31. Realization
Realization
Zora waits by the arcade, her satchel pressed to her side.
I study her for as long as I dare, until I’m sure she can feel my gaze upon her.
I wait for any tell, any sign that she is what Caterina says she is.
I don’t know what I expect—for her to slay one of the other vampyrs right here in the street?
I’ve walked with her for months, and I was none the wiser.
Caterina could be lying. I do not know what to expect from her. Of all the members of Le Sang Bleu, she is the quietest. She speaks the least. I don’t even know if the story of her maker destroyed by a hunter was true, because I know so little about her.
Zora leans against the wall of the stone arcade, her gaze sweeping the crowd that moves by. She studies them, her intense gaze raking over one form before moving on to the next.
Is she looking for more of my kind? Or is she looking for her next mark to steal from?
This is ridiculous. I’ve allowed Caterina to influence me against my only friend. She’s been watching me, she knows that I have no other I speak to. She likely hasn’t seen you. I wonder if she thinks you are real or a figment of my imagination?
I should dismiss her words. I should give Zora the benefit of the doubt. She’s taught me how to steal. We’ve laughed together. We’ve shared intimate moments—not intimate as you and I have, but moments of closeness I’ve not had before.
Zora’s fingers play along her necklace. I noticed it when we first met, when our eyes locked after she trailed me through the street.
Caterina said it was proof of her status as a hunter.
If she’d followed us, she would have seen it.
It was a curious necklace, but was it as nefarious as she claimed?
If Zora was a hunter and I confronted her, she could kill me.
Would she kill me? She had ample opportunity over the last few months, why delay? If she was trying to gather information about the other vampyrs in Paris, she was doing a poor job at it.
I grab the collar of a young boy as he runs by, pulling him to face me.
“Go harass that woman. Bring your friends,” I tell him. He blinks at me, his pupils wide and his face slack. I turn his face to Zora and point. He slips into the shadows, returning a few moments later with a gaggle of other boys of similar age. They swarm Zora, pushing her and taunting her.
Was I doing the right thing? Why was I so quick to accept Caterina’s accusation?
No—that’s not what I was doing. I was testing a theory, and when she was proven wrong, I would enact my own revenge on her. Perhaps the roof of Le Sang Bleu would collapse, like the temple in Alexandria. Except this would be no act of nature, this would be my doing.
And they would know it was me before they died.
In a way, it was Zora’s fault that I knew how to steal her satchel. She shouldn’t have taught me the most important art of thievery—distraction. The boys circle her, requiring her full attention.
It’s not hard to slip the satchel from her shoulder and replace it with one of similar size and weight. She would notice in short order, but I only needed to get far enough away to examine the contents of it.
If there was proof here, I would confront her.
If there was nothing, I’d find a way to return it to her.
I slip into the shadows and disappear onto a roof where I could sort her items in peace. I upend the bag, spreading her belongings in front of me, turning them over piece by piece.
Jewelry—some I recognized as ones we’d stolen, others I did not. Personal mementos? Things she hadn’t hawked yet? I separate them into their own pile. My bracelet wasn’t in there, Zora keeps it eternally on her wrist.
A silver cross larger than my hand. I turn it over, examining it. I did not know Zora to be religious. I thought she was secular, like the others who separated themselves from the church of the past.
A wooden stake.
I stared at it long and hard, worrying the nail of my right index finger with my thumb. I reach out to touch it, to ensure it was real, then withdraw my hand.
It takes several long moments before I reach out once more, my hand hovering just above it. I expect it to burn my palm as I close my fingers around it. I expect a splinter to lodge itself in my flesh, to somehow poison my blood.
Nothing happens.
It was an ordinary piece of wood. I brought it to my nose and inhaled.
Blood. Old, dried.
I drop the stake on the ground and began to pace.
Was this proof she is a hunter? What if it were a collector’s item? Or what if she used it for protection against the streets of the Palais? If apprehended, would a piece of wood be less damning than a knife or blade to the police of Paris?
