us and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. "We gotta find a way outta here fast," Sully states, and we make our way over to part of a wall with a hole in it at the top.
"You guys go up first," I say, and the three guys climb up the wall.
I hook my flashlight onto my belt, so I can climb up and I quickly make my way up the stone blocks on the wall. Harry and Nate give me a hand at the top and they pull me up the rest of the way, before we start running down the path.
The spiders start coming from everywhere and we brush them off while running out a door at the top. Sully slams it shut, thinking we trapped the spiders in the other room when they start coming through the ceiling.
"Oh, come on," I groan while we run through the path and jump up, grabbing the edge of a wall and pulling ourselves up.
We run up a spiral staircase and jump to the ledge of a broken window, jumping out of the window and landing on the ground, brushing off all the spiders. "Killer spiders. Bloody fantastic," Harry pants while we all check to make sure there's no more spiders on any of us.
"Let's not go back in there," Nate says, and I nod my head.
"No shit," I say, and we jog back to a hole in the ground by the wall. The four of us drop down into a room that's falling apart, and we look around.
"Okay, we gotta find a way outta here," Nate says, and we all look at him.
"You're turn," I say and he sighs.
"I'll find a way across," Nate mumbles and we watch him quickly climb across the walls and chandelier that start to fall. He jumps and grabs some beams on the ceiling, causing it to collapse at an angle.
"That'll work," I say, and Sully, Harry, and I jump onto it.
"Yeah, just like I planned," Nate responds and we enter the room on our right, dropping down to the floor below.
We take cover when we spot Talbot giving orders to some of his men. "Empty those cans," he demands, and I look at the three guys beside me.
"They're going to burn the place down," I whisper while moving to my right and pressing my back up against the wall.
"We need to get the hell out of here," Nate states, and I slide across a wooden plank as the agents start to light the place on fire.
Nate, Harry, and Sully start shooting at the guards, and I jump to the beam on the wall across from me. It breaks and I grab the one below it when I start getting shot at. I pull out one of my pistols and shoot the two agents on the floor I'm trying to reach.
"How annoying," I grumble and jump to my left, grabbing the beam on the wall.
I slide onto the support beam beside it and vault over it onto the other side, before climbing to my right. I jump across the metal pipes that run along part of the wall as some burning wood falls past my head.
"Damn," I mutter while pulling myself onto the floor.
One of the agents puts me in a chokehold once I'm on my feet while the other one squares up in front of me, ready to throw some fists. I step back and wrap my right foot around the man behind me's leg, turning in his hold and loosening myself while grabbing his arm and throwing him over my shoulder into the other man.
They both fall to the floor and I pull out both of my pistols and shoot them in the head, before turning around and seeing Nate and Harry shoot the two other agents in the room. I jog over to the large hole in the floor and I pull a loose wooden beam down so it can be used to cross. The three men quickly run across the beam when it catches on fire and I shoot two of the men through the hole in the ceiling above us.
"Let's go!" I exclaim and Nate goes to give me a boost through the hole in the ceiling when fire takes up the room above us.
"There's no way out!" Sully shouts when the wall on our left starts to burn down.
We shoot at the wall and break it the rest of the way, and I kill the agent waiting in the room. We quickly run through the hole in the wall and down the stairs. I start to lead them down the hall when the floor under me breaks and I land on the floor below me.
"Are you okay, kid?" Sully calls down, and I stand up.
"Yeah," I respond while quickly running up a slanted wooden beam before it catches on fire.
I join the three men on the other side, and we shove open a barricaded door onto the balcony over the foyer that is filled with fire. "Fucking hell!" Harry shouts, and we shoot the agents on the balcony, before running down the first set of stairs.
We continue to shoot our way through the men, and we go to run down the second set of stairs and out the door when the agents shut it. "No no no no no!" Nate shouts and we take out the last of the agents.
"This way!" I shout and we jump across the floor to what used to be part of the balcony.
We run under the archway into another room, and the floor I'm on collapses and I topple down. I start to fall and I grab the railing of a staircase, so I don't fall into the pit of fire below.
