Chapter 4
Raoul
The entrance was open, which was not unusual, but light leaked through it; pale and strange.
I knew this passage like the back of my hand.
Of all the routes threading beneath Paris, I had chosen this one because I had believed it would remain unchanged, even after all this time.
The warren of tunnels and chambers beneath the city had always been home to creatures like me, and this place was a beacon, a home.
Its final threshold led not to the chaos of the human world, but to something far more civilized.
At least, that’s how it had always been.
I stepped through with Susie still in my arms, her soft body cradled gently against my chest. The sight beyond the stone doorway made me halt in my tracks. Shock so profound it briefly stunned me shivered through my flesh. This was not the den.
Sure, the bones of the room were still there, with its vaulted ceilings of blackened stone.
Pillars as thick as tree trunks still held up the building, like Atlas carrying the world.
Gone were the long tables lit by guttering candlelight and the murmur of voices that did not quite belong to the living.
There was no longer the scent of old magic in the air, no tempting scents of wine and blood, nor the wildness of the shifters.
This was a room full of shelves and crates and a fine layer of dust: a storage room, and not even one for wine.
I stared, momentarily certain I had made some grave error.
Unfortunately, it was all too soon clear that I had not.
There, etched faintly into the far wall, were marks as familiar as the passage of time—old symbols, worn but unmistakable, carved by claw and hand alike.
Those were wards once meant to conceal this place from prying human eyes.
Wards of protection and wards of welcome for those like me.
Their magic was gone, no longer reaching for me with the warm embrace of offered safety.
This was the right place, but not any longer.
“Okay,” Susie said from beneath my chin, her voice tentative but threaded with her usual irreverence.
“Please tell me this is a back room or something, because otherwise your whole mysterious vampire vibe just took a serious hit.” She was a whisper of warmth, a pulse of life, and her scent was somehow reassuring as my world shifted on its axis.
“I do not have a ‘vibe,’” I said automatically, though my attention remained fixed on the room. It was not supposed to have changed, and yet it had, and I struggled to wrap my head around that.
The gargoyle, where was he? He had owned this place at the time I had chosen to take my long nap in the ossuary Louis had created. Thibault was an old creature, older than even I, bound more to stone than flesh but capable of both. Patient. Territorial. Immortal in a way that mirrored my own.
I was certain he would not have abandoned his den.
I did not think he could have. And yet the changes wrought on this room were undeniable.
My grip on Susie tightened slightly as I stepped fully into the room.
Dust filled my nose, far worse here than contained by the dampness of the tunnels we’d just left.
It was not a pleasant smell for someone with a nose as developed as mine.
The light was electric, cold. It fell across my damsel in a way the tunnels had not allowed, and I found myself noticing her again.
Perhaps for the first time, truly noticing her.
What I saw now sent a wave of something curling through my flesh that was hunger, but not hunger for her blood, not quite.
She was not plain. I had been hasty in that assessment, rudely so.
There was a softness to her features that the dimness had obscured, a quiet symmetry that emerged in the light.
Her hair, though still unruly, caught a faint sheen, as if there were sunlight trapped in the strands.
Her eyes—those irritatingly expressive eyes—held a spark that was difficult to ignore.
Combined with her scent, which had been tempting from the start, God, she was captivating.
The blood that stained her poor knees smelled stronger here.
Warmer. It was a scent full of life and power, the kind of power only humans carried.
My fangs pressed insistently against my lower lip. I was hungry. Dangerously so.
“What is this place?” she asked, completely unaware of the danger only inches from her delicate neck. Her voice pulled me back from the precipice, and she would never know how close I’d come to crossing that line.
“I…” I hesitated, which was not something I did lightly.
“I am uncertain.” It felt strange to admit a lack of knowledge, but the truth was, she knew more about this new world I’d stepped into than I did.
The “phone” still emitting light in her hand was proof of that.