I pace the length of the roof three more times before settling down before the remaining objects in her bag.
There is a worn, leather-bound book I’d never seen her with. I crack it and read the inside cover. It was a list of names, Zora’s is the seventh on the list. Her name was written in scratchy, awkward script, cramped compared to the names before hers.
A piece of paper flutters to the ground. I pick it up, unfolding it to read the cramped writing.
Z,
This is your last chance. Do the right thing.
Love,
D
I tuck it into the bag and return to the book. There was no title page, no author listed. I flip through several pages until a drawing stills my hand. It was an image of a face with its mouth open and two pointed teeth, dripping with blood.
I flip back to the first page and read:
Thou shall not suffer a sorceress to live - Exodus 22:18
Within this text are the secrets and true tellings of the paranormal entities that haunt this earth.
They were sent by the Devil to send souls to his realm, and to take souls from our Holy Father.
It is the duty of those of us with knowledge of this realm to vanquish these demons.
It is the only way to prevent Hell on earth.
The book falls from my hands.
I flounder for explanation outside of confirmation that she was a hunter. I tear at my hair, I scratch gouges into my scalp and face. I scream into the night.
Zora is not my friend. She’d realized what I was and dug her way into my life. She was a liar, hiding her true identity from me. Hiding her true intent—to unearth the group of vampyrs in Paris and kill them all, just as they had Caterina’s maker.
I think of you strung up on a cross, the sun breaking over your beautiful face, melting it into a charred ruin.
I imagine your screams, your voice a raw gargle as the sun destroys your vocal cords.
The lips that I’d kissed more times than I could recall bursting, your skin melting and sliding off your face.
I picture every violent detail of your destruction, all because of me.
I am unworthy once more. You are right to keep your distance from me. I am just as ignorant and naive as Caterina claimed. I let a hunter into my life. I spent months with her, as she pretended to be my friend, blinding me to the truth of who she was.
Has she followed me home? Did she know where we live?
I can only hope she was more focused on Le Sang Bleu and the group of vampyrs there. Why settle for the two of us, when she could have the five of them? She could take them. I would give them all to spare you. It would be my version of distraction—feeding them to her while you and I fled.
Your silence would continue, I understand. I deserve that. Once more, I’ve put us in danger, built another box that was loaded onto a boat destined to sink.
This is why the five rules existed, why Le Sang Bleu had their own set of rules about avoiding humans. There was always risk, and that risk was not worth any reward.
What did I expect anyway? That I could eventually tell her what I was, and she’d willingly turn?
Stupid stupid stupid.
I chew on my nails until they break, tasting the blood under them from scratching myself. I run my fingertips over the gouges, but they’re mostly healed.
I could burn the book.
She’s probably memorized it. She’s from a long line of hunters—six before her. She was raised with the knowledge of vampyrs and hunting us. Destroying a book would not destroy the knowledge she’s had since she was a child.
I should keep the book, learn what they know of us.
How much do other vampyrs know about the hunters?
I try to recall what Le Sang Bleu said about the hunters, but I cannot.
It’s another blank moment in my memory, a hole where information should be.
Did they ever go into details about the hunters?
Or was it a vague warning, the way I was warned of robbers and night creatures as a child?
I beat my temple with my closed fist as if it could shake a memory loose. Nothing comes.
I sink onto the ground, gathering my knees to my chest. I have no tears to shed, but I can sob. I can rock myself. I can curse myself and watch you burn in the sun over and over and over again.
I forget I am angry at you. I forget that you are the cause of my misery, that you drove me to this with your distance and isolation.
I forget, and instead my anger is at Zora.
I will do more than throw a few vases this time. I will do more than tear up a bedroom and throw out jewelry. I will make sure Zora has not told another hunter about me, or you.
I will keep us safe, and I will keep this secret from you.