"[NAME]!" Harry, Nate, and Sully shout while standing on the staircase and looking down at me.
"I'm all right," I tell them while hoisting myself over the railing.
We start to run up the stairs when Nate's foot gets stuck in the floor. Sully helps Nate out while Harry and I shoot the mercenaries that run down the staircase towards us.
"I'm good, let's go," Nate shouts and we run up the stairs when the landing collapses, separating us from Harry.
Flynn runs and jumps to the beam on the wall which starts to break, before jumping from beam to beam, avoiding pieces of the burning ceiling that falls. "Harry," I cry out, and Nate and I help him onto the landing we're on.
We continue to run up the stairs while they start to burn away, when they suddenly collapse and swing into the wall. The four of us hold onto pieces of wood from the ruined stairs and I make it to Sully who's dangling off the railing. "I got you," I say while helping him onto the rest of the railing so he can crawl up it.
We make it to another set of ruined stairs and they break under our weight, hitting the wall in front of us. "Oh God!" Sully exclaims, and we climb up the wood and through the doorway up top.
"Come on, kids!" Sully exclaims, and we run into the room and drop down through a hole in the floor.
The four of us run around the hallway and into a room where a bathtub falls from the floor above us. "I can't see!" we hear an agent shout from ahead of us.
Sully, Nate, Harry, and I pull out our guns, and shoot the man while making our way through the burning building. "This place is coming down," I say as part of the ceiling falls and forms a path to run up.
"Up there!" Harry shouts, and we run up the piece of collapsed ceiling. The four of us run towards a ladder when the floor by it burns away.
"We've got to jump!" Nate shouts and I let the guys go first. I jump for the ladder last and it catches on fire, making me hurriedly climb it.
I reach the roof of the chateau, jumping from piece to piece as it burns away from under me. "The whole damn tower is coming down!" Sully shouts, and we continue to run across the rooftop, sliding down a pipe on the wall to the ground below.
We run away from the burning building, coughing from the ash that we inhaled. "That was way too close," I frown while brushing the ash off me.
"You all right?" Nate asks Sully who sits on a log.
"Oh yeah, just swell," Sully says, and Nate goes to help him up, but he holds up his hand.
"You always seem to forget. I've got twenty-five years on you, and twenty-eight on [Name]," Sully says, and I frown.
"Ah, c'mon Sullivan, you're still as strong as a bloody ox," Harry pats his shoulder.
"Anyway, what's the hurry? They think we're in that," Sully gestures to the burning building.
"We almost were," Nate chuckles slightly.
"I gotta say, I'm losing the plot here. Remind me again why we're doing this?" Sully asks us.
"No, no, no, no, no. If you're gearing up for one of your 'I'm too old for this' speeches, spare us," Nate says while shaking his head.
"Nate, these guys are playing for keeps," Sully sighs, and I frown.
"What? You're just gonna roll over for 'em now?" Nate snaps, and I look between them.
"Nobody's talking about rolling over."
"Then quit acting like you're ready to lay down and die, all right?"
"Listen kid- I've had yours and [Name]'s back for close to eighteen years now. I'm not going anywhere- obviously. I just want to make sure we're doing this for the right reasons," Sully says, and I rest my hand on Nate's shoulders, looking into his blue eyes.
"Nate, we need to be more careful. You can't let your ego get to you on this one. Now, we need to warn Cutter and Chloe, and get to Syria fast," I say, and we start walking through the forest back to our car.
"[Name], how's that gash on your arm?" Nate asks me, and I look at it.
"It's fine. It'll heal up," I say while sitting next to Harry in the jeep.
"This is turning out to be quite the mess," Flynn states while I prop my legs on top of his.
"But is it really surprising?" I ask, and he chuckles and shakes his head.
"Not at all," Harry responds, and Nate starts up the car and starts to drive out of the forest.
~a day later~
"Damn it. Still can't reach either one of them," Nate sighs as we look at the stone building Cutter and Chloe should be at.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Harry states while staring at the building.
"How long 'til this place opens?" Sully asks, and I pull out my cellphone.
"We still have a few more hours before the tour buses start showing up," I say, and we walk up some stairs and over to a door.
