Chapter 34 Arabella
Arabella
Celeste: ARABELLA, PICK UP YOUR PHONE. EMERGENCY!
MY EYES FLUTTER OPEN. It feels like an annoyingly cheerful capybara is doing a dance inside my skull.
I tug the bamboo duvet over my head. Unlike other vampires, I do not go in for the traditional coffin aesthetic.
I like being able to spread out in a real bed, to sleep without four walls feeling like they’re closing in on me.
Arabella Lestrange doesn’t follow old-fashioned Upyr traditions. She sets trends.
I reach over and look at the phone. 7.44 pm. I’ve slept in. I hardly ever sleep in.
I’m also late. Gideon and I are supposed to start rehearsing our act for the variety show at 7—
Gideon.
In a flash, it all comes back to me. Saving Gideon from Celeste, locking her in the dungeon beneath Sanctus. Finding out she’s a werewolf. Finding out Gideon drained two vampires. Playing Catan with Gideon. And…
I kissed Gideon.
Then, we took things further.
I took things further.
And… wow.
I thought I’d misremembered how good he was back in Paris, that my memory was torturing me out of pure sadism. But no. The man is not without talent.
And the way his face changed when Celeste nearly spilled the beans on her absurd theory about the killer being after me… The golden boy looked positively feral.
If I didn’t hate him so much, it would be quite delicious.
But then, how did I end up back in my bed? I remember talking to Celeste and then… nothing. I must’ve passed out.
I lost our bet.
I cast my eyes around my room. A note is pinned to a bottle of blood on the nightstand. I pick it up and read:
If you’re wondering who tucked you into bed, it was me. Well, I carried you here in my arms, like a hero of legend, and then I collapsed from exhaustion and sun exposure, so Sinead had to do the actual undressing and tucking, lucky woman.
All appreciation gift baskets can be sent to me via Sanctus House.
Gideon
PS. I know we’re supposed to be rehearsing our routine this evening, but I propose we put it off until tomorrow so we can both have a lie-in. And also so I can talk you out of making me wear a meerkat costume.
PPS. I am eagerly awaiting cashing in my prize for winning our very legitimate, no-take-backsies bet. You wheat some, you lose some.
That’s an awfully long note. I touch the paper. It smells of him, all fruity and zesty.
I pick up my phone. There are a million messages from the Nevermore Coven, but it’s probably Komal freaking out about Augustin Durant’s latest stunt.
The phone buzzes. Winnie’s calling.
“Hello,” I cradle the phone against my cheek as I flop back onto my pillows. Gideon’s scent rises from the note, and I slip into a dreamy memory of his fingers drawing out such pleasure…
“Arabella, where are you?”
“Still in bed. You won’t believe the night I’ve had—”
“You’d better come quickly. Beth’s studio is on fire.”
I smell the blaze before I see it.
I’m driving Gideon’s car with the windows down, and the smell of burning brings up a memory I’ve tried hard to forget – my beautiful theatre a ruinous sacrifice to Lucien Vega’s empire.
In my chest, my heart is a charred, broken thing.
Gideon sits in the passenger seat beside me, his hands folded in his lap. He jiggles one leg until I snap at him that I’ll cut it off. For years I thought him responsible for La Petite Mort burning. Now, after everything he told me, I’m forced to adjust my opinion of him.
He’s still a rat bastard, but maybe not quite as ratty or bastardly as I thought.
And judging from his jackhammer leg and the way his cobalt eyes have clouded over with worry, he cares about the future of Beth’s pole studio and the village variety show just as much as I do.
Not that I care. At all.
We exit the estate and the high trees that provide our sanctuary give way to low hedgerows and rolling fields. The village looms above us, a plume of smoke rising from the centre.
I put my foot down and race along narrow, winding streets lined with Victorian townhouses and thatched-roof cottages, thankful for the sports car’s impressive grip as I tear around the village green and pull to a stop in front of the inferno that was once the historic wattle-and-daub stables.
My throat burns as I clamber out of the car. The building is beyond saving. The fire has already caved in the roof. Villagers gather at the edge of the lot, staring mutely.
Beth stands in her yoga clothes, arms folded across her chest, staring into the flames with a look of despair and ire so deep that not even a mushroom smoothie could fix it.
“Beth…” I’m speechless. I can’t think of a single thing to say that will comfort my friend while her dreams go up in flames. I know all too well the desolation that brings.
Beth nods, but doesn’t look away from the flames.
