“Je m’en fous.” Fuck it. “C’est la fin des haricots!” I have had enough. He shrugged and that was it. The horrid news had tipped the scale in my favor.
He gave me permission to hunt. Alone.
“Do not get caught. If you are caught, I will not save you.”
I never expected he would. “I will kill them all or die trying.”
He watched me closely, evaluating how dangerous I might be to him, but he knew I served his every command. He had grown to trust me.
My very first night out alone, I visited the mansion. I found my father’s house furnished but vacant. I wondered what became of him and Agnes. I made a point to pass through the neighborhood at least once a week. Each time I passed, the house was dark, unoccupied, much the same as my empty life. I had become something wholly different and immeasurably wicked compared to the woman I once was.
For the first time since Julian claimed me, I accepted the constraints of this life. I loved my freedom, the adrenaline rush of the hunt, slinking across the rooftops, scenting out my prey. They were recognizable by smell alone – gunmetal, starched uniforms, foreign cigarettes, overpowering aftershave, foot powder, and the distinctive body odors from their strange diet. I focused all my hatred, all my frustration, every ounce of aggression into the hunt of the Boche vultures. Though I was brutal, merciless, I always felt better afterwards. In a world of constant repression and domination, these few moments were my small rebellion.
I truly enjoyed the excursions when I encountered Gestapo officials, a rare find. The Gestapo Nazis were a subspecies of German evil responsible for unspeakable horrors committed against my countrymen. I could almost pick them out by the darkness of their auras. I took great pleasure in the mutilation and slaughter of these men. They died painfully.
On one occasion I brought one home, a fortyish blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan. He confessed to no less than seventeen murders during the two nights I let him live. Seventeen French men and women died after he tortured them for information. He also admitted the Jews and foreigners had been taken to concentration camps at Auschwitz. After I broke his legs he screamed the truth, he suspected they were killing people in the camps. I grew tired of his noise and disemboweled him. The soft belly is the most vulnerable area, no bones to protect all those fleshy organs. I had learned this in the streets – men cannot fire their guns when their intestines are falling out.
Julian watched me closely. I sensed his concern. But he was also proud, like a man with an attack dog on a leash. He held a small fear his dog might turn on him, but mostly he enjoyed my brutality. His dog always obeyed its master.
* * * *
In tracking the Germans, I learned there were certain areas of the city more heavily targeted for persecution by the Nazis – the Jewish neighborhoods. I focused on these areas for hunting. As I slaughtered the Boche, I justified my acts with the idea I could somehow make a difference. I was a résistance of one, but I killed many.
My rationalizations were soon shattered.
One night I arrived at one of the seedier Jewish ghettos, the Maraise. I crouched on the rooftops and listened to people shuttered tight inside their tiny apartments arguing. The women and children cried, because the Nazis had deported one hundred sixty-five Jewish students from the school. People whispered rumors that these deportations were not to work camps. The filthy Boche had sent their children to death camps. Few believed the rumors, such crimes were surely too monstrous to be true. But I knew the children would not return.
My rebellion saved no one. I had achieved my vengeance while satisfying my hunger.
I watched from the rooftops as officials raided the Maraise, rousting Jews from their homes to be hauled out into trucks. I had heard of this, but never seen it. I found the truth staggering. It was not Germans, but their Vichy lapdogs. I struggled to accept the evidence of this treachery – French aiding the Boche against their own countrymen.
It made me sick to my stomach. I snuck into one of the buildings. I felt an overpowering need to do something, anything. As I silently snapped the neck of a filthy traitor, I was confronted by a terrified little old man. He wore the patch on his coat, the yellow Star of David. He had been hiding behind a false wall panel, watching my stealthy retribution.
“You must not fight them! It’s only worse when you fight them. Violence begets violence! They will kill us all for your résistance!” He spat out the last word in contempt. Disgusting résistance.
His reaction was common among the Jews and many others in Paris. I smiled at him, my heart aching with sadness. “It matters not. I cannot change your fate, Monsieur. I am sorry, but that is not why I am here.”
