Red Angel (The Angels of Paris Chronicles Book 2)

by Anna Santos

  “Are you thirsty?” he inquired.

  I frowned. “No, are you?”

  He chuckled and shook his head. “I’m serious, Aria. Do you want to stop to eat or drink anything?”

  “No, I’m good for now. Huh…” I pondered about how to address the matter.

  “What?” he asked, noticing my quirky attitude or just guessing. He had the gift to recognize when I wanted to know something.

  “Are you having problems finding blood since there are a lot of infected humans and some vampires tend to explode when they drink infected blood?”

  Oh, well, it was more of a statement than a question.

  “I’m good. We have the blood tested and we’ve been tracking down Clarity’s users and distributors.”

  “Are vampires harming people who are infected?”

  “Not that I know of. Also, the deal was to take the drug off of the streets and look for a cure. Doesn’t Cedric tell you these things?”

  “I don’t ask.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to bother him with trivial questions. He’s been really busy.”

  “You aren’t boring him, you’re informing yourself. It’s something that also concerns you since you’re an angel now.”

  “Huh.” I bit my upper lip, thinking about his words. He was sort of correct. “I guess I’ve been a bit busy worrying about other problems.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, flying for one. It scares the hell out of me,” I confessed. He gave me a lopsided grin. He didn’t laugh out loud or joke about my fear; no, it was a sympathetic smile. “I’m scared of heights. Besides that, there are all these new powers that I must control.”

  “That’s cool,” he stated.

  I grinned and stared at the floor, noticing that we were walking really slowly, just talking, instead of rushing to the other wing of the museum.

  “It’s been strange,” I admitted, opening up to the creepy vampire who’d tried to kill me and feeling good about sharing things with him. That’s creepy, too! “There’s a lot of noise inside my head. My angel is a psycho, and I think she’s trying to kill me!”

  “What?” he asked, widening his eyes at my last words.

  I panicked and waved my hands in the air. “No, no. I’m overreacting. She’s a bit…overwhelming, but she’s overly cautious about my safety. She just acts a tiny little bit like a pegasus on steroids.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You know, those animated cute ponies with wings.” I gestured, and he shook his head. “Anyway, angels are supposed to be nice, but she’s a tad bit obsessed with not trusting vampires and wanting to kill them.”

  “She doesn’t like me.” He summed up my wordy speech rather fast.

  I nodded. “Pretty much.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “It’s her loss. Tell her I’m harmless.”

  “Right!”

  “I’m off-duty, so I’m in my harmless state of mind,” he retorted.

  I smirked.

  “Not all vampires are evil. I have many friends who don’t prey on humans, and they don’t kill. They actually use their immortality for the greater good.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, there are books and art that exist thanks to vampires. Plenty of history was written and rewritten by them. Many also helped in the advances of science. Others are doctors and teachers, even museum curators.”

  “So you chose the easier job of scaring young girls and preying on them,” I joked.

  “I don’t prey on them. Speaking of that. Whatever you think that you saw on the boat, those women…”

  I cut his speech short, raising one hand to tell him to stop speaking. “I really, really don’t want to remember that. Spare me the sappy story and the excuses.”

  “I fucked up, Aria, but you could try to understand my reasons and forgive me.”

  My jaw tensed. “Like Thomas Szasz said, ‘The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.’ I’d rather be stupid in this one.”

  “Then I’ll need to make you want to be wise,” he reasoned.

  “What if you try not to bore me to death instead?” I proposed, since I had no intention of talking about what had happened on that terrifying night.

  “Okay, I can try that,” he whispered with a conciliatory smile. “Will you join us for dinner tonight after the Louvre?”

  “I guess, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind at all. You weren’t able to try the desserts.”

  “True, but…well, she seems to be feeling better. Gabby, I mean.”

  “She’s fine. Sean takes good care of her.”

  “He’s extremely patient,” I agreed.

  “Well, one of them has to be patient,” he joked.

  I chuckled. “You are so damn evil when you talk about them!”

  He breathed deep before explaining. “That’s because you don’t have to live with them under the same roof. They don’t disturb you at dawn when they arrive wasted. Also, Gabby’s always breaking my stuff and touching everything. I’ve already told Sean to keep her in his room and away from my collections.”

  “She’s curious.”

  “I’m never in the mood to indulge her prying questions.”

  Giggling, I joked, “She’s totally a happy Santa Claus elf while you’re a grumpy Grinch!”

  Philippe grumbled, “She has the gift of getting on my nerves.”

  “I think my parents are over there,” I said, seeing a couple asking an older woman to take a picture of them—hugging and kissing—of course.

  Philippe’s eyes followed my pointing finger. “Yes, they are. They seem to be having fun.”

  “Philippe…” I looked at him. “What did you do to make my dad like you so much?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you enthrall him with whatever weird power vampires use on people?”

  “I didn’t compel him to like me. We can’t force a person to do that.”

  “So why does he like you so much?”

  “We have a lot of common interests.”

  I frowned, trying to figure out what interests they could possibly have in common. Dad was not into biting and haunting the night in his creepy, brooding vampire form.