"Chain's been cut," Harry notices, and Nate nods.
"Okay, so we know we're not the first ones here," Nate states, and Sully pushes the door open.
"As long as Marlowe and Talbot think we're dead, we've got the element of surprise. Let's not waste it," Sully says, and we walk through the open door.
I shut the door behind me, and Nate looks at us, "So we sneak in, we find out where they're holding Chloe and Cutter."
"If they're holding them," Flynn adds on, and Nate deadpan.
"Glass half full, Flynn?" he says, and I snicker while walking through the corridor.
"I'm just saying- these twats aren't the type to take you as a hostage," Flynn argues and I click my tongue.
"What if Talbot and Marlowe's men don't have them yet," I add my input.
"That would be the best-case scenario," Sully says while we walk across the stone path outside.
We jog up to to a gate, and I sigh when I find it locked. "Time to find another way through," I mutter while jumping on top of some stones by the gate.
I climb onto the yellow trimming above the gate and make my way across it to the walkways above. I pull myself over the railing and look around, making sure it's clear. "Come on up, you three. It's clear," I say while waiting for the guys.
A short-while later they join me on the walkway, and we walk down some stairs onto another part of the stone path and over to a large wooden door. Nate and Harry go to push it open when Sully stops them, "Whoa. We don't know what's on the other side of that door."
I already start climbing up the walls of the tower, looking down at the guys, "I'll climb up and around. I'll let you three in when it's safe."
The stone I'm on crumbles away and I fall and grab the edge of a gold detailed stone on the side. "Whoa! You okay?" Harry asks, and I chuckle.
"Just fine," I reply while going around the side of the tower and making my way up.
I climb back around to the front and scale the wall up to an open window. I drop down inside and quietly move around the landing, when I spot some of Talbot's men inside. I jump off the landing and onto the back of the agent on the second floor balcony, making him fall and smash his head into the stone pillar.
I jump across the opening in the ground to the platform another guard is on. "Who's there?" he whispers, sounding on edge.
He turns his back to me, and I sneak up behind him and snap his neck, quietly laying his body on the floor. I turn around and spot a guard crouched down by the stone railing on the other platform, and I jump over to it and grab the top of the railing.
The man stands up and I throw him down to the floor below, watching him crack his head open on the ground. He goes completely still, and I jump down onto flat part of a storage room ceiling, then onto the floor below me. I sneak up behind the last two guards, slitting their throats- before I collect the grenades off their bodies.
I hook them onto my belt, and I run over to the door and unbar it, knocking on the wood a few times. "Come on. It's clear," I say and the door opens.
"What the hell you've been doing that took you so long?" Sully asks while closing the door.
"My job," I say, and Harry and Nate look around at the dead bodies.
"I didn't know your job was an assassin." Harry smirks at me, and I playfully roll my eyes.
"Yeah well, let's just hope we find Chloe and Cutter- alive," I state, and Nate and Harry turn the cranks to open the door on the other side of the room.
The door drops down, forming a bridge to the walkway ahead, and we run over to it. We make our way across the walkway, and Harry picks the lock on a gate, before opening it for us. We run inside and through the corridor, into a room on our right with a well and a bucket.
"I'm the lightest, so lower me down," I say while holding onto the bucket.
Sully uses the crank to lower me through the well and I drop down into the water below. "Anything down there?" Harry asks, and I look around.
"I don't know. Let me check it out."
I jog through the shallow water and pull myself onto the stone floor above me. A beam of light from a flashlight shines past me, and I stay low and step up onto the next platform of stone. The man walks near me and I pull him over the railing and smash his head into the wall, before letting his body fall into the water below.
I pull myself onto the main floor, and sneak up behind the other three guards in the room, taking them out quietly. I hear the sound of a gate being shaken, and I climb up the wall in one of the rooms and look out through a window to see Nate, Sully, and Harry by one of the gates.
"[Name], over here," Nate waves his arms, and I notice the lock on the door.
"Back up. I'll shoot the lock," I say while pulling out my pistol.