“Then why are you doing this? We all pay the price for your foolishness!” He was genuinely upset that I had killed this man of authority.
“You poor thing. You wear the mark.” I pointed at his yellow star. “Have you not heard? Hitler will kill you all if he has his way. There is little I can do for you.” I wished I could do more.
“Then why are you doing this?” He pleaded with me.
“I am only here for my pound of flesh.” I smiled with all my teeth and he finally saw me for what I was. A killer.
* * * *
Chapter 14
June 6th, 1944. After four years of hell, degradation, suffering, and death at the hands of the Nazis, Allied forces invaded the shores of Normandy.
The beginning of the end.
“En fin,” was the collective sigh of an entire nation as the Allies flooded our shores and beat the Germans back from west to east. They gained ground incrementally day by day. I hummed with excitement. The whole city felt the turning of the tide. We just had to wait a little longer. Even Julian smiled at the news. He rarely left the townhouse, preferring to pass his time with the bloodslaves.
In one of my many forays into the city, I happened upon the Mansion, lit from within. I stopped to investigate. I saw him, my father, through an upper floor window. Alive and well, though slightly gaunt, his hair had begun to grey at the temples. The light shone brightly in Père’s eyes as he sat at his desk in the massive study lined with bookshelves. I wanted so badly to go to him.
But what would I say? How could I explain my absence for the past four years? How could I explain the clothes I wore – the wrappings of a whore, my hunting outfit? My courage fled.
I passed the Mansion each night thereafter, and found him frequently. I wondered of the Château and the vineyards and Tante Agnes. Suffering my questions in silence, I sat across the street and watched him for hours.
I now hunted with a smile. The Germans moved with fear and uncertainty in their stride, the knowledge of their impending doom written on their faces. Gone was the pompous arrogance of entitlement and dominance that had characterized their reign.
The nightly news of the advancing Allied forces strengthened my confidence. I resolved to visit Père. He appeared to be living in the Mansion now. My head filled with visions of Paris before the war, a time when I could visit my family as though nothing had ever happened. Pure fantasy, but it held my courage as I walked right in the front door of the Mansion.
“Ah la vache!” He gasped, the color draining from his face. “Where have you been? Is it really you?” He embraced me, eyes shining with tears.
His joy rendered me speechless. I couldn’t ruin the moment with lies. I clutched him to me, feeling his wonderful warmth, absorbing the unconditional love I had gone so long without. He held me tightly, kissing my cheeks, just like I remembered him.
“I have spent countless hours and much money investigating rumors you were still alive. They told me to give up, to move on. But there were people who had seen you as recently as last winter. I knew you were still alive. I knew it.” He stroked my hair, reassuring himself I was real.
“But I didn’t believe the lies. One woman said you were a prostitute.” He shook his head. “It matters not, we are together. All is right in the world. The Allies will be here soon to help the rési
stance. Paris will be ours again.”
“Oui, I love you, Père, I have always loved you. That will never change.”
He started to look at me closely, really looked at me. Suspicion flared in his aura. “Why, Michelle? Why have you not contacted me? Where have you been?”
“In time I will explain. It’s difficult right now. Please be patient with me, Père.” I pressed him close, hiding from his gaze, relishing his warm arms around me. He seemed happy to just hold me. “And what of Agnes? How is she? How are things at the Château?”
He pushed me back to stare at me, face-to-face. He looked stricken. I saw the answer in his eyes. “You did not know? She’s gone. There was an accident on the way to Orleans. I sent word to you. I wrote many times.”
I looked away. So much loss and pain. My world could never recapture my past. Julian would not allow it. Père saw my tears of blood, the red stripes down my face.
“Zut alors! What’s wrong with you? Are you hurt?”
I wiped my face away quickly, remembering myself. The moment I longed for could never be. I had to leave. I did not belong in this place. I did not deserve Père’s love and attention.
