Chapter 4 #2
Where were the others? Where were the creatures who had once gathered here, hidden in plain sight?
My friends, the coven? Louis with his papers scattered across a table, and some errant bones glowing in a dish in front of him.
Pierre working nearby to improve his vitrification process.
Thibault stalking between the tables with a bee in his bonnet, complaining about the smells, too much wine, our laughter too loud. Where…
“Raoul.” The voice cut cleanly through the noise of the crowd in the café, and the turmoil inside my head. I turned slowly, Susie clutched in my arms like she was my lifeline in a rather odd reversal of our roles.
He stood in the doorway opposite us, by the stairs that led away from the silenced bustle of the kitchen and the noisy café proper beyond.
Human, or rather, wearing humanity. He was tall, composed, and dressed in modern fashion that sat strangely upon him, as though it were an afterthought.
He’d always fit wrong inside human contraptions, but it was more obvious to my eyes in this sleek attire.
His expression was smooth, controlled, exactly as I remembered it.
His eyes held the key: ancient and sharp, they betrayed the flicker of surprise he did not voice. The gargoyle, I’d found him.
“You do have a talent for dramatic entrances,” he said lightly, already crossing the room toward us.
“Though I must admit, this one surpasses even your flair. You weren’t expected yet.
” Thibault’s voice was a deep bass that held the edge of gravel, of rock grinding against rock, a hint of the primal beast that lurked beneath his human veneer.
“You have redecorated, old friend,” I replied.
My eyes flicked over the staring crowd of cooks.
Some had gotten over their initial surprise and had their heads bent together, whispering about my strange clothes.
They were shockingly impolite in the way they gazed and chattered.
Like Susie, they had forgotten all about manners when speaking to someone of obvious status.
Admittedly, my dusty smock had seen better days, and some of the seams had gone alarmingly weak.
“Mm.” His gaze flicked briefly to Susie, then back to me.
“We will discuss that upstairs.” Without waiting for agreement, he turned.
The kitchen staff parted instinctively as he passed, their curiosity swallowed by something quieter, more instinctive.
Deference, perhaps, though they would not know why.
At least, I assumed they didn’t know why, but with so much changed, even that could be different.
I followed my old friend up another set of stairs, and then another.
Higher. Always higher. Of course, that made sense.
Gargoyles preferred elevation—rooftops, towers; all places where stone met sky.
Thibault might be ancient, but his instincts had not faded with time.
Never before had he had need to take me up to his private chambers, and I felt a stirring of curiosity when, at last, we reached our destination and stepped into his sanctuary.
The shift was immediate. The space was large, open, and dominated by a wide bay window through which daylight poured, softened by sheer curtains.
A massive hearth lined one wall but no fire was lit this evening.
It was a room filled with the mementos of several lifetimes and more. “Put her down,” he said.
I did, reluctantly. My arms clung around her back, and I felt the soft press of her knees, while my lungs filled greedily with her scent where it was thick and pure.
Her hair clung in silky strands to my face and the stained silk of my cravat.
Careful not to jar her injuries, I lowered Susie onto a couch near the fire.
She sank into it with a soft, relieved sound, clutching her phone loosely in one hand. Only then did I step away.
Instantly, I felt off balance, and I paced restlessly in front of the fireplace.
It was unlit and did nothing to dispel the coldness of the catacombs that lingered deep in my bones.
The room felt too small, and the light was much too bright.
There was too much change all at once. I tried to remind myself that was what I’d wanted when I’d asked Louis to help me build my sanctuary for three hundred years of sleep.
Only when I looked at Susie’s pale face did that idea still hold true, like she was the reason for which I’d slept through the years. Her I’d wanted to meet.
Behind me, the gargoyle stood before the fireplace, utterly still in the way only his kind could become.
He was watching, waiting, the way a predator could be patient.
The Thibault I had known was not the same as the one who stood before me now, and I discovered I did not entirely trust this sleeker, cooler version. “Well,” he said at last. “Explain.”
I shot him a glare, then shrugged, self-conscious about my appearance, as nothing had gone to plan at all.
I’d worn a good, sturdy suit when I’d lain down where Louis had indicated, but he was supposed to be there to wake me, ready with fresh clothes.
