by Arden, Alys
“Moi aussi, je t'aime, mon chou,” he said, baffled, but he squeezed his left arm out from underneath mine and rubbed my shoulder.
Then the emotions swung, and I felt overwhelmingly sad. I had killed Sébastien’s grandparents. Jeanne is going to hate me forever. Forever might only be the next few hours… The thought of never seeing the twins again became too much to bear. Concern washed over Sébastien’s face; he unlatched my arms and turned me to face him.
“Adele, are you okay? Are you high?”
Adele, get a grip! It’s just the elixir.
When I didn’t respond right away, he shook my shoulders and yelled, “Did someone give you something? I think you’ve been drugged.”
The thought of getting caught made my heart pound. We’d come so far. “I’m not high, silly!” I slipped my hand into his and turned him outward. “Wave to the crowd!”
His shy smile crept back over the warm reception, and soon he was lost observing the chaos of the streets. That’s when I saw Gabriel slowly walking through the crowd, keeping up with the float. Our gazes locked, and he eyed me like a predator who enjoyed the hunt more than the prize. My head swung to the other side of the street, and I spotted Lisette pushing through the crowd with annoyance.
I twisted around.
About fifty feet behind Gabe, was the curly-haired woman from the bar, skipping along, who, if I was adding up Adeline’s history lessons correctly, was Martine Dufrense, vampire diva. I assumed the others weren’t far. My heart thumped.
Not only was I surrounded, but I had pulled Sébastien into the bull’s-eye. So much for giving me until midnight.
Jackson Square was in sight.
A high school band filled the amphitheater and went into an encore. The crowd chanted out the next ominous verse as the royal court came into the final stretch.
“And when the moon turns red with blood,
Lord, how I want to be in that number…”
I leapt off the float and made a run for it.
“When the Saints go marching in”
* * *
Just last night, this square had been a private stage for me and Isaac to juggle fireballs long after the shroud of curfew. Now, everyone back in town from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain filled it. I tried to tail Lisette’s blonde locks, pushing my way through groups of drag queens, gutter punks, and suburban invaders. The elixir helped, but every person who stopped to pet my costume or yell, “It’s the Green Faery!” slowed me down. Then one caused me to come to a complete halt.
“Well, aren’t you just the belle of the ball?” asked Annabelle Lee Drake in the guise of Jessica Rabbit. She was a knockout in the sparkly, formfitting gown, with her deep auburn locks swept across her right eye, but her ear-to-ear grin set my nerves on edge.
Why is the Queen of Uptown giving me recognition?
Thurston looked less than pleased to be dressed as Roger Rabbit. It still blew my mind how Annabelle so easily controlled everyone and every situation she came into contact with. The world just bowed down to her. Sexy Cop and Sexy Robber stood on her right, and Sexy Cowgirl on her left. Most of the lacrosse team was sneaking beers behind them, and the freshmen Little Sisters (a gamut of sexy) completed the group.
Everyone was looking at me, waiting for a response.
“Have you seen Désirée?” I asked, knowing full well they hadn’t.
“Funny, I was about to ask you the same thing,” Annabelle said. “I just texted both of you.”
“Oh, sorry. Left my phone at home.” I held up my hands in innocence. “No pockets.”
“Don’t you think Tinkerbell is a little childish?” asked Dixie.
I tried not to imagine myself clawing her eyes out. It didn’t work. “I’m gonna go and look for her. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“No way. We’re going to Le Chat Noir,” said Annabelle.
Voilà. Rick must have cracked down on fake IDs, and now she needed me to get them in. And she was not happy about needing me. She forced a smile, which made me want to vomit on her Jimmy Choos.
“Umm…” I squirmed, frantically scanning the crowd for a glimpse of Lisette’s head, trying not to panic over losing her. “I kind of have plans—”
“You can bring your friends!” Bri yelped like a little lapdog.
“You should definitely bring your friends,” echoed Jaime before they both burst into giggles.
“Maybe we can meet up with you later.” At the rate I’m going, I’m not even going to be alive later.
The freshmen’s eyes bugged at my act of defiance, and Annabelle’s jaw clenched. She floundered for only a second, confused, and then looked straight into my eyes and repeated the proposition. Only this time it didn’t sound like an invitation. For a split second I almost found myself agreeing.
“Sorry, Annabelle, next time.”
She looked baffled, but more by her own faulty power of persuasion than my defiance. “So, it looks like you really are the Queen of Downtown.” Her hand touched my shoulder in a gesture of false surrender – an electric shock shot down my arm.
“Jesus!” we both yelled in unison, scowling at each other with suspicion.
What the hell? My eyes lingered on her as she rubbed her fingers.
“It’s not about controlling their minds, ma fifille. It’s about controlling their hearts,” came a familiar French voice.
“Freak,” Annabelle whispered.
I turned my head and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw Lisette’s face only inches from mine. Her usual hostile expression had dissipated, and she was staring intently at Annabelle Lee. I feared it meant she was hungry. Not that I would have minded Annabelle getting taken down a notch. Or ten.
“Holy shit, she is hot,” yelled one of the moronic jocks, ogling the three-hundred-year-old, sole-surviving triplet.
