24. The New Cult
The New Cult
It is at the Palais-Royal my unraveling begins.
Shops, salons, cafes, gambling houses line the rectangular garden under sweeping stone arcades. At night those arches become places to hide, to hunt, to watch without being noticed. It is a place of sin and destitution, and I adore it.
My first visit was purely accidental. I’d crossed the Seine and headed west, exploring the parts of the city thus far unknown to me. The noise drew me to it. Saint-Germain by night is a corpse, rotting away with its complacency. Everything is loud by comparison.
But Palais-Royal is a pulsating, beating heart.
A man leers at me from the doorway of a gambling hall where music pours into the street. Another tries to thrust a paper into my hand, speaking in rapid German, then French.
“Beautiful girl, this booklet will change your life!” It is a pamphlet filled with caricatures of people in fine dress with the words “Le pouvoir arbitraire corrompt tout”—arbitrary power corrupts everything—framed overhead.
It is said the seeds of revolution were sewn in Palais-Royal, but that was still years away. Here it was the brooding predecessor to rebellion, a constant thrum in the streets that mirrored the one in my blood.
I sat in cafes at night and listened to the humans talk of the corruption of the church, the lies of the monarchy, the woes of poverty, and I understood.
I knew what it was like to worship and get nothing in return.
I knew what it was like to be governed without representation.
While I knew physical riches, I knew only emotional poverty.
I itched to join in on their conversations, to speak my truths to someone who would listen. Would they understand? Would they know we were kindred spirits?
No, a human would never understand my plight.
They do not know what it means to love for centuries, for someone to hollow you out and bury themselves within that space.
You’d sprouted roots that dug into my marrow, too deep to dislodge.
What human could understand that, even as a metaphor for their church and monarch?
I wanted to tell them that this empire would fall, just as all the others have before them. Is the same true for me? Is it at last time for you to realize you are tired of me and cut me loose?
How much of me will your roots take with you?
The smell of blood jolts me from my reverie. It is not uncommon for blood to be shed beneath the stone arcades. Stabbings, fights, murders all go unsolved and barely noticed by the locals. The difference is this smell is coming from within the cafe.
My head jerks toward its origin, my eyes meeting an electric blue so bright they glow under the dim lamps.
I freeze, because I recall another set of blue eyes watching me in the street.
But these are not Essemteu’s, who had blue eyes so light they might have been white.
The man with the blue eyes lifts his wine glass to me in salute, the blood swirling and coating the edges of the glass.
I move to sit across from him, the rest of the cafe a decrescendo against finding another of our kind.
It’s been so long.
After your failed cult, we saw little of our kind. I knew we were rare, made rarer by the death of so many in Alexandria. It’d taken over a century after being made before I wandered upon the vampires in Rome.
Sometimes I wonder if our trudge through the periphery of society was intentional, to keep us away from any knowing eyes.
Did you fear recognition for your origin, or for what was done in Alexandria?
Since we did not investigate, there was no one to blame, and thus blame rests on us.
Is that the origin of your silence? A sense of burden, of guilt?
Whatever the cause, it has been far too long since I saw another of our kind. What a glorious coincidence one should be settled at a table in the very cafe I am in, sipping a glass of blood.
Coincidence, indeed.
“Bon soir,” he says, though his accent is not French.
“Is that the language you prefer to speak?” I reply.
“It is not,” he admits. “But alas, we are in Paris”—he pronounces it too heavy, ignoring the ’s’ entirely—“and this is how we shall speak. Tomasz,” he adds, an afterthought.
“Melinoe,” I say, and he takes my hand in the way the Parisians greet.
“I do not know that name,” he admits.
“We have not met, how would you?” I ask.
“Forgive me, I am still learning the concepts of this language. What is the origin of your name? I am of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.”
“Greek, of Delphi,” I say. It is the most anyone has asked of me, other than you. You don’t have to ask anymore, though. You’ve been there for everything important in my life.
“Delphi!” Tomasz says, loud enough for the two nearest tables to turn. I scowl at him, sinking deeper into my chair.
“Ah, not here, daughter of the oracle. Palais is a place to hide, yes, but not from yourself. But forgive me for assuming, surely you are not of that age.”
“Of the oracle?” I ask. I squint to remember.