“I did not know. We were to meet in Orleans, but the trains were down …”
“Oui mon amour. I spoke with Jean-Luc, he explained.” He looked in my eyes, and I felt his fascination with me. My gaze enraptured him. “If you had received my letters you would know I sold the Château a year ago. I couldn’t bear to continue the work of the vineyards knowing you were missing.” He spoke in a monotone, belying the depth of his enchantment. I stepped back and he stepped forward, following me.
“Listen, Père, I cannot stay. I am well. I have been here all along. You need not concern yourself. You understand?”
He nodded. “Oui. Everything is fine now that you’re here. You can stay with me. Everything is fine. This will be your home now.”
“Non. I cannot be here with you. I will visit, but I cannot live here, Père.” I stepped back and he stepped forward, tracking my every move. “I cannot explain now, but I promise I will return when I can. We are together again.” I could barely utter the lie. It rang false in my own ears.
He looked confused. My force of will couldn’t break through his powerful love for me, for the woman I once was, his daughter. “Nonsense, you stay with me. You belong in my home.” He reached for me.
“What a beautiful thing. Father and daughter reunited.”
Julian’s voice froze my heart cold. I spun around out of Père’s grasp. My master stood in the doorway to the study. He had that look, his dreamy hungry look that always preceded violence.
“Merde!” I hadn’t heard him ascend the stairs. But I knew what brought him here. He had felt my elation at holding my father once again. I let slip my iron control on my emotions, and I feared the mistake would cost me dearly. I threw up my mental barricade, sealing my mind tightly.
“He knows nothing. He’s harmless. Please let him be. I beg you. I am just visiting. He thought I was dead.” I blabbered on, throwing useless words at an implacable creature.
He stepped up and caressed my cheek, a look of resignation in his eyes. “Why ma chérie? Why have you disposed of his illusions? To him you were dead, as you are to all but me. There can be no life with them. They are cattle.”
His eyes reflected the truth. His intentions flowed across our psychic bond. Jacques de Mornac presented a problem. Julian dispatched all potential problems without pause.
I could kill him. I could kill him before he kills my father.
Then Père stepped in. “What is all this? She is my daughter! You have no right!” Walking to his desk, he pulled out the drawer and withdrew a revolver.
The scent of metallic gun oil permeated the air.
Julian snarled.
I gasped as I attacked the father I loved beyond measure. I could not disobey Julian’s command. My hands moved of their own wicked volition. In less than a second, I slashed Père’s throat wide open, my razor claws tipped red in his blood.
Père stared at me unwittingly. His mouth moved, but he couldn’t speak. He choked on his blood in a futile gasp for breath. His eyes filled with confusion and accusation.
My traitorous, bloody hands covered my mouth in horror. My blood-covered hands, forever stained with the blood of my father.
His knees buckled and he collapsed. “Non, non, non!” Screaming in denial, I caught him as he fell to the floor. “S'il vous plait Dieu me pardonne.” Oh please God, forgive me.
His eyes found mine. His gaze held such a deep well of hurt and betrayal. His mouth opened again in a speechless accusation. My vision turned crimson as I blinked away tears.
Wailing, howling, keening, I cradled him in my arms as the emerald spark in his eyes winked out. Like all the men before him who had died by my hands, he stared off into nothingness. Something inside me broke, my last scrap of hope and humanity shattered. I had maintained sanity through four years of hell, but I lost it in that instant. For Julian, forcing me to kill my father was simply another lesson I had to learn.
Without thought of self-preservation or consequence, I laid my father’s body on the floor and turned on my master.
Vaulting into the air, I landed with my feet on Julian’s chest and my hands sliced down under his jaw. Whip fast, I buried razor sharp claws into the base of his throat. With strength fueled from madness, my powerful hands gripped his spine. Jerk, snap, and a leaping twist through the air separated his head clean from his body.
