Pop music leaks from the room next to mine, the sort Bastian adores, the sort that makes my stomach turn. I can’t stand boppy love songs. Just like I can’t stand having neighbors. Especially carefree students. The whole set-up feels way too much like a foster house. At least I have a door and a lock, more than I had back in my formative years.
After checking the contents of the dresser and armoire—both empty—I decide not to ring in the New Year alone in this elf hole. I button up my coat and shut the door, the brass 3 swinging from side to side as I lock up and pocket the key. I forgo the winding road for a set of stairs sprinkled with salt that lead me back to Second Kelc’h. Snow starts to drift down. Like this town isn’t wintery enough already.
I buy a cup of mulled wine and a ham and cheese galette from an eatery called Merlin’s Baguette, then pound the cobbles toward the square. At some point, I find myself discussing the cost of a decent drink with a bunch of inebriated sophomores. We buy several bottles of wine from a tabac ranging from dirt cheap to mildly expensive to test our theories before coming to the conclusion that, after several drinks, anything’s decent.
But even with all the distraction and the booze, I can’t get the gall of Rainier de Morel off my mind. I swallow a mouthful of Pinot Noir every time I think of him. And with every mouthful, I get more and more pissed off.
The villagers begin to sing a melancholic song in Breton. It feels like they’re burying the past year instead of celebrating the coming one.
I leave the square and stagger down the windy road, the half-drunk bottle and brimming anger my only companions.
I want to do something. Something petty to make me feel better. So, when I stumble over the cemetery grounds and find myself outside a mausoleum with DE MOREL etched into the stone, I grin from ear to ear. I recall Bastian saying, “Loot his home. Would that make you happy?”
It’s not his home but will do just fine.
My vision blurs before clearing and sharpening. And yes, Bastian, it would make me very happy.
I’m about to make the acquaintance of the legendary Viviene, a few dusty great-grandparents, and a pervy second cousin, because every family’s got one of those. Or at least, all the families I lived with had some touchy-feely relative. Not that anyone’s ever managed to slide their hands down my pants, but some tried. One ended up with smashed knuckles; the other with a missing phalanx. Booze dulls the memory of their ugly faces.
The granite structure sparkles intermittently behind the mist, a miniature version of the pantheon, complete with a portico of four columns. I step between the columns and practically kiss an iron bar. Damn fog.
Behind the metal gate, I make out the statue of a woman, carved so that her stone tunic and hair are perpetually blowing in the wind. She stands atop a weather-beaten tomb inscribed with the name VIVIENE that’s so worn it’s practically illegible.
Putain de merde. I shake the bars, but they don’t even rattle. This can’t be the only way in. There’s got to be a door worthy of the tools I carry around. I stumble back into the snow and round the structure. Sure as shit, there’s a side entrance that might as well display the words BREAK IN HERE in neon tubing.
I take my rake pick and tension wrench from the inside pocket of my coat and jimmy the padlock. The rusty hinges scream as I push open the iron door. The reek of mildew, soil, and rotting meat reminds me a lot of my third foster home. Such fond fucking memories.
With my phone light, I take inventory. Eight coffins lie on recessed shelves carved into walls covered with spiderwebs and moss. A stone sarcophagus with an engraved four-leaf clover on the lid sits in the middle of the crypt like a beacon.
I gulp another mouthful of Pinot Noir, then drop the bottle onto the packed-dirt floor. It tips and spills, tingeing the foul, musty air of vinegar.
I start with the coffins set out like hors d’oeuvres, just ready for the picking. One good kick and the decaying wood on the first coffin snaps. A skeleton glares at me from inside, ancient pennies where its eyes should be.
The other seven are just as easy to open. I pocket a pearl brooch, two necklaces made of precious stones, several gold rings, and sapphire buttons. There’s really no reason for me to put any effort into opening the sarcophagus.
The rule when looting is in and out. My second foster father, Hector, taught me that. He learned the hard way, spending time behind bars for taking an extra forty-three seconds to open a drawer he should’ve left shut.