Jessica Rabbit fumed, turning back to them. “Shut up!”
“Voilà, Liz! I’ve been looking all over for you. We’re totally going to be late for that thing everyone has been waitingso patiently for.” I put my arm on her chilly shoulder and felt another bolt of electricity shoot up my arm. My back stiffened. “Let’s go, now,” I said in French, turning her away from my classmates.
“Bye, Adele! I hope we see you later!” yelled a freshman dressed as a cat (a non-Sexy Cat). My Little Sis. I attempted to throw her a smile over my shoulder as I pushed Lisette away from the beehive.
I dragged her through the square, past the park, and into Pirate’s Alley, alongside the Cathedral. Away from the crowds, the volume level dramatically decreased, and the sudden darkness was a little too eerie for my taste – especially while I was alone with Lisette. Soon, flames were growing from the gas lamps hanging outside a Storm-abandoned bar.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
“Moi!What are you doing? I thought you were following me, but zhen I see you decide chatting with your friends is more important zhan saving your life? Zhe lives of your friends? Maybe you really are a Saint-Germain after all?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“She put all of our lives at risk!”
“Je ne comprends pas! What have they told you, Lise? You’re supposed to be on our side! The coven’s side…”
She opened her mouth to reply, and then quickly shut it.
“I know this isn’t just about a curse, Lisette. Tell me what the Medicis are looking for!”
She looked past me and said in French, “I don’t know. They won’t tell me.”
My eyes squinted in suspicion.
“Adeline never told us either. We never knew the vampires were after anything other than blood.”
“Adeline wanted to protect the people of La Nouvelle-Orleans,the casquette girls, her coven!”
“Adeline Saint-Germain wanted to protect herself! And the count!”
Had Adeline really used the coven to do her own bidding?My instinct was to rush to Adeline’s defense, but the sides were already too off-balance. I didn’t wan
t to lose Lise – not that we really had her on our side.
“Either way, would it have mattered?” I asked. “Would it have changed anything? Would you have refused to join the coven, knowing the vampires had thrown your dowry overboard so they could use your cassette as a sleeping coffin?”
She looked at me with surprise, and her eyes glistened with tears. “Probably not. Non.”
“Adeline would never have betrayed the trust of her sisters by using the coven’s powers for personal gains. Other than her father, she loved the coven more than anything.”
“And do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you trust your coven? Do you love them over all else?”
I remembered the words chanted when we called upon the spirits to bind our circle.
“… Let all who enter the circle of the casquette girls under your guidance do so in perfect love and perfect trust…”
We hadn’t yet had the time or circumstance to bond in the same way the original casquette girls’ coven had. Nonetheless, I responded with a resounding, “Oui.”
“And what if it came down to your father, ma fifille? Would you still stand so strongly next to your friends if it meant the life of your papa?” Lisette asked slyly.
I could no longer tell if she was trying to help me or just antagonizing me. Regardless, her question shook me, and she knew it.
“Adeline was never able to give her father up—”
“I would never betray my father,” I assured her.
Her slow-spreading smile felt like a noose tightening around my neck. “That’s what I thought you would say, ma fifille.Just like her.”
Then she was gone.
I tried to forget her words, but I couldn’t. Am I putting Désirée and Isaac in unwarranted danger? It wasn’t the first time the question had entered my thoughts. And then, as if my feet had minds of their own, they rerouted themselves once again. My rational side instructed them to go back towards my post on the roof, but it was like the connection between my brain and feet had gone awry. Deep inside, I knew there was only one way to ensure we got all of the vampires into the attic, and it didn’t involve me sitting in a cozy post or using passive magic. There was only one way Nicco was going into that attic.
* * *
I turned onto Royal Street and into a web of yellow police tape. The two crime scenes: Café Orleans and Saint Anthony’s Garden, were only fifty feet apart. I sped up, imagining Emilio sucking the life out of the old couple and defiantly hanging the Wolfman up. As I passed St. Ann, my fingers began to tingle – someone or something was near. I moved into a defensive position just as he sped out of the alley behind the Carter brother’s house. Impeccable timing, as per usual.
Nicco rushed at me, grabbed my hand while still in motion, and tried to pull me along after him. The chill from his touch swept up my arm, but my feet didn’t move as easily as usual, and he ended up aggressively jerking my arm.
He stopped and let my hand drop. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…”
“I know.”
He looked at my unnaturally sturdy (albeit shimmery) legs and then back to my face. His surprised expression made me want to do something else to show off my newfound strength, but I refrained. I needed to keep at least some element of surprise on my side.
He circled me slowly. My back stiffened. Note to self: he is the enemy.
I suddenly felt very exposed in my scanty costume, even though I knew that wasn’t why he was examining me. I tried to appear confident, although I don’t know why I bothered. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought I’d meet someone whom it would be harder to lie to than my father, but Niccolò Medici managed to be that person. His constant, not-so-innocent smile made want to melt into the floor.
And it all scared the hell out of me.
I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the two innocent students he had killed, and not think about the love note in the DVD. Enemy.