The guys step back and I aim through the pane-less window I'm behind, shooting the lock on the gate across from me. The gate swings open and the guys walk out, while I jump over a hole in the floor and vault myself over part of a broken wall.
I jog over to a gate on my side that's locked and Harry picks the lock, before taking it off and opening the gate. "This place is crawling with agents. Chloe and Cutter could be in real trouble," I say while joining the other three.
"Where the hell could they be?" Sully questions, and I shrug before finding a path to take.
We run into an area with two statues against the wall, running under an archway on the left of them. Footsteps come from beside us and we pull out our guns and aim, only to lower them when we find Chloe and Cutter. "What the hell?" Sully questions, and Chloe places her hand on her chest, catching her breath.
"Why aren't you four in France?" she asks me and I frown.
"Talbot and his men ambushed us at the chateau, so we thought they might have done the same to you two," I explain, and Charlie chuckles.
"Well, they're definitely here, all right," Cutter says.
"So, we might want to think about keeping it down a little," Chloe suggests with a chuckle.
"What happened to you two? We've been trying to reach you for over twenty-four hours," Nate asks and looks between Cutter and Chloe.
"Oh right, I need to top up on my minutes," Charlie says, and Harry looks at him.
"You're using a pre-paid phone, mate?" Flynn raises an eyebrow.
"Mate, those contracts are a complete rip-off," Cutter responds, and I nod my head in agreement.
"Mine's broken," Chloe says, and I deadpan.
"Again?" I face-palm and she grins.
"Look, just forget all that. You'll never guess what we've discovered," Cutter says, and pulls out a journal and opens it up, "I've got it all in here. Not only did Elizabeth's spy network stretch all the way over here. But they were all part of some sort of Hermetic secret society. The British Occult Secret Service, The School of Night, the Hellfire Club, the Order of the Golden Dawn- they're all connected."
"So John Dee-" I start, taking the book from Cutter's hands.
"And Francis Walsingham, and Walter Raleigh, and even Nate's mate Drake, they were all in on it. But for them it was all about the power- controlling their enemies through espionage, deception, fear," Charlie tells Harry, Nate, and I.
"W-w-wait. Wait. So Marlowe and her crew-" Harry whispers and Cutter cuts him off.
"Are the same secret order- four hundred years on."
"Will you cut to the goddamn chase, please?" Sully asks with a sigh.
"Yeah, we really need to keep moving," Chloe states while walking over to us.
"Sure, sure... here look," Cutter takes the book back from me, and opens it to a page with two tarot cards in it, "Quod est superius..."
Harry looks over my head at the rest and reads the rest of the card, "Est sicut quod est inferius. As above, so below."
"That's the key to all of this," Cutter states and I nod.
"We need to get to the highest point of this castle," I say.
Charlie points behind us, "Thus the stairs."
"Well done," Nate nods, and we start to walk up the steps. "We should be able to find our way into the crypts with this clue. The entrance has got to be hidden here someplace."
The six of us walk outside and we look around when I spot the highest tower. "Okay, so we just need to make our way across-" I start when we spot some of Talbot's men.
We take cover behind a stone railing and Chloe sighs, "Now what?"
I peek over the railing and frown, "The only way to the tower is through them."
"There goes our ninja plan," Harry mumbles, and I grin with a small chuckle.
The six of us split up and go for different agents, so we don't draw attention. I jump over the railing and body tackle one of the agents, stabbing my knife into the back of his neck. I take cover behind a stone block and slide over it to the next one. I grab the collar of the second agent's jacket and pull him back into my arms. I snap his neck and lay his body on the floor before sliding over the block and pressing my back against the wall.
The beam of light from a flashlight shines past me, and a third agent walks past where I'm standing. I jump on his back and snap his neck before crouching down and moving quietly to a crumbling stone block. One of the agents takes a seat on it and I stand up and slash his throat, pulling his body on the other side of the block and laying it there.
I watch as Chloe, Harry, Nate, and Cutter take out the last few agents and we join up with Sully by an arch at the base of the tower. "Let's get to the top," I say, and we run under the archway.