This is different, though. This is personal. So I’m leaving no stone unturned.
I’m here to do damage.
Using a thighbone from coffin number three as a crowbar, I begin prying the heavy stone lid, my breath coming out in white puffs. The marker on the sarcophagus reads Amandine de Morel—Rainier’s Sister? Cousin? Mother?—and dates her death as February 29th, seventeen years ago. I’m drunk enough to find that both funny and kind of heartbreaking. Imagine the anniversary of your death only being marked every four years.
It makes me wonder when my parents died exactly. And how? And if maybe they’re buried somewhere in this eerie, frozen cemetery.
I’m not really sure I want to know.
The stone cover inches to the side as I coax it with my nifty bone. When there’s finally enough space for me to grip the edge, I shove the damn thing with all my might. It slides over, revealing a shiny mahogany coffin inside. The lid pops off like a rotten tooth, and like a rotten tooth, the stench is eye-watering.
My first reaction, after wanting to heave up all the wine, is disappointment. All that artifice for a decaying corpse with no jeweled crown or tiara. She doesn’t even have worthless pennies over her lids like the others, and her palms aren’t sandwiched in prayer around a family heirloom.
She only has one hand resting over her heart. Her left arm is tucked underneath the rotting silk of her skirt. With one gloved finger, I push the material aside.
Holy. Fucking. Hell.
Jackpot.
A gold ring with an enormous scarlet gem adorns the retracting flesh of her bony finger. The oval stone looks like something out of a museum. Something housed behind bulletproof glass and protected by a hi-tech security system.
I whoop in celebration, hiccupping from my wine-fest, then take my phone from where it’s propped on a ledge and beam the flashlight directly onto the ring. The red stone’s so translucent it seems to pulse and swirl. I like beautiful things. But this . . . this goes beyond beautiful. It’s exquisite.
I pick it up. It’s larger than expected, heavier. Amandine de Morel must’ve had some seriously big hands. There are words engraved inside the band, written in a language I’m unfamiliar with. Still, I sound them out for the fun of it: “Erenez e v’am.”
In my head, I’m already compiling a list of potential buyers for this beauty.
Tugging off my leather glove with my teeth, I slide the ring onto my middle finger. The gem, which covers my finger to the knuckle, is oddly warm. I raise my hand and flip off the entire crypt. But what I’m really doing is giving the finger to Rainier de Morel himself.
“Screw you, de Morel, you enfoiré!” My voice reverberates off the dank walls.
In my drunkenness, it feels like the whole damn crypt shakes and tilts. I grab on to the stone casing and wait for the tremors to pass.
I pull at the ring to stash it inside my pockets with the rest of my loot, but the damn thing won’t budge. Which is really messed up, because it was loose going on.
I yank at it. With each tug, the skin of my middle finger twists and stretches as if the band’s been superglued to my flesh.
“Bordel de merde!” I curse.
For the next fifteen minutes I try everything I can think of to remove the damn ring short of sawing off my finger. I try slathering it with the lip balm I keep in my coat pocket. I try wedging it against the inner corner of the sarcophagus and wrenching it off. I try to pry it off with my teeth. I poke it with my dorm key. Nothing. As a last attempt, the heretic that I am tries p
raying.
Suffice it to say, it doesn’t do shit.
Panic grips my lungs like iron fists as I stumble out of the crypt. The snow has stopped falling, but the temperature has dropped. It takes me a minute, but I’m finally able to stretch my leather glove over the ring. Just barely.
The lump makes me rage harder against that salaud Rainier de Morel. His name runs on a loop inside my head.
I keep my eyes down, putting one foot in front of the other, not paying attention to anything but my own drunken fury. That’s when I collide with something soft and skid on the freezing ground. I fall, and the momentum upends the contents of my pockets.
“Putain de merde! Watch where you’re going!” I spit out, grabbing at my fallen loot.
“Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” demands a feminine voice. Deep but melodious enough not to be confused with a man’s.
Thin, pale fingers reach down and swipe the brooch. I snatch it back. I know I’m acting like an overgrown toddler, but I really don’t give a flying fuck. Not tonight.