Maisie jogs over, her reporter’s notebook clenched tightly in her fist. “I’m so happy to see both of you.
We were worried. And before you ask, Chief Baker is saying it’s arson.
You and Gideon were both booked in to practise your variety show act.
You should have been inside when the building went up. I’m so grateful you cancelled.”
I glance at Gideon, my heart hammering against my chest.
We were supposed to be in there.
If we hadn’t been with Celeste in the dungeon, if we hadn’t had that silly bet to stay up all night, Gideon and I would have been practising in the studio. Our names were printed clearly on the schedule sent to all the performers. Anyone could have found out when we meant to be there.
Celeste’s warning rings in my ears. Maybe I’ve been foolish to ignore it.
I turn to Gideon. “Where’s Badica?”
He looks surprised by the question. “He’s on a train back to his family seat at Nightshade Court. I sent a note to Alaric’s mother, who will deal with him once he arrives.”
“And there’s no chance that he could have snuck off that train and come back here?”
“None whatsoever. I left him in the care of two of my most trustworthy men.” Gideon looks puzzled. “What’s this about?”
“Whoever did this knew you and Arabella would be using the hall tonight,” Celeste pipes up.
“They nailed shut the doors and windows. Lilac says there’s some kind of spell around the building so a vampire wouldn’t be able to escape.
They intended to kill you both, just like they killed Danny and Patrick. ”
I glare at Celeste.
Gideon turns to me. “Are you being stalked by a crazed killer and you didn’t think to tell me?”
“Celeste is being alarmist,” I hiss through gritted teeth.
“I’m not being alarmist. They tried to burn down a building with you inside!” Celeste yells. Tears stream down her cheeks. Beth pulls her in for a hug, her eyes still fixed on her burning studio.
I turn away, but Gideon’s grip around my arm is a vise. He tugs me to the edge of the green, out of earshot from any human villagers. “You should have told me.”
“I can take care of myself. This isn’t the first time I’ve run into people from my past.” I frown. “They usually calm down after they realise I’m not going to expose their secret kinks to their current business interests. Badica was a special case—”
“Does this look calm to you?” Gideon waves his arm at the smouldering remains. “Someone tried to burn you alive, which is supposed to be the worst imaginable way to kill a vampire. If something happens to you, I can’t—”
“You can’t what?”
My charred heart flutters with life.
His long eyelashes tangle together as he squeezes his eyes shut. “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that we catch the person who did this before they hurt you or anyone else.”
“On that we are agreed,” Maisie groans, as the members of the Nevermore Coven crowd around us. “Completely aside from the threat to your lives, Zen and Tonic was the only venue in the village where we could host the variety show. We’re going to have to cancel, and without it…”
“Maisie, how can you be thinking about your job when Arabella was almost killed?” Dora scolds her.
“I’m sorry, Arabella,” Maisie says glumly, dropping her gaze to her colourful sneakers.
“It’s just that being a journalist is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do.
This fire feels personal somehow. This killer is attacking people in the village, including my friends, and they’re also trying to ensure I can’t write about it. ”
“It sure does feel personal,” Beth whispers. Celeste hugs her tightly.
Dora and Komal berate Maisie as she shrinks into herself, but I’m silent.
What she said about only ever wanting to be a journalist…
She’s worked so hard to drum up support for the village variety show, and Beth’s worked even harder to open her own studio, and as annoying as I find the whole thing, I will confess that my friends have done everything they can to make the show a success, including hiring me to direct it.
I too have had something I built destroyed by fire. If this killer is after me, then so be it. But he will not drag my friends into his vicious game.
I’ll find a way to fix this for Beth and Maisie and the village. Somehow.
I drift back to the conversation and notice Gideon studying me, his plump lips in an unusually serious line. I suppose he was also supposed to die in tonight’s fire. Even Gideon Blake feels unsettled when threatened with roasting to death.
The thought makes my chest fill with heat and my steely pulse thump in my ears. As pissed as I am at this killer turning his sights on me and the perfectly innocent pole studio, when I think of Gideon being hurt, I’m filled with rage.
I just got those skilled hands and that naughty tongue of his back in my life, and if I’m being honest, I’m not as upset about it as I let him believe. No one is killing Gideon Blake – that pleasure should be all mine.
So who did this? Whose neck am I severing?
They have to be a member at Sanctus Estate, and they’re going around husking innocent humans. They need to be put down.
If Paul Badica isn’t the one who gave me those songbirds and burned down the hall, then who did?
Who hates me this much?