The six of us make our way up the stairs, and Charlie, Nate, and Harry lift the gate up at the top. Chloe, Sully, and I go under and we hold the gate up for the others. Charlie, Harry, and Nate come under the gate and we lower it back onto the ground and pull out our guns, quietly walking over to a spiral staircase.
We make our way up and I shoot an agent holding an AK-47 at the top. Three more agents come running out from rooms and Chloe, Harry and Nate kill them. More agents show up, one in heavy armor, and I groan while shooting the guy with the heavy armor in the face. Cutter takes out the last man and I start walking towards another path when a stone block drops down. I vault over it and an agent drops down and grabs me while another one drops down in front of me.
He drops a grenade that starts beeping and picks it up to throw it when it goes off. The explosion blows a hole in the wall and I go flying outside, grabbing onto a chain that hangs off the wall of the building, and watching as the two agents fall past me to their death.
"[Name]!" my friends cry out and I wall-run to the next chain.
"I'm fine," I grunt, and jump off the second chain onto a stone block on the wall.
I start getting shot at from above, and I grab one of my pistols and shoot back at the agents. I kill the men on top of the tower and on the castle walkway outside, before climbing up and to my left to another chain. I wall-run from chain to chain, jumping to the ledge of a small window and pulling myself in. I run up the stairs and pull out my M4 killing the agents at the top who were aiming at Nate and the others.
"Thanks kid! You saved our asses," Sully calls up to me and I go to open the door when someone else does.
A brute walks out and I sigh and block his punch, grabbing his arm and swiping his feet out from under him. He falls onto the floor and I crouch over him and punch him multiple times in the face before dealing the last blow to his throat.
"Nice for you guys to finally join me," I look over my shoulder at the other five.
"You handled yourself well," Chloe gestures to the guy I killed with my bare hands.
"Touché," I hum while standing up and leading them to the open door, "Up this way, come on."
We wind up the stairs to the top of the tower and I look around. "We'll keep you covered," I tell Nate. He nods, and him and Cutter walk up a few steps to the highest point on the roof.
"So, what actually happened in France?" Chloe asks Harry, Sully, and I.
"We went to the chateau, found an artifact, ended up having to hand it over to Talbot, got chased by killer spiders, then the place got burned down," I explain and she sighs.
"I take it, it was more eventful than that?"
"When is it not?" Flynn responds and we spot some agents, one of them with an RPG.
"Nate!" I shout and he waves me off, making me shout, "Get down!"
We jump off the railing of the tower and onto the walkway. "[Name]! Take that guy out!" Sully exclaims, and I get behind some cover and pull out my sniper rifle.
"You guys go on ahead. I'll catch up," I tell them while picking off the guy with the RPG.
My friends run off and I take out the agent next to the one I killed, before slinging my gun back on my back and running after the others. "There's more of them," Sully tells me while standing by a zipline.
I lay down on the ground and snipe each of the agents, giving my friends a sign to go. Cutter, Sully, and Chloe slide down the zipline but when Nate steps up to go down, another man with an RPG comes out of hiding and shoots the wall of the walkway Harry, Nate, and I are on.
We're sent flying onto a lower walkway and we slowly get up. "We need to go!" Harry exclaims and we jump down onto a wooden platform then onto the stone path below.
We jump off the landing and onto the top of an arch, jumping onto the landing on the ground below. An RPG hits the ground where we're standing and we fall through the floor, inside the castle. "Oh God. Oww," I groan while slowly standing up.
"How did they even get RPG's?" Harry asks while we walk outside.
"The black market probably. That's where I got some of my guns," I say while looking around for the other three- Nate and Harry deadpanning at my answer.
"Where are they?" Nate sighs and I look around, before spotting the others on the walkway above us.
"Sully, Cutter, Chloe!" I whisper-yell and they look over the edge.
"You kids okay?" Sully asks and we nod.
"Yeah. We'll find a way around and meet up with you," Nate tells them.
"Keep an eye out for those agents," Chloe warns us, before running off.
Harry, Nate, and I look over our shoulders to see some of Talbot's agents. We get to cover and Harry points out to a tower, "Hey, you two, look."