“I wasn’t going to steal it; I was just trying to help.” She shuffles backward on black combat boots peeking out from underneath a long black skirt.
I lift my eyes and crane my neck to keep going. The scratchy black skirt hides her legs, and a puffy silver coat, although cinched at the waist, hides her chest. But I catch sight of her face—very straight nose, slightly pointy chin, full red lips, and eyes that seem translucent in spite of the shadows cast by the brim of a ridiculous witch’s hat.
The white puff of my breath blurs her face. I hold back my next exhale, long enough for her delicate features to sharpen.
Fuck, she’s . . . angelic.
Any other time, any other place, I’d turn on the charm, but tonight, I’m on a mission. And that mission is revenge. I need to focus.
“Help? Did I ask you for help? I don’t think so.” I gather all my baubles, shoot to my feet, then brush myself off and stalk away.
She calls after me, an insult, I think, but the wind snatches her words before they reach me.
Rainier de Morel, Rainier de Morel, Rainier de Morel.
I input the address from his letter into my phone and follow the glowing map to an adjacent colossal stone manor. And I don’t mean outsized compared to the dollhouses dotting the cobbled hill; I mean properly colossal with sprawling grounds and a tall wrought-iron gate.
A pretentious gold sign is nailed to the open gates: Manoir de Morel.
I pull my gloves tighter over my hands and start up the path that wends toward the sound of laughter and music.
4
Cadence
A thief.
That’s what the strange guy I just ran into must be. What man carries around a brooch? Who even wears brooches nowadays? Unless he bought it as a present for his grandmother, but shouldn’t it have been wrapped up if that were the case? Also, it wasn’t the only thing that spilled out from his pockets. Maybe I should report him. But it’s New Year’s Eve, and I’m feeling generous.
I’m also feeling really cold.
The dusting of snow has frozen over Brume. The slate roofs, bare oak branches, and holiday decorations look covered in vanilla icing and faceted crystals.
As I walk up the stairs toward Second Kelc’h, I clamp my tingling fingers into fists inside my puffer jacket’s pockets. Alma said she was having “just one drink” at the tavern, but that must’ve turned into two because she isn’t at our meeting spot.
I shouldn’t be surprised she hasn’t arrived yet. She’s always late. I scan the crowd in the square, searching for her coppery mane. When I talked to her on the phone earlier, her voice was so squealy I told her I’d meet her in town instead of letting her make her own way down the treacherously steep stone stairs alone. I didn’t want her spraining an ankle, what with her penchant for sky-high heels—a penchant shaped by her acute dissatisfaction with her five-foot-three frame.
I look at my watch for the fourth time in the space of two minutes. The hands seem particularly sluggish. Maybe they, too, are partially frozen.
I puff warm air into my hands, wishing I’d worn real gloves instead of the lacy fingerless ones I found in the attic. At least I’d donned a long wool dress buttoned up to my neck. Alma tried to dissuade me from wearing it for the party when we uncovered it last week in the dusty trunks filled with Maman’s clothes, but the garment screamed witchy. Besides, even though it’s silly, knowing that Maman wore it makes it sort of special.
The pointy black hat trimmed in burgundy faux-mink is the only thing new about my outfit. I saw it in Au Bon Sort’s shop window the other day and couldn’t resist buying it for tonight. Gaëlle said she’d only gotten the one in, so I wouldn’t have a twin at the party.
Gaëlle’s family, like mine, is one of the founding families of Brume. She’s twice my age, but something like a sister. Ever since her husband ran out on her a month before she gave birth to twins, I’ve helped out by babysitting or manning the shop whenever her stepson can’t.
“Hey, sexy witch!” My friend’s high-pitched voice makes me jump a little.
Her natural curls bounce and glint copper underneath the fairy lights strung up around the chained street sign for Second Kelc’h. She’s wearing a shrunken version of my pointy hat, askew. It’s fastened to a clip and has a little veil with a rhinestone spider. Her dress is also a shrunken version of mine, hitting mid-thigh and mid-boob. And just as I predicted, her knee-high boots have platform heels that almost make her reach my five-nine stature. I’m very obviously not the sexy witch in Brume tonight.
