by S. H. Roddey
“We have awaited your arrival, sire.” He glanced around to gauge strangers’ interest in this conversation, then took a step forward. “They will be successful this time,” he said, dropping his voice to just above a whisper. “That woman…she has…powers.”
“What kind of powers?
His eyes widened. “You do not know?”
“They are secretive now,” I said, hoping he would not suspect my inauthenticity. “I was summoned, but they are careful.”
He nodded. “They are. The one who kills them,” he said, and I assumed he spoke of me, “could ruin everything.”
“He could, but we are smart. As you see, even I know nothing of this woman.”
He thought about this. His gaze danced around the dingy room as he considered what I’d said. My name alone should have given me away. It was obvious this poor fool had no real influence, and even less intellect.
“She is not human. She calls demons,” he said. “She performs blood magic. She can make men live forever.”
“And you believe this?”
He nodded.
“I am new to this city. Will you take me to them?” I asked. His chin began to tremble.
“I-I do not know where they are,” he said, his voice quivering in fear, as if he expected me to kill him for his lack of information. “B-but we will be called when it is t-time. I will lead you!”
Perhaps he would be useful after all.
“You come to me when you know,” I said, and pulled the coin from his fingers. He’d given me a good bit to think about.
On my eighth day in Paris, I found myself suddenly back to my previous plan. Summoning a demon, in my experience, often involved blood sacrifice—blood magic, as he’d called it—and there would surely be some sort of record. Blood sacrifice meant having live offerings, which meant there would be missing people. Having been reminded of my reasons for being here, I chose not to wait for my surprising new connection’s promise of assistance. Missing people meant police involvement, and newspapers loved the gory details.
That morning, I asked the innkeeper if he managed to save any newspapers from the prior months. The aging man nodded and agreed to bring the papers to me once he retrieved them. An hour later, he knocked on my door.
“I save them all,” he said as he thrust a stack of tattered newspapers into my arms. They were dated as early as February. “They make good kindling in the cold months.”
“I shall return them once I have read them,” I promised. He nodded and disappeared back downstairs. He did not seem particularly affronted by my appearance, which did nothing to ease my anxiety. My coin spent as well as any other, but humans could turn in a breath.
I spread the papers out across the bed, the table, and the floor. Three months of headlines gave me names and faces for eight disappearances. The missing came from various parts of the city, encompassing all social statuses. No person seemed safe from the unseen predators. Children and young adults…those were the targets of choice, but not once in the rambling, fear-mongering text was there a connection made between one victim and another. The local law enforcement was staggering in its ineptitude. Anyone who read the reports would see the correlation.
While reading over obituaries, the trite mocking of the crown, and the mostly boring local gossip, I noticed a small article in the corner of one page—the announcement that the body of the second missing victim, Jeanette DuLac, washed up on the banks of the Seine. The announcement that Martin Vichy—the son of a prominent businessman and hopeful politician—had vanished far overshadowed this discovery. His father expected a ransom, but in the six weeks of papers that followed his story, I found no mention of a ransom, return, or body.
Two more of the disappeared were found dead as well—one by stabbing and the other hanged. The stabbing the police attributed to a violent pickpocket and the hanging to suicide…which bothered me greatly. The stabbing I could understand, as children are young and naïve. The hanging, however…what child would have the forethought to tie a noose and hang herself from the rafters of an abandoned building?
The idea was preposterous.
The next morning, I procured a map of Paris and marked the disappearances. The farthest out took place only four blocks from the river. The victims were all so young, the oldest being just seventeen years of age. I feared the intent of the Brotherhood—if, in fact, the Brotherhood were the takers—by their choice of victim. Perhaps the summoning of this demon required innocent blood.
Sick, slithering dread settled in my gut. The blood of grown men could coat my hands and I would never give it a second thought. An adult would be aware of his crimes. He would have sin against him. He would be guilty.
But to take the life of a child—not to mention eight children—was unthinkable. It exponentially increased my anger. I needed to find these children and destroy those responsible.
Soon.
Chapter 5
I walked the city for two days without sleeping. I spent daylight hours searching the city for information on the missing children and returned to the cage as the sun began to set. I managed to offset the frustration brought on by the lack of information with this new, thrilling violence. The beast inside me craved the fights. My knuckles were raw and scabbed. My shoulders ached. The burn in my muscles reminded me all too well of how much worse my lot could be.
My daylight journey into this new darkness began at the home of the first victim, only to find it abandoned. Boards covered the windows, and the front door yawned inward where thieves had made themselves at home inside. The window to the left of the door was shattered, shards of glass protruding from the weed-riddled flowerbed beneath.
“Her mother died of a broken heart,” a neighbor told me as I stared at the bedraggled residence. The woman carried a small dog beneath her left arm and looked up at the house sadly. “The widower left this place three weeks ago and has not returned. Couldn’t bear the thought of his dead daughter missing so close to his home. They were good people.”