  I think Philippe understood that he had to elaborate on his answer. “Music, wine, movies, food, books…liking you.”

  That last part of his answer was totally uncalled for. Though I understood what he meant. They had a lot of things in common. Dad and Cedric didn’t have that baseline.

  “Why are you sad, Aria?”

  “I’m not sad, just bothered.”

  “With what?”

  “Something that happened earlier today. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Okay. But you are happy, aren’t you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you want to be an angel? Does Cedric make you happy?”

  “Yes, I’m happy and I think being an angel is cool.”

  “So, why the sad face when I saw you earlier today?”

  “Flying issues, my friend is down, and I’m sad for her, too. Also, my dad seems to want to deport Cedric to Siberia and close the airports, so he can never come back.”

  “I think the volcano is active, so there are no planes going there anyway.”

  I giggled at his stupid joke. “He could teleport back anyway. Cedric, I mean. He could…” I placed my hand against my pocket, where I had my phone. I hadn’t sent him a text message for nearly an hour now. I still had no idea what he was doing.

  “Why didn’t he come with you?”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “He could have come and shown you this himself.”

  “He could have. He’s just busy. Plus,” I said, trying to stop overthinking things, “you were the one who volunteered to do that. But we’re circling around, and I have no idea where
we are or where to go.”

  I looked at our surroundings as I bit my lower lip.

  “Food and water,” he said, pointing at the small café. “No complaining.”

  “And we can see the pretty armoires and jewels after?” I asked, mimicking Gabby and making him frown at my scarily-accurate imitation.

  “As long as you don’t ask me to steal them.”

  “No, I don’t want those old rusty things.”

  “They’re not rusty.”

  I waved in dismissal. “I know, I know. Gold is the most inert and non-reactive of the metals and it doesn’t react to oxygen.”

  “That’s right. Now, what do you want to drink and eat?”

  “I don’t know. Orange juice and…a croissant.”

  “Go get a table, one that isn’t under a beam of sunlight. And I’ll get it for you.”

  “Okay,” I agreed, turning around to look for an empty table and grabbing my phone to text message Cedric and find out what he was doing.

  I’d told him that I would send him messages, so I’d been texting him about all the interesting things I’d seen. I didn’t want him to think that I’d forgotten all about him just because I was with my parents and Philippe. But he didn’t know about Philippe. It would be pointless to stress him about that. I didn’t want him to freak out with jealousy.

  Chapter SIX

  ARIA

  I texted Cedric a quick hello. Then I sat down and watched Philippe ordering at the bar. The waitress was being ridiculously friendly with him, showing him the several types of croissants. Some girls couldn’t see a cute guy without melting and flirting. Unexpectedly, he pointed at me, showing me to her, and she gave me a happy smile and waved her hand. I waved back, confused as to what was going on.

  “Why was that girl waving at me?” I asked Philippe when he sat next to me and gave me my snack.

  “She’s the daughter of a good friend of mine,” he said. “She wanted to know what I was doing here, and I showed her you. She said you were really pretty,” he added.

  I shrugged, tearing my croissant with the tips of my fingers.

  “I hope you like this brand of orange juice. There wasn’t any fresh-made. So I also brought you water.”

  I looked at the drinks. “They’re fine, thanks.”

  “Peek-a-boo.” Gabby squealed behind my back, startling me, and almost making my croissant fall. Philippe helped me secure the thing, and I put my hand over my heart. “Found you!”

  “And almost gave me a heart attack,” I complained.

  Gabby pouted. She did that a lot, and she got away with tons of stuff because of it.

  “I’m hungry.”

  “Huh,” I stared at her, unsure why that was my problem. “Do you want my pastry?”

  “Nah, Sean went to get me ice cream. I just wanted company,” she said, sitting next to us.

  Philippe and I shared a conspiratorial look that made us laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Gabby asked.

  “Nothing,” Philippe said. “We were just being silly.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  I sighed before answering, “Smooching somewhere.”

  “Gross!”

  “My thoughts exactly,” I whispered, eating my croissant and noticing the pretentious smirk that Philippe had on his face. “Don’t start,” I warned him.

  He raised his hands in surrender.

  Meanwhile, Gabby stole my orange juice—without asking—and poured it in the glass.

  “Now I remember. She’s also a freeloader,” Philippe stated, talking about Gabby.

  I laughed hard this time and had to drink water because of the dry pastry I had in my mouth.

  “Philippe, be nice; stop trying to choke me to death,” I requested.

  He rolled his eyes, but he knew I was joking. Gabby was the one who was clueless as to what was going on.

  “You two are acting friendly,” she stated, only to look around for Sean.

  “Your cousin is nice,” Philippe said.

  I stared at him, asking him mentally if he wanted to have water splashed all over his face.

  He actually understood that I was threatening him somehow because he leaned back in his chair. “But, sometimes, she acts a bit like a psycho, and we have to be careful.”

  “Funny, really funny. Now go get me another bottle of orange juice,” I asked.

  To my surprise, he got up and obeyed.

  “Whipped,” Gabby said to Philippe, who ignored her.