I stick my hands back into my pockets. “How are you not freezing?”
“I have tights.”
“Fishnets don’t qualify as tights.”
As she walks toward me, her legs glimmer.
“Are there sparkles on them?” My words form a milky cloud.
“Yuh-huh. Hot-glued them myself.” She spins, and her dress flounces, flashing me—and a small group of college guys sucking on cigarettes in front of the tavern—the color of her underwear: hot pink. The girl has no shame. She hooks her arm through mine. “Thanks for coming to get me. You’re the bestest, Cadence.”
“You sounded a little tipsy.” She smells a lot tipsy, though, like she’s wearing equal parts Cabotine and Dom Pérignon.
She giggles. “It’s New Year’s Eve! Of course I’m tipsy. The question is, why aren’t you?”
“Because we’re going to a party at my house, and Papa would ground me until my fortieth birthday if I was drunk.”
“There’s a big difference between tipsy and drunk. Besides, you need to live a little. You know, I thought maybe you’d actually started partying because I felt the ground shake earlier. But then I checked for flying pigs. And zilch . . .”
I knock my shoulder into hers. “Haha.” I felt the ground shake earlier, too. The orchestra Papa hired for the party had been testing out the sound equipment, so I chalked it up to that.
Alma continues, “That should be your New Year’s resolution: to finally let loose and act seventeen instead of seventy!”
“I don’t act seventy.”
She makes a noise in the back of her throat.
“You know what? I feel this is the year you’re going to get together with that groomstick of yours.” She cinches her fingers around my puffer jacket sleeve, her heels clacking against the cobbles.
“Groomstick?”
Her eyes glitter as though she hot-glued some sparkles on her irises, too. “Broom-groom? You don’t like my witchy humor?”
I crack a smile. “How much champagne did you ingest?”
She just grins and then gossips about her housemates while we make our way through the twisty, glittery street, down the stairs, and toward the open gates of my house.
The old stones of the path leading to my front door vibrate with new-age classical music. Every year, we throw Brume’s New Year’s Eve party. It’s been a tradition for generations. The town visitors dres
s up like witches and wizards to celebrate Brume’s history, and we do the same. Only indoors with hors d’oeuvres and central heating.
A man stationed by the entrance pulls the heavy lacquered wooden door open, and we step into the foyer. Alma lets out a low whistle of appreciation. Papa hired a team of professionals from Paris to decorate this year. The house is festooned with garlands of lights hidden in silver tulle, and fancy clockfaces hang like snowflakes from the white-painted timbered ceilings. Tall arrangements of pine needles, white lilies, and red roses adorn every surface of the massive foyer and the rooms spilling beyond.
As Alma hands her short faux-fur jacket to the coat attendant, she grimaces and gestures with her chin to the reception room. “Don’t look now, but Charlotte’s dangling off your groomstick.”
I peer into the crowded room, my gaze zeroing in on Adrien’s dark-blond, gelled-up hair. He’s chatting with the Chair of the Science department and his husband, and sure enough, black-haired, green-eyed Charlotte is hooked to Adrien’s arm like a Christmas ornament.
I press my lips tight and heap my puffer jacket over Alma’s before she winds her arm back through mine and tugs me through the throng of twittering witches and warlocks nibbling canapés.
“What does he see in her? Besides every strain of venereal disease in Brume?” Her voice carries over the din of harp, violin, and piano, and raises the bushy eyebrows of a silver-haired warlock. It takes me a few seconds to realize the warlock is none other than Adrien’s father.
He looks me up and down in a way that makes me clutch the scratchy woolen barrier of my dress. “You’re wearing Amandine’s dress.” The fact that he knows this adds to his general creepiness. “Your resemblance to her tonight is simply astounding.”
Of Wicked Blood: A Slow Burn Romantic Urban Fantasy (The Quatrefoil Chronicles Book 1) Page 3
