Time's Arrow 3: Black Swan by Jonathan Green

Author:Jonathan Green [Green, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Abaddon Books
Published: 2012-05-02T14:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

The Silverback of Notre Dame

AND THEN THEY were flying.

The pitch of the velocipede’s engine rose as the contraption soared through the air with startling grace, the formidable façade of Notre Dame appearing over the tops of the trees that lined the Quai de Montebello further on. The Seine was a colourless mirror below them, its surface presenting a rippling inverted impression of the buildings lining its sculpted banks. Ahead of them, only a few tantalising yards away, rose the stone wall of yet another of the many bridges that connected the Île de la Cité to the rest of Paris.

Ulysses held his breath and clung on, his arms tight around the Cadence’s waist.

Forty-four miles an hour, she had said, that was the magic number. With Cadence’s fingers still tight on the throttle that was what the speedometer was reading now, only they weren’t flying – they were falling.

The damage sustained by the extendable wings had resulted in them becoming twisted at the wrong angle. Ulysses realised the tail had been knocked out of kilter too and was no longer helping to stabilise the vehicle’s arcing flight over the Seine. If anything, it was causing it to wobble so that Ulysses feared the girl might lose her battle to control the bike altogether.

In that moment of heightened stress he held his breath, taking in everything around him in minute detail. He saw the parapet of the bridge looming before them, the reflection of the bike upon the waters below, the enraged face of the bellowing beast as it extricated itself from the splintered remains of an artist’s stall behind them.

“Come on! Come on!” Cadence hissed at the velocipede.

“Come on! Come on!” the automaton cried from the pannier.

And then the velocipede touched down. The back wheel clipped the parapet, throwing the contraption forward, both engine and tyres screeching as traction was achieved, and in the next instant the bike hared off again.

Cadence swore fruitily as she tried to retain control of the wildly weaving bike at the same time as trying to dodge the slow-witted gawping members of the public who hadn’t yet had the good sense to get out of the way.

It wasn’t that she was particularly trying to preserve anyone’s life, other than her own and that of her passenger. It was just that if they collided with someone, chances were they would be thrown off the velocipede and left at the mercy of the pursuing primate.

Within seconds – having avoided a smoky haulage wagon, charabancs painted in the colour of the French flag, and a bicycle-riding onion salesmen – they were careening across a pedestrian crossing, to a chorus of screams from nurses pushing perambulators and the abusive shouts of cantankerous old men armed with gnarled walking sticks, and onto the cobblestoned square that lay in the shadow of the Western Façade of Notre Dame cathedral.

The bestial roar had Ulysses looking back over his shoulder and Cadence revving the throttle again, steering the velocipede between the crowds of

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