by Michele Hauf
“What else do you think I should be?”
“It’s not what I think you should be. Heaven knows, I’ve come to a whole new set of beliefs these past days. Vampires exist and witches can be the most lovely things.”
“But don’t you know?” She swept a hand through her hair and preened luxuriously before him. “It is all a glamour.”
“It is?”
She nodded, but her giggles erupted joyously.
Drawing her into his embrace he kissed her cheek through the laughter. “This is not a mask of bewitchery. Your beauty is bone deep. I know.” He smoothed a finger along her cheek, soft, like his heart. “My territory, this.”
“Mmm, I like being your territory.”
He leaned in to kiss her mouth, but recalled her reluctance. So instead he kissed the side of her cheek, a slow and lingering touch. He could sense her heartbeats and—the devil take him—her blood scent infused his senses. But he was full, the hunger sated; easy enough to avoid the temptation.
For now.
“Tell me what else you know about witches?”
“Hmm, well you must have a familiar. I haven’t seen a black cat, but can’t they change shapes and do their master’s bidding?”
“Of a sort. There are feline shifting familiars, but others begin their lives as inanimate object. There is an animation ritual witches use to claim those familiars.”
“I seem to recall Toussaint mentioning something about that. But hell.” Toussaint had explained how witches use vampires to work an immortality spell. It had involved witches drinking blood from vampires, hadn’t it? “You don’t need blood to claim a familiar, do you?”
“Not at all. Did Toussaint tell you that? It simply requires a spell. I claimed mine years ago.”
“Not a cat?”
“Not at all. His name is Charles.”
“He? I’m jealous already. I’d like to meet the fool some time. Does he have four legs, or are we talking the human sort?”
“Hmm…” Roxane bent and looked along the line of the roof—Gabriel wasn’t sure what for. “Yes, four legs. And wings.”
“Wings, really? So that is how you travel then? Charles flies you about?”
“He does.”
He smiled. “Now I must meet this man.”
At that, the solid object Gabriel had been leaning on shifted. He lost footing and stumbled to the edge of the roof. Roxane leapt forward and grabbed his wrist, catching him from a sure fall.
“Morbleu! What the hell?”
The stone gargoyle Gabriel had been leaning on turned its head and looked right at him.
TWENTY-THREE
Madame du Marmonte eased herself from the circle of precieuses and castaway courtiers discussing the value of the latest color, boue de Paris—Paris mud. It neared midnight and her star had not yet arrived.
Clinging to the wall near where a potted fern sprang up gaily, she ignored the irritant leaves tickling her décolletage, and instead fiercely eyed the opposite side of the room. Set in the shadows, the garden door was Leo’s preferred entrance. Discreet, yet fragrant.
Was that a click? Gold watch fobs?
Or that? A diamond-capped cane punctuating his footsteps?
If everyone would quiet down! But then they too would hear the cataclysmic absence of the vicomte.
The backs of her knees begin to perspire. Her legs started to bend.
“Leo did not show tonight,” she gasped. “What will come of my salon?”
Following a vinegar-laced exhale, a most unladylike faint toppled her to a heap beneath the ferns.
Gabriel extended a hand toward the grimacing stone creature in what he hoped would be construed as a placatory gesture. A stony snarl made him recoil, yet no sound came from the beast.
“I would not believe it if I did not see it with my very eyes.” He backed away, felt Roxane’s body behind him and slipped around until she stood in front of him. A witch shield. To the devil with heroic notions, the stone beast was alive. “Where in Hades did you get that thing?”
Charles roared another silent snarl.
“He is not a thing.” She patted the beast between its short stone ears. “And I did not get him. Certainly not from Hades. He is a gargoyle. I animated him a few years ago as part of my ascension.”
“Ascension?”
“Part of my life-long education in the craft. Witches ascend to various levels. We often study a specific route, such as fire, water, or earth magic. I’m an earth witch. Before my ascension I was required to animate a familiar. Gargoyles make excellent familiars. Don’t you, Charles,” she said to the beast.
Charles curled his head against Roxane’s neck and rubbed as if a cat stroking its master’s leg.
“Of course. A gargoyle.” Gabriel waved a nonchalant hand through the air. “An obvious choice for a familiar. Mercy.”
He noted that as the wings moved the stone seemed to liquefy, and yet when not in motion the thing was clearly solid granite.
Flashes of the night of his attack assaulted with vicious acuity. The duel with the drunk. Anjou’s twisted kiss. And the image of a stone beast swooping over the scene.
“I think I’ve seen Charles before. The night of my attack. How can that be possible?”
“He had flown on ahead of me that night.”
“You knew where Anjou would next strike?”
“The general neighborhood. It was only a guess.”
“I see.” Discomfited, he shrugged a palm over his arm. Still so many secrets.
“We should leave.” Roxane lifted her skirts in preparation—to mount? “Come along. You can ride behind me.”