It was a very strange lantern, and a sign that science had advanced, the age of enlightenment more than just a dream.
She huffed softly, like she didn’t believe me.
“Wow. Okay. You can drop the act now, seriously. This is getting old.” Ordinarily, I would have taken offense, but this time, I barely heard her.
I inhaled slowly instead, deliberately filtering through the scents in the air.
Past the dust, the wood, and past the faint traces of cleaning agents and human habitation.
There.
Stone. Not just any stone, this was old.
There was only one creature in the world I knew that had a scent exactly like that: the gargoyle.
That meant Thibault was still here. The scent was faint, but it was definitely present, and if I wasn’t mistaken, it was recent.
That meant he still came here, and relief flickered, brief but real.
So this place had changed, but its owner had not.
“This way,” I said, turning toward the stairwell without further explanation. I threaded my way between dusty shelves, stacked crates, and several huge, empty barrels. There was a wine rack by the stairs, but it was empty and filled with cobwebs. I wondered in horror if alcohol had been prohibited.
“Still carrying me, huh?” Susie muttered, though there was less bite to it now.
I was relieved to turn my eyes to the distraction she was proving to be.
A smile tugged at my mouth, and satisfaction began to replace my initial dismay at having to deal with a rude, strangely accented American wearing inappropriate clothes. She was growing on me.
“Yes,” I told her. It would be extremely remiss of me to put her down when we were almost at the end of this leg of our journey. Once I found Thibault, I might finally release her from my responsibility. Until then, in my arms she would remain, and I was going to ignore how much I liked that.
I climbed the stairs one step at a time, ancient wood creaking beneath my leather shoes.
The scent shifted with each step. It became warmer, richer.
It was now layered with something I had not encountered before in such overwhelming concentration: food, lots of it.
I caught the scent of a shocking array of different spices.
There was also coffee in great abundance, and the rich cream of milk.
Something sweet, something bitter, it all combined into a heady blend that at first masked the truth of what this place had become.
Then I heard them: voices. Not the murmur of scholarly men with fangs or claws, or the flutter of ladies threaded with magic.
These were human voices, and there were a lot of them.
By the time we reached the top of the stairs, I was extremely uneasy.
I almost didn’t want to open the heavy oak door that waited at the top.
It swung open with a light shove on silent hinges, moving smoothly despite its apparent disuse.
I stopped in my tracks again and stared at what lay beyond: a kitchen.
It was brightly lit and bustling with life.
Humans wearing smocks pristine a white, moved through it with casual efficiency, speaking rapidly in French.
The sounds were familiar, but the cadence was not.
My native language had changed, evolved, its nuance slightly different—different enough to almost sound foreign.
They were cooks, waiters, and their attention snapped toward us all at once as we appeared.
Heads craned, mouths opened in surprise, and one person even dropped her knife with a clatter.
I knew what they saw: me, in my centuries-old attire, carrying an injured woman in my arms. Nobody had to tell me what a strange spectacle we made.
The silence was profound, pierced by the shuffling of feet, breathing, and the thump of human hearts.
Someone dropped another utensil, staring at me with eyes so huge they practically drowned out everything else on his face.
“Okay,” Susie whispered urgently. “You can really put me down now. People are staring.”
I did not move; my feet had grown roots and merged with the stone threshold.
This was different. It was a kitchen so baffling it looked like something Louis or, well, Thibault could come up with when they were in their cups and rambling about the future.
Shiny chrome and silver surfaces, a wild array of foods—all fresh—and a blend of things that were never in season together.
Beyond the kitchen, through a wide archway, I could see more humans seated at small tables, laughing, talking, drinking from delicate cups.
Sunlight streamed through large windows, illuminating a space that was warm and inviting.
Inviting, to humans. This was a café, a human café.
The realization struck like a blow. “What...” I began, then stopped.
This was wrong—every bit of it was wrong.
What the hell had Thibault been thinking?