When I opened my eyes, he was looking at me with pleading concern, and I knew my feet had made the right decision by not listening to my brain. There was no way Nicco was going to step foot in that attic unless I was there too.
“What are you doing, bella?”
“What do you mean?”
“You are changing your plans.”
“What?” I stammered. “I haven’t changed any plans.”
“You’re lying.” He took a step closer to me.
“How could you possibly know my plans – old or new?”
“I don’t know your plans. All I know is you are lying, and you are choosing a new course.”
“I thought you said vampires couldn’t read minds, only bend them?” I yelled, suddenly nervous about some, er, inappropriate thoughts I may have previously had about him. About us.
“Calm down, bella. I can’t read your mind.” He smiled at the ground. “Just the arrhythmia of your heart.”
I aggressively twirled a lock of hair that had escaped my up-do.
“You see, heartbeats are like fingerprints. No two are alike, but the differences are so delicate, no human ear would ever be able to hear them, no matter how powerful an instrument he had. And you… just made a decision that is making your heart shudder. And I don’t like it.”
“Great, so my own heart is giving me away to all of you? Could the stacks be any more uneven?”
“Not to all of us.” He took another step closer. “It only works with someone you’ve made a connection with. It’s like pheromones, or what humans call chemistry.” He inched closer. “Only you can allow a vampire to hear your heart.”
My weight shifted from one leg to the other. “And we have that connection?” I took a loud, calming breath and reminded myself to bottle my emotions since they were not fully under my control, thanks to the coven.
“You tell me, Adele. I have been able to hear the cadence of your heart ever since the night in the bell tower.” At least there was one thing I wasn’t delusional about.
“That’s intense,” I choked out, trying not to smile even though my heart felt like it was going to burst.
“Si.Although it pales in comparison to other connections…” His not-so-innocent smile escalated to most definitely not innocent. He touched my fingers. I jumped backwards out of fear I might start ripping off his clothes.
Mentally cursing the elixir, I rubbed away a fresh glaze of sweat from my hairline, as my mood quickly swung. “Well,” I spat, “I guess none of that really matters now, seeing how I’ll likely be dead in a couple hours.”
“Adele, just figure out a way to break the curse. I know you can do it!”
“It’s not that easy, Nicco! Especially when I don’t know the full story. Which, by the way, you could readily supply—”
“I’m trying to protect you.” He grabbed my hands, and when I tried to rip away, his grip tightened. “I am sorry if it hurts,” he said, pulling me closer to him. “I really am, but I would rather you be mad at me than dead. And…”
“And what?”
“And, it’s complicated. I cannot betray my family—”
“Bertrand and Sabine Michel were my family!”
Each of us refused to look away from the other.
“Well, isn’t this just a fairy tale,” I whispered.
“I know.” His fingers twisted into mine. “And I am sorry this has become your battle. I tried to stop them— I am going to figure everything out. You just have to give me time.”
“Ha! Time? The other thing your family has stolen from me.” I ripped my hands away. “Tell me what you were looking for in my house the night Isaac caught you breaking and entering.”
He scowled at the mention of Isaac’s name. “You really should just concentrate on breaking the curse instead of digging up skeletons from days gone by. Your ignorance of the past is the only thing you have going for you.”
“Oh, really?” I whispered, and a tall flame rose from my hand, lighting up his pale face like a ghost’s.
He curled
my fingers closed, trying to not to wince as the fire touched his hand.
“That’s not what I meant. They are going to kill you if you don’t break the curse, Adele. We can figure out the rest later; just let the skeletons lie—”
“If the skeletons weren’t sticking out of the ground trying to attack me, I wouldn’t be trying to pull them out!” I shoved angrily at his chest. He staggered one step back, stunning us both.
His baffled gaze shifted from his chest to my hands. “How did you…? Magic,” he whispered under his breath.
I was oscillating between a total meltdown and wanting to jump him.
I bolted before I could crack.
“Whatever you’re doing,” he yelled, “I’m not going to let you martyr yourself, Adele!”
I didn’t look back.
But this time he caught up with me. I forced myself not to smile when I heard his footsteps behind me, and I swatted away his hand as it brushed my fingers. He linked my arm into his. The old-timey gesture sent a sensation though my body that I certainly shouldn’t have been feeling just then.
“What are you going to do? Lock me up in chains?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
“You are worse than my father!” I yelled, coming to a halt.
“Just from a different time.” His eyes dropped to my lips. “When things were far more simple.”
My heart leapt into my throat. But then his gaze moved around my head, as if monitoring a circling fly. He blinked twice and shook his head before looking at me with momentary skepticism.
“Ha, you know chains couldn’t hold me,” I said pathetically, not wanting to lose the moment.
He squeezed my arm. The thought of running away together flashed through my mind. I wondered if he was entertaining the same idea.
The thought was fleeting; Gabe came crashing into us from behind, breaking our embrace. “What are you crazy kids up to, tonight?” He boxed his arms around our necks. I immediately scooted out from underneath him. His freed arm resulted in a head tousle for his brother. They wrestled for a minute, and then Nicco wriggled away, annoyed. He ran his hands through his hair a few times, and it fell perfectly back into place. I hated my pulse for accelerating.