“You cannot be serious. Straddle that hunk of stone and wait for it to leap from the building?”
“It is best we leave now while all of Paris is gambling and wenching and has not a care for the shadows that race across the sky. Right here behind Charles’s wings. Don’t worry, he’s very strong.”
Gabriel inched forward, his arm extended as if to gingerly test the condition of a sleeping pit bull with a long stick. He touched a wing. “He is stone. And yet, he’s very warm. Like he’s…real.”
“He is real.”
“What does he do when he’s not transporting you from rooftop to rooftop?”
“He sits upon the roof and waits my command.”
Gabriel swung a leg over the wide stone hindquarters of Charles, and circled his arms around Roxane’s waist. He had not a moment to adjust to the strange mount when the air whisked through his hair and his yelp got lost in the rush of flight.
The air above the city was sweet. Roxane drew in a deep breath and stretched her arms wide to take in the freedom of flight. Charles always knew her wishes. She need not speak to the beast for him to understand she appreciated his dedication to her. He was the one stable force that had been in her life for years.
She’d found him sitting atop a dilapidated castle on the opposite side of the forest Villers-Cotteret. He’d looked so lonely perched high in the sky, covered in centuries of soot, dust, and bird droppings. Even from the ground she had seen deep into his carved stone eyes and sensed the inner soul.
On the eve of her initiation into immortality, her grandmother had selected the one who would bring her over—a vampire. It was known he had plans to travel through the forest. Grandmother arranged that the mark would discover Roxane, a lonely innocent by the side of the road.
Roxane had but an evening to bespell the gargoyle and make him her familiar. Drawing herself into a summoning circle, she’d stood upon the thin layer of March snow, skyclad and shivering, but determined.
Smoke of ashwood rose around her and drifted upward to the gargoyle. The spell had been spoken; so mote it be. The gargoyle stretched out a stony wing for the first time since his creation and took to the air. He soared and circled high in the midnight sky. La Luna glittered covetously upon his sweeping wing. Roxane felt their connection. For such freedom he would serve her endlessly.
When the v
ampire arrived, Charles had indeed served her. The gargoyle made the ritual of immortality much easier. And afterward, when she had lain beside the dead vampire, his chest wide open, and his blood streaming down her chin, she turned to the blazing bonfire. Blood initiated, she cast out her arms and took on the burn across her breasts. Later, she snuggled her head against Charles’s wing and fell asleep.
They landed on the Renan rooftop with nary a wobble. Charles touched down lightly and spread his wings to allow his passengers to slide off. Gabriel let go of Roxane’s waist—which she feared would bear red marks from his clinging fingers.
The gargoyle nuzzled against her stomach then padded to the roof edge and sat, head down, eyes on the city. Below, people would look up and see a decorative carving. Never would they see the familiar’s subtle moves to scan the city, nor would they notice the occasional itch that stirred the beast to scratch his neck.
“That—” Gabriel staggered, then snapped upright. He smoothed a hand over his frockcoat and pressed his colored spectacles up his nose. “—was amazing! Your brother is right about one thing.”
“And what is that?”
“You are the mouse that roars. I cannot imagine that I once thought you delicate and frail.”
“And I should think twice about my first impression of you.”
“A swish?”
“Hardly.”
“Well I am, to a degree.” He tugged the jabot about his neck, tufting it smartly.
“I’d call you a rake.”
“Damn proud of it, too. I’ve spent some time perfecting an elegantly bent wrist and that idiot mincing walk.”
Gabriel could not see her expression, but he sensed her disdain. “What is it?” He rushed to her side, but she pulled her arm from his touch. “Roxane?”
She beat her fists aside her thighs and spun to face him. “I never intended to fall in love with a man like you.”
“A swish?”
“No, a vampire!”
Taken by her confession, he marveled at her unabashed confession to loving him.
“We are not meant to be together,” she said over her shoulder. “You must understand.”
“I understand nothing of late, Roxane.” He slid his hands around her waist, and fit his body against hers, setting his chin on her shoulder. “I find myself questioning my every move, my every craving—for it is no longer for food but blood. I feel things that are painful and make me question my sanity. I have never before believed in vampires and witches. And yet, you are real.” He kissed her neck. “So real, Roxane. Why must we be enemies? Because some dusty old grimoire declares it so?”
“Because it is my history,” she said softly.
“You started out with so much faith, in the both of us. What happened?”
“Perhaps I am tired. I want you to survive this, Gabriel. But you changed the game on me. I was initially interested in a swish of a man, and now, it is a vampire I love.”
“Do you know how wonderful it makes me feel to hear you say those words?”
“I should think them utterly common, considering your frequency with women.”
“This is the first time they’ve ever been said with such conviction.”
“I mean it, I do love you.”
He pulled her out onto the center of the roof. Overhead a million stars sparkled, and all around them the spires of dozens of cathedrals pierced the steely gray sky. The night was still. Even the air up here was of a different universe, another time, untainted by reality.
