In a way she’d helped plan the beginning of their war. It started a mere two years ago with a worldwide onslaught: carefully coordinated ambushes of werewolf and vampire armies and the outcome of those attacks had been dramatic. Obsessed once again by the war that had consumed them for the better part of four hundred years, the werewolves and vampires were unprepared for the waves of hybrid attacks that had decimated their numbers. Even now, twenty-four months after the event, werewolves and vampires were still reeling.
Until tonight.
Monique had fought alongside Simon during those early raids two years ago, yet she’d seemed reluctant to partake in tonight’s activities. Cain’s suspicions were confirmed when his lead group of hybrids were ambushed by werewolves in Paris’ southern districts. The surprise attack had all the force and calculation of the hybrid’s own raids a couple of years ago; as if the assault had been planned by the military mind of a crossbreed. Monique had not been in the lead party as was her assignment. It confirmed her guilt and sealed her fate.
Her deception for many years infuriated Simon Cain more than anything. No one bettered him—some had tried, years ago, but they were nothing more than rotten corpses. Monique, the one hybrid he felt he could trust more than any other, would soon be joining them.
Salivating with the desire for revenge, Simon sprinted across the rooftops of Paris, watching the terrified figure of Monique Armel run for her life.
* * *
At the edge of the Pont au Double near the River Seine, she paused. Pressing her body against the bridge’s balustrade, Monique hunched her shoulders against the downpour. Spikes of rain hammered the city, the water black like dribbling blood. Lifting her head to survey her surroundings, she sniffed the air, inhaling the freshness of an autumn storm. She couldn’t detect the odor of hybrids ahead, yet could almost feel the presence of those pursuing her, their closeness electrifying the hairs on her body. As an immortal hybrid, her eyesight was keen in the darkness. Using as little time as possible, she glanced across the water to the natural island of Île de la Cité.
The center of the city, its heart; had been so since before the birth of Christ. Much of the residential areas of the island were being replaced by police and justice offices, and at this time of night Île de la Cité thankfully held onto a peaceful silence. Buildings lined the large square in front of the massive cathedral yet the area was empty. As quickly as she could, Monique glanced along the rooftops but couldn’t see any hunkering shapes keeping look out. It didn’t mean the square would not be watched, of course. She needed to be quick. Her fate now depended on the alertness of her supernatural being, and the compassion of her father.
Two hundred years ago when Monique was born a war raged between werewolves and vampires. The story of how her father, an eight-foot tall muscular werewolf, had come to find love in the form of a vampire was something she’d never fully been told. It didn’t matter much anymore. Once the pack and coven discovered the heinous acts of impregnation—not just from her parents but from other werewolves and vampires—a truce had been called and a cull of the hybrid children ordered. Of all the failures witnessed during the centuries-old supernatural conflict ‘The Cull’ had been the biggest of them. Rumor had it that some of the children were found and slaughtered, but most of them escaped. Monique had been lucky enough to flee under the protection of her father, but she hadn’t seen him since that night. Those werewolves and vampires who’d crossed the bloodlines were rounded up and executed, there were plenty of stories about that period of the war’s history, and Monique had feared she’d never see her parents again. The letter she’d received from her father had come out of the blue a hundred years ago, on her one hundredth birthday. Short and direct, the brief note explained that his involvement in the procreation of hybrids hadn’t been uncovered—Monique’s mother carried that secret with her to her death—and that he wished things could have been different. The note ended with his directions for her to find him at her greatest hour of need at the address he’d etched onto the parchment enclosed in the same envelope, and strict instructions to destroy the letter. She’d hidden it beneath a loose floorboard in her chamber instead.
She only wished she’d been able to remove it before this nightmare had started and the pursuit to catch and slaughter her had begun.
In her grasp, the parchment containing the address had begun to disintegrate in the torrential downpour. Gingerly she folded open the cloth and gazed at the address. It stood before her and she glanced up at the building: tall and majestic, the ancient structure stood proud against the backdrop of a furious storm.
Almost eight hundred years old, the west façade of the Notre-Dame de Paris dominated the square. The cathedral’s two towers stretched skywards and seemed to support the writhing mass of storm clouds gathered overhead. Monique considered the façade simplistic yet beautiful, and on those occasions she’d walked towards the building wondering if this time she would really knock on the door, she’d often find herself stationary in front of the Notre-Dame, gazing up at the architectural masterpiece. Her father couldn’t have chosen a better location to conceal himself.
The scrape of claws on roof slates drifted through the jangle of falling rain, and for a moment she thought she heard the panted breath of her pursuers. She risked a glance over her shoulder, into the darkness of the city. They were there, she sensed it, but the hybrid horde seeking her destruction remained concealed in the blackness. The distance between them couldn’t be too great now, and Monique expected to see transformed monsters surging from the shadows that wrapped the poor street lighting. Her only hope lay within the cathedral walls and the protective embrace of her father. Leaving the iron railings and running across the bridge, she glanced quickly at the parchment in her grip. Saturated, the bloody words were now smudged. Her destination loomed ahead of her, within reach. Monique had no more use for the parchment, and tossed it into the Seine as she ran.