  I had no idea what she meant by saying that to him.

  My cousin moved closer to me. “I know that you’re supposed to be dating some guy, but Philippe is like screaming for you to give him your full attention. He’s such a catch. Why don’t you give him a chance and go out with him?”

  “Well, for one, I have a boyfriend and it wouldn’t be okay. Besides, Philippe isn’t as nice as you may think.”

  “Well, haven’t you heard of open relationships?”

  “Yes, do you have one with Sean?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t have one with Cedric either.”

  “I hope that Cedric is a total hunk because Philippe is. And he’s so into you that it’s absurd! Sean is flabbergasted by it. He even sulks around the house because you didn’t give him the time of day when you were at the opera house.”

  “What?” I asked. What the hell was she saying? Philippe was gloomy because of me? The nerve he has!

  “I think he likes you,” she whispered with a complicit attitude.

  “It’s too late for that. I’m happy together with Cedric. He’s amazing, and I love him.”

  “When am I going to meet him? I’m really curious.”

  “We can go out together if you want.”

  “I’d love to! Like tonight. Invite him to go out with us. Wouldn’t you like to go to a nightclub or to a bar after dinner?”

  “Isn’t it dangerous?”

  “Of course not! We aren’t going to a shady alley to be mugged. Besides, we’ll be together with our boyfriends. And the nightclubs have security inside. Haven’t you ever gone out to a nightclub before?”

  “I’m underage,” I reminded her.

  “No, you’re not. In Europe, you can go to a nightclub when you’re sixteen, and the legal age to drink wine and beer is sixteen. Eighteen for distilled alcoholic beverages. So you’ll have no problem getting in.”

  “I guess I knew that. I… Well, I’m not sure if my parents would approve.”

  Gabby frowned. “You aren’t living at my house. You’re living with your boyfriend, and you’re worried about asking your parents’ permission to go clubbing? Are you serious?”

  “It actually sounds stupid when you say it out loud.”

  “Also, you’re old enough to decide for yourself. And I’m sure they won’t mind. They’re pretty cool, and you are here to have fun. So relax and stop being such a buzzkill.”

  “I’ll text Cedric to ask if he’s free to go out with us tonight.”

  “Cool!”

  “I found it, your favorite,” Sean announced, arriving with the ice cream and stopping the conversation.

  Gabby squealed and clapped her hands like a little kid and grabbed the ice cream. Sean kissed her hair before sitting down beside her.

  Looking around, he asked, “Where’s Philippe?”

  I motioned to Philippe as he was coming back with my juice after sending the text message to Cedric. It was the fourth message that I’d sent without him replying. Come to think of it, he’d only messaged me a simple smiley face when I’d told him that I was inside the Louvre in front of my favorite paintings.

  “Have you two been having fun?” Sean asked me.

  I stared at him, lost in my thoughts concerning what Cedric could be doing that was causing him to neglect my text messages. “It’s been okay. Mom and Dad got lost, though.”

  “They’re coming this way. They phoned me,” Philippe said, sitting down next to me. He opened and served me t
he juice. “After lunch, we’re going to the Sully Wing.”

  I nodded and checked my phone for messages. There were none. The lack of messages annoyed me and made me check the phone more often.

  After sipping my juice, I tried to have a conversation with my cousin, who started to tell me what her engagement ring would look like. I think I wasn’t able to conceal my dumbfounded face because Philippe was smirking, and I could have slapped him.

  “But…hmm, did Sean propose?” I asked, taken aback by the news of the engagement ring.

  “He will—when he has the perfect ring.”

  I couldn’t help but stare at Sean to check if he agreed with that. He nodded rather convincingly, and I stared at Philippe, who shrugged. Okay, talk about indulging girlfriends; Sean was way too nice and submissive!

  “I’m sorry, but…do you even realize that you’re nineteen?” I asked her. Then, the stupidity of my question hit me. “Never mind. Carry on.”

  I could no longer disagree with marriage at a young age since I was currently on my way to stay married-slashed-bonded—forever, I might add—to an angel. I simply didn’t have a ring to prove it. But I had a bunch of pretty tattoos on my right arm.

  At the end of Gabby’s explanation, all I understood was that she couldn’t wait to get away from her parents’ house and away from their rules. I hoped she wouldn’t regret it and that Sean’s proposal wasn’t attached with a direct ticket to a vampire’s life. She had a lot of living to do before being kept away from the sun.

  I glanced at Philippe, imagining how long he hadn’t walked in the sunlight and how long it had been since he’d seen Paris during daylight. Even if he looked young, I knew he was older. Much older than my dad and my mom, probably older than their ages combined. I tried not to feel sorry for him, but I knew he’d had a miserable human existence and probably a worse vampire life.

  “What’s wrong, Aria?” he asked, leaning his face closer to mine.

  “Nothing,” I lied, trying to stay immune to the sweetness of his voice and the sparkling light in his chocolate-brown eyes.

  He didn’t buy my answer because he waited for me to tell him the truth.

  Since I couldn’t, I said something close to it. “So…you can’t show me the Tuileries Garden.”