by Lund, S. E.
"I don't know if I can play," I say as I peer at the music and find the first notes.
"Nonsense," Julien says. "Musicians have been playing stoned for decades – drunk for centuries. Why even Berlioz composed on opium."
I make an attempt, doing well at the outset, playing the main theme from memory, but then having to focus on the first four variations, which are the more difficult parts I haven't memorized. My fingers don't respond as well as normal and I trip over some of the more difficult parts and then start over when I get to the part I haven't yet learned well.
"Sorry," I say, turning to Vasily. "That's all I can do." Vasily has his hand over his heart and his expression is thanks enough.
"Play this for me. You owe me as well." Julien puts Chopin’s Ballade on the stand. "Big time."
I ignore his comment and play, getting caught up in its beauty. When I finish as far as I can go, he takes in a deep breath.
"Again."
I play it again from the start, and the sound of his voice, the music and the high from the joint combine to make me forgive him for everything. It's the saddest thing, to play this piece for him, knowing it must be a painful to know I played it for Michel –that it's Michel I want, and it's for Michel I practiced, yet he seems to want me to play it anyway.
The euphoria from the high keeps me going, keeps me from feeling sad. I feel happy to be able to play it, to listen to its sweetness. I think of Kate, so high she can't even talk, lying in the messy bed, so insubstantial that she's like an empty scarecrow. I feel my heart swell for Kate and mostly for Michel that he was so willing to take care of her. And now Julien, trying to make her last days comfortable, keeping her off the street, getting her medical care.
When I stop playing, I turn to him, shaking my head, my emotions rising. He finally looks at me directly and it's the first time we've really made eye contact since yesterday.
"I'm so sorry."
He nods but says nothing, looking away from me to Vasily.
"I think it's time to go."
Vasily raises his eyebrows, but nods. He motions to Reynolds, who's eyeing Julien and me, a hint of a smile on his lips.
"Cheers." He chugs the remaining scotch in his glass. "See you tomorrow, Eve. We've got more work to do."
I nod, feeling like the moment could go on and on.
Vasily and Reynolds leave, and Julien follows. I stand and grab his arm.
"Wait." I have to say something more to him –my apology isn't enough. "Don't go."
He stops and looks at me, glancing up and down.
"I don't see you on your hands and knees."
"I don't mean that. I just wanted to say something to you. To apologize—."
"You already did."
He turns, pulling his arm away.
"I was wrong," I say, trying to get the words out before he’s gone. "I was foolish, stupid." I stand there and close my eyes, feeling borne on a wave of acceptance. When I open my eyes again, he's at the door, saying nothing in response. "Screwed up," I say, the warm feeling from the White Widow keeping me from despairing. "More trouble than I'm worth."
He stops, the door open. "Everything that's worth anything in life is hard." He looks back at me. "You know what to do."
I nod, but it isn't going to happen. I just had to say I was sorry, to make things right.
After a moment, he goes to his coat on the coat tree and retrieves some papers from an inside pocket. He stands there for a moment as if deciding, and then he comes to stand before me and holds out the papers.
"Here," he says, handing them to me, closing my fingers around the folded papers. "I’m going out later and don’t know when or if I’ll be back. I hoped that our little party tonight might straighten a few things out for you, but you need more. You wanted to read it all. These are some parts of the manuscript Michel didn't want you to read. I went to his place and found them, tucked away in his desk. Read them. I know you think you love him, but you have to let him go. He's no saint and he's a great actor. At least with me, you know what you're getting."
Then the door closes, and he's gone.
Chapter 32
“Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.”
David Grayson
I take the papers and go to my bedroom, creeping under the covers, and start to read.
"Nous séjour avec Soren pour l'année prochaine," the manuscript starts. "We stay with Soren for the next year."
I see such a transformation in my brother that I barely recognize him. He has become Soren's servant as he did Marguerite before him. But even more, he has become Soren's confidant and partner in crime.
I kill mortals. I don't apologize for it. I drink their blood with relish, for I am a hunter now. But I have not forgotten that they are humans, and that I was once one as well. That I once loved and felt pain and had hopes and dreams just as they do. Michel seems to have forgotten this entirely or he plays this role so convincingly that even I start to hate him.
I keep telling myself that he is merely trying to learn as much as is possible from Soren – about his kind in the hopes of finding a way to kill him, but it is difficult to see him act in such a base and heartless manner.
Only last night, we were sitting around the salon in Soren's Paris home after a day of rest, and Soren turned to Michel, who was lounging on a divan after a bath, preparing for the night's conquests.
"I want you to do something to impress me, Michel," he says. Soren's dressed in his finery, black trousers, tunic and belt, black boots, and it contrasts against his pale skin and white-blond hair. He enjoys looking like a vampire and does whatever he can to enhance it, relishing the fear his appearance elicits in his victims. Indeed, it seems as if their fear gives him as much delight as does their blood.
He motions to the servant and holds out his goblet for more wine.
"Do something out of the ordinary. Show me how far you've come. How you've adopted the spirit of our kind."
Michel shrugs his shoulders.