* * *
In a safe house in the southern district of Paris, a chambermaid stood motionless by a wide window and gazed out across a city trapped under a deluge. Candlelight pushed shadows throughout the room and made the storm outside appear thick and foreboding. Lightning scrambled along the underbelly of the storm clouds, its luminescence momentarily brightening her expressionless face.
Near the door to the large bedroom, the hybrid assigned to guard her that night shifted weight from one leg to the other. She ignored him, as she’d done all evening. Apart from the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she took shallow impassive breaths, her only movement came from the fingers on her right hand caressing the scrawled words on a sheet of fine paper. She’d discovered the letter in her Lady’s chamber, two nights ago. While waiting for her Lady to finish in the bath, the chambermaid had busied herself with menial tasks that included dressing the bed. She hadn’t meant to step on the loose floorboard and discover the letter but the opportunity that now presented itself to further her status within the clan could not be passed up. Simon had already promised her a great reward.
Thunder growled, the noise churning throughout the city.
The chambermaid swallowed, and wished she could calm her excited pulse. She stroked the ancient letter and wondered if Monique Armel was dead.
* * *
The rasp of her knuckles on the thick door did not sound loud under the roar of thunder and she hoped her father had heard it. She’d made the break from the limited cover of Paris’ dark, narrow streets, and stood exposed to the city—a lone figure on the courtyard devoured by torrential rain. Not even the colossal façade of the ancient church could hide her fragile form. She glanced over her shoulder, into darkness that draped in blankets around the square, and was certain she saw movement. It might have been nothing; a figment of her imagination or a dense shadow pushed along the rooftops by the churning storm above her, but she sensed it was the clan, lead by Simon Cain, making its move from the darkness in order to kill her.
A gasp of terror escap
ed her lungs as she turned to the giant arched door, slamming her knuckles into the aged wood once more. The pain didn’t register in her mind, panic submerged the agony.
Metal clanged beyond the doorway, a small peephole opened, and an eye and half a face showed in the opening.
Father?
She couldn’t tell from the countenance that greeted her, and in truth didn’t know what he looked like after two hundred years apart. She spoke quickly, fear driving the words from her. “Please, I’ve come to find sanctuary from Philippe Armel.”
Even after two centuries she’d retained the surname of her werewolf father.
The eye blinked, yet no response came forth.
A slate skidded down a rooftop that bordered the courtyard, somewhere behind her, no doubt dislodged by a monstrous hybrid scrambling down the building in an effort to give chase.
“He’s expecting me,” she continued. “I have no appointment, but if you tell him Monique, his daughter, is here to see him, I’m sure he will grant me passage.”
The face in the peephole turned, glanced back over his shoulder into gloom settled deep in the bowels of the church. Monique strained to look past him, into the cathedral’s depths. Candlelight flickered from tall holders constructed onto granite pilasters inside the nave, but she saw no movement.
“S'il vous plaît monsieur. It’s a matter of life and death.”
The face turned to her once more, and the irises had dilated a little. Black pupils glared at her, but the cheek beneath the eye was distorted into a smile. The peephole slammed shut and in that moment of loneliness as she stood before the magnificent church, Monique’s world became filled with the panting of hybrid breath and the scrape of claws on aged cobblestones. Lightning flared overhead, but she dared not look around the square for fear of what she’d see closing on her.
A large bolt slid free in the wooden door, and the barrier opened just a fraction as the storm screamed a thunderous roar.
Monique pushed into the building, and released her breath as the door slammed shut behind her. At last, sanctuary!
* * *
Simon Cain strode forward with an air of reverence and grace. Naked, he didn’t care about the elements battering his chilled skin. Wind howled about the courtyard and whipped stinging raindrops against his flesh, yet he paid the discomfort no heed. His mind remained focused on the hunt. It would soon be over.
The Notre Dame de Paris towered over him, majestic and domineering. It had held so many secrets from him and the clan; the stone fortress had guarded them well. Discovering those secrets had brought him a great deal of satisfaction. Crossing the cobblestones at a determined pace, his sneer twisted into a smile.
The hybrids that had been chasing Monique—corralling her to this very area of the city—followed in his wake.
He reached the door, raised his fist, and pounded three times on the thick wood. He didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
* * *
Her father stood before her—she couldn’t fail to recognize him, now seeing him face to face. His eyes were wide and staring, gazing at her disheveled beauty. His mouth hung agape, as though he’d begun to speak but forgot what to say. Monique had heard the stories about this man, and knew that as a transformed werewolf he was powerful and ferocious. Yet now, in human form and dressed in his black robe, her father resembled a fragile priest beset by age.