I’ve heard stories of her, and by all accounts I should remember her.
Perhaps that is the goddess I recall, when the acolytes were so adamant that it was Apollo I served.
Once more, my memories of that time are sluggish, disorienting.
There is blood and singing and…crying? No, not crying. That can’t be right.
“I pry, it is my nature,” Tomasz says, watching my face for every reaction. He reads what I do not say, that it hurts to drag through the swamp of my memories. “I suppose anyone that old would forget a thing or two. Only so much space in here.” He taps the side of his head, at his temple.
“You study the pamphlets,” I say, turning our conversation to the papers before him. There are many, spread out before him, scrawled on with charcoal.
“I do,” he admits gleefully.
“You care for the affairs of humans?”
“Yes and no. Yes, because it reminds me of my humanity. No, because it reminds me of how I lost it. I follow ideas. They are as destructive as armies, you see. I want to be here when it happens.”
“When what happens?”
“The destruction.” His grin is all teeth, a cat that caught his prey. I do not feel like the prey in this, I feel as another cat, already full to the brim, watching their companion kill.
“So this is what brought you to this cafe? To watch?”
“To watch you, yes. I noted you a fortnight ago. Forgive me for not approaching you right away, I wanted to know you a bit first.”
How unsettling that his eyes might trace me, and I was none the wiser.
“Know me?” I ask, my hackles up.
“Yes. You hunt humans in quiet, never leaving a mess. You are a close follower of the rules, I see.” He lifts his glass to toast and my stomach turns over.
“The rules?” I ask. My voice is not as strong as I’d hoped, it shakes and tumbles.
“There I go again, speaking ahead of myself. There is a small group of us here in Paris, we are all of a like mind. Five in total.” My skin crawls.
Is this another cycle I am to live through? Instead of it being the rise and fall of the humans, it is the reincarnation of your cult. I almost stand and leave, but my anxiety roots me to the chair.
“We developed a set of rules, loose things to remain clandestine. One,”—he raises one finger to emphasize—“do not make a mess. This means personal affairs, as well as physical bodies. Two,”—another finger joins the first—“do not bring a human to our meetings.” He shrugs, lowering his hand.
“Two rules?” I ask. Had I a beating heart, it would be racing.
“I know it is taxing, but we needed some structure. It gives a reason to dismiss someone, though it doesn’t mitigate the drama attached. I have been given the clear from the group to invite you.”
“A group?” All I’ve done is ask a series of useless questions, but my dread is not so easily hidden.
“Small. We are all solitary creatures, but I assure you, we do fine together as well. It is very informal. There’s a salon we’ve claimed as our own, hired a strapping young lad to guard it. You need only say the password to enter.” Tomasz misunderstands my reservations and I allow him to.
“And if I were to bring another?” I ask, thinking of you. Always you.
But then I pause.
Paris is Alexandria is whatever came before. Would this be another chance for you to claim them? Would our home be filled with the raucousness of these strangers, defiled once more? Did I want to watch another group of weak-minded vampyrs follow you around, crying after your gifts?
I did not wish to be cast aside.
“Another?” Tomasz asks. If he’s been watching me, he’s only seen me alone.
You and I have not hunted together in some time.
I do not even know when you leave our home, or if you do at all.
As I’ve aged, I’ve needed to hunt less and less, more of a habit than anything else at this point. Do you need to hunt at all?
“My maker.” It is the easiest way to speak of you.
“Your maker?” Tomasz’s eyes widen and he leans back in his chair. “This is a story that will regale them all. An ancient such as yourself, still in contact with their maker. I have so many questions to ask, but I wish to take this journey with them.” He stands and offers his hand, a polite gesture.
I do not take it, and stand alongside him. “You will show me the way to this salon?”
He grins and we are into the night. I wondered then if this salon would be the new cult or if I could keep it from you. Would you smell the other vampyrs on me? Would you even care, or would it be lost in your indifference?
I stopped thinking of you and instead followed this stranger blindly.
(“You could have been killed.”)
Yes, but instead I lived.
A large human male stands guard before an ancient building.
His hands are clasped behind his back, his posture perfect, his eyes tracing every creature that walks before the venue.
There is a lone sign—Le Sang Bleu—legible only when you’re directly below it and it’s illuminated by flickering lamplight.