"What could possibly surprise you? You've been in existence for thousands of years."
Soren purses his lips.
"Nothing in itself. You could surprise me with your willingness to do it. That would be the novelty. Think of it – Michel de Cernay, former Domini canis, Hound of God. Priest, Bishop of Carcassonne. God's Beloved – isn't that what the name Michel stands for in your language?"
Michel’s face is impassive. "Not so beloved after all I expect."
Soren only grins.
Later, we’re out strolling down along the river, enjoying the night. The sky is clear, the stars barely visible because it’s a full moon, and this one is blue, its edges blurred by high cloud. A strong wind blew in over the land earlier in the week, carrying on it darkness during the day. Reports from travelers bring news of an eruption of a volcano in Italy and the sun takes on a violet hue during the daylight hours.
A bad omen during a time when every sign seems dark.
“So, Michel,” Soren says as we stroll along, admiring the humans as they’re out walking along the Seine, taking the air, escaping the stink of the city. “What are you going to do to surprise me? I’m bored.”
Michel walks ahead of us, his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze moving over the mortals we pass, eyeing them, sizing them up. A few of the women eye him, for he’s beautiful with his long hair pulled back, in his black clothing.
“I’m still thinking,” he says.
We leave the more refined part of the city for the stretch of the Seine bordering slums, where no one in authority notices drained corpses thrown into the river. We come across a man begging on the street, crouched down in the gutter, asking for money to help feed his starving family.
“How many are there in your family?” Michel asks as he digs into his pocket for a coin.
“Six, my Lord,” the man says, his hand shaking so badly he can barely take the coin Michel offers. “The wife died in childbirth a
nd I have five children.”
“Where are they?” he says, glancing around. “Where do you live?”
“We stay under the bridge, my Lord,” the man says. His face is filthy, his hair matted, his clothes stiff with sweat and dirt.
Michel turns to us. “It would be a mercy, don’t you think? How can a family survive without a mother?”
Soren nods. “Truly a mercy.”
I stop in my tracks. Michel’s going to kill an entire family?
“Take me to them. I want to see them. Perhaps if your story is true, I’ll take care of you. I need a special project.”
The man is so grateful, he fawns at Michel’s feet, kissing his legs, hobbling down the stairs to the space under bridge.
There we find the family, the children ranging in age from twelve to two, three girls and two boys. The youngest is a tiny girl with a filthy face, sleeping in her older sister’s arms.
Michel knees down and looks the sleeping children over.
“You’ve done your best,” he says to the man. “You can’t be expected to care for them all alone. What will they do without a mother?”
“I do what I can, my Lord. I do what I can.”
“That’s all we can do,” Michel replies. He reaches into his pocket, appearing to remove more money, but when he extends his hand it’s empty. Instead, he grabs the man by the scruff of his neck, and he calms the man. Then, his fangs extended, his eyes red, Michel bites the man’s neck, drinking him dry in a few short minutes.
Next, he kills the oldest girl, who is sleeping peacefully and never wakes then he moves onto the next oldest child – the oldest boy and does the same. Not a single sound is heard from any of them as he kills them for he silences them first so they don’t awaken. Finally, he takes the baby in his arms – a lovely child with pale curling hair, and kills her as well. He’s taken so much blood that his skin has a rosy hue, the first time I’ve seen him so since we were turned.
He looks up at Soren, his mouth bloody.
“What next?”
Soren smiles as if he approves.
“Good, but I would have preferred if you’d killed them in reverse order – the children taken in front of the father. So much more dramatic. Plus you were too kind, calming them first. I always like to see a fair fight. The chase. The conquest. If you had chased them down and killed them one by one in front of the father, like a lion kills a baby gazelle in front of its family, now that would have surprised me. But this was better than your usual kill. Dying soldiers? What sport is that? You’re improving.”
We walk on under the bridge and find a young girl and her sister asleep beside a support pillar, an old ragged blanket all that keeps them warm and off the dirt.
“There’s your chance to redeem yourself. Take them. Chase them. Kill the one in front of the other.”
Michel does. He stands over them, menacingly, and kicks the older girl’s foot. She wakes, sees his hunter face, and screams, clutching her sister who also wakes and screams.
“Run,” Michel says, his voice a growl. “RUN!”
They run along the riverbank in the darkness. The youngest girl trips and falls and Michel is there, picking her up. She’s no more than eight, her face still baby-soft despite the grime that covers her. He carries her as he chases the older girl. When she sees he has her sister, the older girl stops and pleads with him to release her.
“Don’t hurt her,” she begs. Older, perhaps ten or eleven, she kneels on the riverbank, her hands clasped. “Please, Sir, don’t hurt her!”
He kills the child in his arms and I watch in horror as her tiny body struggles, their forms silhouetted against the blue moon. Then he throws her down on the ground. The older girl tries to crawl away on her hands and knees but Michel grabs her from behind and lifts her up, taking her, killing her in moments before dumping her body in the Seine.
Now, he has drunk the blood of seven humans, most only children, but still, he’s gorged himself on human life.
I hate him as I stand there, tears in my eyes.