A man stood beside him, one arm behind her father’s back, the other on his upper arm: a gesture of companionship at this eventful moment as he met his offspring for the first time in two centuries. She didn’t recognize the man, but he smiled at her.
Movement beneath the arches that ran the length of the nave attracted her attention. Candlelight pulsed in the recesses, and figures hulked in the gloom, some moving clear of the darkness and stepping into the stuttering light. They wore no clothes; their bodies distorted by adverse muscle growth and oversized skeletal structures. Monique took a step back, towards the main door. These new arrivals were partially transformed, yet no fur covered their bodies.
She glanced once more to her father and for the first time noticed agony and fear in his eyes. The man next to him no longer smiled, but seemed to be sneering at her. His hand, she noticed, wasn’t resting on her father in a friendly gesture as she’d assumed, but gripped him tight to hold him upright. For a brief moment she wondered if maybe Father had contracted a debilitating mortal illness
A fresh cloud of fear began to churn inside her.
She glanced to her right, towards the south facing wall, and took in that area of the cathedral for the first time since entering. A dark mass was gathered in the far corner and as the fear within drove her into the beginnings of metamorphosis and an increase in nocturnal vision, so she noticed the dark lines of blood across the ancient stone. The tangled mass became clarified into shapes: twisted limbs of bodies in a state of rigor mortis, dark fur matted with lumps of congealed blood—the protruding face and angry snarl of a deceased werewolf.
The pack that guarded the Notre-Dame and protected her father . . . had they been slaughtered?
Her father moved, and she glanced in his direction. His mouth fluttered, the lips trying to form words that had he been able to speak, would have said ‘sorry’. Her father’s chest exploded outwards and a flash of intense agony froze upon his features. The man beside her, transforming now, altering into a horrific beast, grinned at her like a jackal. His right arm, solid and muscular, stretched through the gaping hole in her father’s chest. In his hand, he squeezed blood from the ruptured heart.
He released her father, and his corpse slammed into the cold stone of the cathedral floor.
The snap of bone and the peel of stretching skin echoed off the church walls as Monique willed her metamorphosis to submerge her fear.
She halted in mid-transformation as the cathedral door slammed behind her and a familiar voice resonated along the nave.
“Such a pity that you should deceive me in such a manner, Monique, I had thought better of you.”
Turning on her heels she hissed at the sight of Simon Cain before her, a henchman on either side, both of them shifted into the colossal figures of blood-thirsty hybrids.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, My Lord,” she protested. “I fled here because you were chasing me. To kill me!”
“And why would I want to kill you, do you think? Is it because you are a loyal officer and a decorated soldier? Or could it be because you are a treacherous lying defector?”
Her heart thundered in panic, trying to fuel a metamorphosis that seemed incapable of being unleashed. She’d never experienced it before; a total paralysis of her ability to shift shape. She had always been so calm and assured in front of Simon Cain, always portraying an air of supremacy. Now, she cowered before his wrath, terrified she’d lose control of her bladder. Her shame was only tempered by intense fear.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, My Lord. I am loyal to the clan, and to you most of all.”
“That letter in your chamber would suggest otherwise.” Cain hovered on the edge of full metamorphosis—not yet fully animal but so different to the human form he concealed himself within. His voice, altered by his shifting body, boomed throughout the vacuous church. “The letter from your father and his plans to welcome you back amongst his pack.”
He glanced behind her, towards the floor of the church, but Monique held her gaze on her tyrannical leader. She had no desire to see the torn corpse of the father she’d yearned to hold and share her life with after so many decades apart. Grief edged through her terror and a tear touched her eyelashes. She struggled to pacify the emotions, to submerge them deep into her core in order to complete her own change and fight her way out of this mess.
“I was not about to join him,” Monique said. “I came here because I had nowhere else to go.”
“Then how do you explain this?”
Monique had no idea where it came from, or how it had come to be in Cai
n’s possession, but he produced a hastily drawn-up document that detailed in precise detail the plans for her coup and assassination of Simon Cain. She’d entrusted the document to Sergio, who’d sworn his allegiance to her. Had he betrayed her? Was he dead? If her coup had succeeded, Cain would have been dead for more than half an hour. As it was, she suspected all those who had sided with her had suffered that fate instead.
Cain stopped walking, his face two feet from hers.
Domination blazed with as much lucidity as hatred in his pupils, and she realized in that moment that Simon Cain would rule the clan for eternity.
Sorrow, terror, and anger gripped her in equal measures, and her bladder finally relented.
Simon Cain’s pupils dilated. “No one dethrones me, you bitch!”
He altered in an instant, and she could do nothing to resist the onslaught.
His mouth closed around her face and crushed her skull. It took five seconds for her to die, and in that time Monique wondered if there really was a place where souls went to in the afterlife—a place even for supernatural monsters. She wondered if she’d meet her father there.
The agonizing pain would be worth it if it were true.
1917 A.D
BLOODLINES -- Blood War Trilogy: Book I Page 4