His disembodied head bounced off the wall and hardwood floors of the study, a look of fear and surprise painted on his face forever more. I had moved so fast, so unexpectedly, all Julian’s strength and power of compulsion made no difference. He never had a chance. Speed and the element of surprise was all I had ever needed. A lesson learned too late for my father.
Life bled out of Julian in seconds, and with it, the psychic backlash of his death slammed through our bond and smashed my mind to pieces in a blinding flash of agony. All the deeply-rooted connections that governed my life for four years were torn asunder.
I floated in the quagmire of my broken mind, nothing and no one to latch onto. Nothing but pure sorrow, grief, and pain. I staggered out into the night, blinded by the hammering in my skull. Hunger, agony, the scents of prey all around me, but the pain blotted out my capacity to hunt. Instinct took hold. Daylight was coming. Need to hide. I found an abandoned building with a basement, and hid in the darkest, deepest corner.
I had become a wild thing, feral, a simple predator. Michelle was no more.
* * * *
Chapter 15
I awoke to a dull throb in my head, and sickness in my soul. Loss, pain, loneliness. I had nothing, no one, and no direction. If not for the need to feed, I would stay there in the darkness, wrapped in a ball, shivering, alone. My hunger drove me out into a world in which I had no place.
I roamed the streets, slinking through shadows, a wraith on the rooftops. And then I smelled them: sauerkraut, sausages, cigarettes, the acrid scents of their sweaty bodies. I heard the strange barking and yapping, loud outbursts of foreign language. Germans speaking German.
The enemy.
Hated, despised, they had no right to be here. They do not belong. Usurpers. Thieves. They must all die. Kill them all, every last one of them, and bathe in their blood.
I stalked a group of soldiers loading into troop transport trucks. Two of them walked away from the group. I snatched out their throats, and dragged their twitching bodies into the alley to drain them both.
Scaling the wall to the rooftop, I moved in on the men, a group of twenty or more. Seated in the back of the truck, they drove away. They could not escape me. I was too strong, too fast, too hungry, and very angry. They didn’t deserve to live. They didn’t deserve to breed and make more of their hated scents. I followed them.
My hate gave me purpose, direction, motivation. I existed to hunt them down. They drove on and on. I follow
ed from the rooftops, from the streets nearby and later from the rolling hills of the countryside. I maintained pace with them. Their machine was not fast enough to escape my wrath.
I pursued them over hills and through the small towns of the coastline, almost to the point of sunrise. The sun interrupted my hunt, and the countryside offered nowhere to hide and sleep. I did the only thing I could. I frantically dug a hole in the ground and buried myself. I hoped the shade of the forest would offer some additional protection. I fell asleep, seething with hate. The damned sun had let them escape. But I vowed I would find them again in the night.
Crawling from my hole at sunset, I set off in the direction of the long-gone troop transport. I followed the road they traveled. I soon reached a small village where a group of five German soldiers camped at an old stone and timber bridge, barely wide enough for a single car to pass. I slipped in without a sound and slaughtered three of them before the other two knew I was there. One rattled off a burst of shots from his rifle before I sliced his neck open. I moved so fast, the bullets whizzed past through the air, missing me by a hair’s width. The last of them screamed as I disemboweled him. I stood and watched with a grin as he died slowly, crying and barking in his foreign language.
And then I feasted.
I moved on, following the same road in the same direction. Somewhere down the road a whole truck full of Germans awaited me. I traveled again until just before sunrise. This time I hid in a wine cellar below an abandoned country home on the outskirts of another village.
I woke the next night to gunfire and explosions. A battle raged in the village. I smelled it on the wind as I scrambled to the rooftops, adrenaline, fear, blood, death, sulfur and acrid gun smoke. Germans. And Others. Other men who smelled different, but bled the same.
I slinked across the rooftops building to building, working my way to the battlefront. I found a dozen Germans fighting a smaller group of Others. Four German soldiers circled around the building to strike from behind. The battle would soon be decided. I patiently waited my turn.
The Nightlife: Paris (The Nightlife Series) Page 9