Nothing had gone as planned. I shot Susie a look but found I could no longer be upset with her for disturbing my slumber.
“There is little to explain,” I replied. “I slept. I woke.”
The gargoyle shot me a look that said he didn’t believe me. “Yes,” he said dryly. “Several decades too early, if my calculations are correct.” Susie made a small, strangled sound from her position on the couch. I turned immediately, my heart rate soaring with that pesky, inconvenient concern.
Part of me worried that she’d done something that had aggravated her skinned knees. This was shock, not pain, however. She was staring between us, her eyes wide. “Decades?” she echoed faintly.
The gargoyle’s gaze sharpened, and I understood what had happened.
Thibault was never reckless with information about our existence; he had assumed she knew.
Assumed she belonged in this conversation.
That was very dangerous, for her. I moved without thinking, stepping between them.
An instinct surged inside me, as old as time itself, and the only kind that Thibault would understand, if I dared to confide in him: she was under my protection.
Mine. The thought came unbidden, but it stayed, nestling inside my chest and slowly blooming into a greater understanding.
With this new knowledge settling into my bones and replacing the cold that had not left me, at last I turned to look at her with new eyes.
She was too pale, far too pale. Her wrist had swollen visibly, and the skin was stretched tight over it.
Broken. The realization settled coldly. “Thibault, do you have a healing crystal?” I asked, not taking my eyes off her.
The gargoyle inclined his head once. “Of course.” He turned and moved away without another word, I presumed, to go fetch it without question.
Perhaps he had seen the severity of her injuries more clearly than I had, and I could only blame my lack of human interaction for it.
I had withdrawn from the world and the growing discontent, the aftereffects of the French Revolution and Robespierre’s la Terreur.
I crossed back to the couch and knelt before Susie with a new sense of purpose.
“Let me see,” I said firmly. She hesitated, then extended her legs slightly, but she kept her wrist pressed against her chest. The damage was much worse than I had initially assessed.
Her knees were not merely scraped; they were abraded raw.
The skin had been torn and embedded with grit, small stones clinging stubbornly to the wounds.
I hissed softly, my eyes growing wide, and no doubt beginning to emit a faint glow as my feelings grew stronger. “This will require cleaning.” I did not relish the task, because it was sure to be a painful process for her.
“Yeah,” she said weakly. “I figured.” She sounded resigned to this fate and did not protest when I gently grabbed hold of the hand and elbow of her broken arm, guiding it away from her body so I could better examine the injury.
I was not a doctor, but I’d always had a keen fascination with anatomy; I still remembered the basics of what Louis had taught in secret.
When I moved her hand, she went paler, but she did not make a sound.
The scent hit me again, stronger now, because I was so much closer.
As if that bit of distance after I’d put her down had only reminded me of how good she smelled, how incredible her blood was.
It called to me: warm, human, and so very alive.
My fangs descended before I could stop them. Damn it.
“Raoul?” Her voice was quiet, the city beyond the large bay windows rustling, calling, murmuring much louder.
Her tone was quiet, but it was steady, calm, and I could do nothing but respect that.
I forced my gaze upward, away from her swollen wrist and the way her camisole, barely more than an undergarment, clung to her womanly curves.
She was watching me with the same steadiness in her gaze that had been in her tone. Not a hint of panic, but instead the calmness of a person who’d just come to a life-altering conclusion and did not break. “Are you,” she said slowly, “actually a vampire?”
In the split second after that phrase left her mouth and became reality, I considered deflection.
It would be easier to lie, for me, but for her too.
As the daylight filled the room, soft and undeniable, her breathing remained even, and that phrase remained real.
Easier, but would it be fair? Would it not tear at her sanity if I cast doubt on her own observations?
Susie was not a woman like the ones I’d known from my time.
The delicate nobility, sequestered, often God-fearing, and superstitious, so very superstitious.
Not my American, no. She had sassed her way through her experience in the Catacombs despite her injuries.
Hell, she had not complained or fainted.
She had even protested against my carrying her, like she abhorred the thought of being a damsel in distress.
She had conquered her panic with grace. No, Susie would not break under this knowledge; she was strong, and that had impressed me.
So I answered: “Yes.”