Roxane laid her head against Gabriel’s chest. “I can hear your heart beat.”
“Can we do this?”
A relationship had been formed between them, and it went beyond mere companionship or polite friendship. The man had confessed his love for her.
Could she risk loving him?
Had he not been a vampire the answer would be easy. Yes, of course she loved this man. She would marry him in a moment. And in the next moment she would give him a child. Domesticity. Family. Acceptance. Everything he desired.
But could a witch really love a vampire?
“Don’t think about it,” he breathed against her lips.
“How do you know what I am thinking?”
“The same questions race through my mind. Just hold me. For the moment I feel as if we are the only two people in the entire world. Cruelty does not exist. Nor does fear. Roxane, I want to help your brother.”
Mention of Damian dragged a sharp blade through their intimate connection. She broke from him and walked toward the roof door. “I’m sorry, I am very tired.”
“I will do anything to help Damian,” he offered. “The worry for him taxes you. You need your strength.”
“Yes, strength to fight the vampire Anjou.”
“Why fight him?” He rushed to lift the door for her but blocked her descent. “You don’t need him anymore, you have me! Why do you think I—”
She glanced at him, panic paling her eyes.
“I can help your brother now, Roxane.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but said not a thing. Slipping around him she stepped quickly down the stairs, his black cape billowing in her wake.
He did not call after her.
TWENTY-FOUR
“You wanted me, Renan?”
“Yes, I need to go out, Toussaint.” Gabriel startled at his valet’s appearance. Hadn’t he just returned from distributing Gabriel’s idea of alms? “You are disheveled, man.”
“Huh.” The valet patted his wrinkled shirt front and noted the misbuttoned waistcoat.
“Your hair is all ascatter, and is that lip rouge on your neck?”
Toussaint slapped a hand over the incriminating evidence.
“I see. Just come from Ninon’s, yes?”
The valet nodded meekly.
“Toussaint, I believe you are leaving behind more than mere money.”
“The woman likes to chat. It is very difficult to get away.”
“I see.” Difficult to get away? Surely, with his pants around his ankles. “Perhaps your lover will enjoy a return visit this evening.”
“Whatever for?”
“You got the package I requested?”
“Right here. Took a bit of sleuthing to dig up such garb. Does this mean you’ll be visiting Mademoiselle Desrues at her home?”
“Yes, I sent her after the grimoire. I wish to learn all it details about the vampire. She hasn’t returned. Perhaps speaking spells?”
“So what is the plan?”
“Well, there is this silly costume. But first, I must make an obligatory visit to the Palais Royale. I’m feeling a bit peckish.”
“Of course. I’ll bring around the carriage.”
“Do tidy up a bit first, you wouldn’t want to appear lazy to your lover. Quickly. I’ve an appetite brewing.”
Roxane strode around the chalk circle she’d marked on the hardwood floor before the hearth. Amber flames flickered and shot out fire sparkles. Skyclad, her body sucked in the heat. It felt delicious, rousing, and forbidden. She settled onto her knees in the center of the circle and lit the five white candles she’d placed around the chalk border.
The star-like placement of the candles would invoke peace and sanity. It was a ritual she followed on evenly-numbered days. As she had done every other day for two months.
It was all she could do, for her brother’s madness lived in his soul. She could not influence souls. Her grandmother had taught her the human soul was not something to dally with, being the very essence of a man’s life. It was good and bad. Dark and light. It was all that we are and all that we will become.
She knew there were some witches who practiced dark magic and could manipulate a man’s soul; such power frightened her.
If only she could do more for Damian.
By now she should have returned to the vicomte’s with the grimoire, but she needed time. Distance from the man who tempted while he also frightened.
Did Gabriel comprehend what it meant
to live with a black soul? No redemption for him. No heaven.
Bending forward she blew out the candles and carefully scooped the scattered dragon’s blood petals into her palm.
A knock at the door startled her to her feet. Brushing the petals into the fire released a pungent gust of floating ash. Naked, she stood in the center of the chalk circle, momentarily discombobulated. Who would call so late?
Another knock moved her. She tugged her gown from the chair and ran to the door and gripped the pull. “Who’s there?”
“Renan.”
She glanced around the room. The chalk circle on the floor was partially distorted from her scramble to the door. She’d alluded that she had plans to cast a spell for Damian before she had left this afternoon. He already knew she was a witch.
Of course, right now she was a naked witch.
Again the knock. “Roxane?”
“Yes.” Pulling the heavy velvet gown over her shoulders, she was thankful the ancient garb did not require lacing or pinning. A gift from her great, great grandmother, she oft wore the gown when casting; it grounded her spells with the wisdom from the ages.
Fluffing out her hair, she opened the door. Gabriel stood in a long black redingote, a tricorn set upon his dark hair. A wigless head. No lace? And where was the requisite walking stick?