“Well done,” Soren says. “Why, you’ve so much fresh blood in you, you could fool a human into thinking you are alive. That you have a soul. Maybe we should go to one of the more popular salons and watch you try. Convince some lovely and high-born marquess of your humanity, and then kill her. Oh, to see the horror on her face…”
Michel says nothing. He merely climbs the bank back to the bridge and we continue on our evening stroll.
“Yes, let’s,” he says finally. I watch him from behind as he and Soren walk side by side.
For the first time since we were turned, I truly don’t believe he has a soul anymore. I don’t know anymore what is act and what is real. I don’t know my brother anymore. I make a pact with myself to never become like him – acting as if he’s heartless, soulless.
Even if it means my death.
I throw the pages onto the floor beside my bed and lie back on the pillows, my stomach sick at the story I’ve just read. I can’t believe Michel would act that way – he seemed so moral, so ethical, when I was with him. Fighting for humanity, to protect us from Dominion. How could he be so heartless? Was it an act or did he relish the kills he made?
I toss and turn for hours, unable to get the images of him chasing the poor children and then killing them with such little care – all of it to impress Soren.
I suspect that was Julien’s goal.
I don’t see Julien again for the rest of the week, and by Friday, I’m feeling exceptionally blue. Reynolds does most of the work requiring discussions directly with Julien, so I have no reason to even see him. Instead, I return to work and try to catch up with the case and any developments I missed while I was away.
Every night I go to bed, thinking of Michel, about Julien, wondering where Julien is, and how Michel is doing. On my part, I feel a certain level of frustration knowing I could have Julien in my bed if only I was willing to get down on my hands and knees. I just can’t do it.
I’m worth more than that.
Finally, late on Friday night after I’ve gone to bed and have been sleeping for a while, I wake when he sits on the bed beside me.
"Eve," he says, shaking me lightly. "Wake up."
I startle awake and sit up, rubbing my eyes.
"What's the matter?"
"An interesting development turned up in my travels."
I wait, but he seems distracted.
"What is it?"
"Are you wearing your perfume?"
"Yes," I say and touch my neck.
"Please stop. It’s penetrated everything and I can’t get away from it even if I try."
I lift my pillow and the soft cotton pillowcase is infused with it.
"It's the sheets."
He nods and glances away, his gaze on the far windows.
"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you hate it. Michel liked it and I wear it because it reminds me of him."
"No, no," he said finally. "It’s just a constant reminder, that’s all."
He exhales. "How have you been?” he says. “I haven’t seen you all week.”
I shrug my shoulder.
“I’m fine. I’ve been busy at the SCU.”
He reaches out and touches my cheek, and I know he’s trying to read me.
“You miss me,” he says, his voice soft. “That’s a start. You feel regret."
My cheeks heat that he knows how I feel.
"I feel a lot of things. Sadness. Loneliness." I sigh. "Self-respect – not much, but enough."
"What does self-respect have to do with it?" He sounds so frustrated. "If you want something bad enough, you do what it takes to get it."
I shake my head. "Even if I crawled on my hands and knees, I still wouldn't get what I want so why bother? Why humiliate myself?"
"Why would it humiliate you? What would you think of me if I crawled on my hands and knees to you, asking for your forgiveness so that you and I could be together?" He says nothing for a moment. "It would be a big tur
n-on. Admit it."
I hold my hand to my forehead. "You really don't understand, do you?"
"I understand that you caused a hell of a mess because you were jealous of Kate – Kate! Poor little junkie Kate who's dying, for Christ’s sake. You foolishly gave me an ultimatum saying that it had to be your way or no way. I think crawling on your hands and knees and admitting you regret it would be nothing more than righting a wrong and proving how you felt."
"I don't want to just,” I say. “Have sex with you. It's not enough."
"Do you want to have sex with me?"
I close my eyes in frustration.
"Answer me."
"Of course. But that's not all I want."
"I can't give you what you think you want." He takes my hand. "Why can't you want what I can give?"
"I need more." I squeeze his hand back. "You're the most," I stop, my throat constricting.
"What?"
"You're so," I say, still unable to say it, express it. "I feel so-." He waits. I close my eyes. "I forget everything when I'm with you. Everything. It's just so . . . powerful. You're so powerful." I search for words. "There's so much inside of you. So much more than I ever thought possible." I pull my hand away and cover my eyes, my cheeks burning. "I'm sorry – but for me? With you? It's all or nothing."
"I’m going out in a few minutes," he says after a pause, his voice sounding as if he hasn't even heard what I said. "Going to run a little errand. It may help me get more information from the Blackstone group if I succeed. Get right inside the Blackstone if so."
A jolt of fear goes through me. "How do you get inside Blackstone?"
"Oh, I have ways of getting inside places," Julien says and smiles.
"How will do you do it?"
"Most people have a price," he says. "The trick is to find out what that price is and offer just a bit more so they bite."
I look away, wondering what price he’s going to pay.
"Unfortunately, I haven't figured out your price yet or I'd be rolling around under the sheets right now, smelling your sweet perfume instead of sitting here all cold and lonely."