"It's the tower," Nate says, and I frown.
"What about Sully, Chloe, and Cutter?" I ask and Harry smiles.
"They're fine," he chuckles.
"Plus it's right there," Nate tells me.
"Fine. Let's go," I sigh, and we move from behind the wall, heading outside.
The three of us quietly take down all the agents, and we proceed up some stairs to the tower. We grin and open the door to the tower only to reveal a storage room.
"It's a bloody storage room." Harry clicks his tongue with a scowl, and I sigh while stepping back and looking at the statues.
"The hands on the statue. One up, one down. Above, below. The same theme, meaning we're on the right trail at least," I sigh while pulling out my sniper rifle and looking through the scope from a tile with a design on it.
"Down there," I smirk pointing at a star on the ground below us.
"Ah ha... as below, so above," Harry chuckles and I nod while moving my line of vision up.
"There's three pillars ahead. That's gotta be it," I say while putting my gun away.
"All right, let's get over there and check it out," Nate says, and Harry nods.
"Yeah, and we'll meet up with Sullivan, Cutter, and Chloe on the way," Flynn states when we start getting shot at again.
"Goddammit they spotted us," I groan and we take cover from the bullets.
I take my sniper rifle out again, and take out the men with RPG's and laser sight on their guns, while Nate and Harry make their way down and kill the ones on the ground below. I kill the agents on the ground that I'm on, before exchanging my rifle for my two desert eagle pistols.
I follow my two friends onto the ground below, and I start to shoot at some of the agents while dodging bullets. Nate takes out the last agent, and we climb up a wall through the hole in the floor, joining up with Chloe, Cutter, and Sully. "You three all right?" Chloe asks and we nod.
"Actually we're dead and this is our ghosts," Harry responds, and I grin while Chloe smacks the back of his head.
"Follow us, we think we're onto something," I say, and we drop off the walkway to the stone path below with the pillars on it.
"Here's the wall. The crypt entrance should be here someplace," Nate says while looking around.
"Well, what does Lawrence have to say about it?" Chloe asks us.
"He doesn't," Cutter tells her and she chuckles thinking he's joking.
"This is as far as he got," Harry states, and we walk around the corner to look at the arches in the wall back there.
We examine the arches when Nate looks around, "Where the hell's Charlie?"
I look around, noticing he's not with us, "What's going on?"
I jog back around the corner to see Talbot with a gun to Cutter's head. The others join me and we all pull out our guns when Talbot steps back, showing us the journal he took from Cutter.
"Shit," Harry mutters, and Talbot walks off.
We jog over where he went to only to come to a dead-end with no Talbot in sight. "He's gone. How in the world...?" Sully questions and Nate, Harry, and I walk over to Cutter.
"C, you okay?" I go to place my hand on his shoulder when he jerks away from me.
"Charlie?" Chloe looks at him weirdly, when I spot something on his neck.
"What the fuck?" I whisper, and pluck a dart out of his neck, showing it to the others, "Guys! Look at this."
"What kind of black ops shit is this?" Nate asks, and Harry looks over at Cutter.
"I don't know, but it's some kind of drug," I state with a frown.
"Let's just hope he didn't have a big dose," Harry murmurs, and Charlie starts backing up while repeatedly saying 'no'.
"Easy now, Charlie. Look at us," Nate says and goes to rest his hand on Cutter's shoulder.
"Don't touch me. Get away from me," Charlie glares at Nate.
"No one's touching you, Charlie," Chloe reassures him.
"What the hell was in that dart?" Sully asks with a frown.
Cutter starts to sway from side to side and whispers, "Your face is peeling off."
"Whatever drug that was, he's tripping like hell," I explain and Cutter kneels down on the floor while breathing heavily.
"Charlie. You're okay," I tell him and he pushes me away from him and stands up.
"I won't let you take me!" he shouts, and we all back up and give him a bit of space.
"No one is taking you anywhere, mate," Harry tells him as we exchange looks with each other.
Charlie shakes his head, and looks at the floor, "The floor is melting."
I look at Harry, Nate, Chloe, and Sully who look at me, "We need to find out what was injected into him."