A body was not found; that much I remembered from the newspapers. What I did not know, however, was that fourteen-year-old Lenore—the victim—was a sheltered young woman, still untouched by a man. Her father protected her fiercely and forbade any boy to court her.
“She was such a good girl. Soon to be a debutante,” the neighbor said. “Her father expected her to marry quite well.” The woman shook her head and stroked the dog’s ears. “Hair in braids, always singing songs from her bedroom window. Beautiful child, she was.”
Jeanette’s story was much different. She was the oldest of the victims at seventeen, but she was with child and left behind a new working-class husband who was beside himself with grief. He told me through sniffles and tears that he considered throwing himself into the river when her body was brought ashore.
The other stories were similar to the first two: young, innocent ones stolen in the night, or young newlyweds mistaken for children. Left behind were devastated families. Grieving loved ones. The waste of young life disgusted me; these children did not deserve their fates.
I studied the points on the map, desperate for some shred of information I’d yet to glean from my research, but found no pattern in their location. The only similar trait among the missing was their purity. I’d reached another disappointing dead end.
I approached the home of the last victim an hour after leaving the cage. That evening ended just as many others—in my personal disappointment at the lack of suitable opponents. Even the coin no longer excited me. I had enough to last a lifetime already.
The woman I assumed was the missing child’s mother met my gaze with a hard stare. She stopped her painting—her small porch was halfway between dingy gray and stark white—and pushed her hair from her face with the heel of her left hand.
“Come to pour salt in the wound, have you?” she asked, her tone as hard as her eyes. “Come to stare at the crazy lady with the dead child?”
“No,” I replied. “I have com
e to help you.”
“No one can help me.”
“Your daughter. Tell me what happened.”
“My daughter is dead,” she spat out and turned back to her painting. “That is all you need to know. Go away.”
“Sabine is still missing,” I pushed, only to be ignored. “Lenore. Nathalie. Martin. Sylvie. Sabine. Those are the names of the children still missing. The ones they have yet to find.”
“Still missing?” she questioned without halting her paintbrush.
“Jeanette. Inés. Durant. Those three children are dead, confirmed by police.”
“They are not my problem.”
“Sabine’s body has not been found, and because of that, I believe she is alive. I may know who took her, but I need help finding them.”
That got her attention. She faltered, leaving a jagged, white streak across the post she painted, then lowered the brush. “What makes you so special?”
“I have been following these men for years. They have a woman in their company who intends to use these children for something terrible.”
“A woman?” the mother asked. A flash of anger passed over her features. “Sabine’s grandmother speaks of a woman. An American woman.”
“Go on,” I urged. I dared not step closer, as this woman seemed capable of flight at any moment. “What of this American woman?”
“Sabine spoke of her too—said she talked to her through the windows, but Sabine does not speak English. The woman frightened her.” She dropped the paintbrush back into the tray and wiped her hands on the rag hanging from her waist. “The woman is…strange. Blind, I believe. She walks the floors, stands in front of the windows. Sabine disappeared from her grandmother’s house.” She lowered her head and heaved a deep sigh. “I think this woman may have something to do with my daughter’s disappearance.”
“Tell me where she lives.”
“Bring my daughter back to me.”
“I will try. Tell me where she lives.”
She spouted off the address of her mother’s home, then indicated I should search the house with the blue door beside it. A delicate shiver ran along her limbs, then she reached out and took hold of my hand. Her eyes brimmed with tears. Her chin quivered.
“Please, whoever you are…bring my Sabine back to me.”
I forewent the fight that evening to follow this new lead.
The bells of Notre-Dame chimed loudly behind me as I turned the corner onto Rue Saint-Louis. From the end of the street, I could see the blue door of which the disconsolate mother spoke. Clouds gathered overhead, threatening a storm. The roiling masses above me reflected my inner turmoil. Yet again, I felt as if I were walking into an ambush. Everything about this felt wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The word echoed in my head. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The grandmother’s house was closed up and dark, as were many of the other homes along this street. The whole area felt like those houses looked—closed off, deserted. Even in the middle of the afternoon it seemed so…desolate. As if the residents all along the street had packed up and gone for fear of some bogeyman lurking in the shadows.
Perhaps the grieving mother was closer to the truth than I realized. If this woman held the key to immortality, she might very well have been that bogeyman.
The house loomed over the others, radiating darkness. Everything about it felt still and cold; dead, almost. The day grew dim as the sun faded beyond the horizon. I could see little through the narrow windows on the front stoop.
When I tried the handle, the door swung inward easily and silently. I stepped inside, full of apprehension.
The attack came from the darkness behind me.
A sharp blow to the back of the head forced me to my knees. I staggered two steps and collapsed, bursts of light exploding behind my eyes. I groped blindly behind me, begging purchase on anything. My fingers met only air as my assailant landed another blow against my right temple.
This time I collapsed, belly-down on the damp, stone floor with blood trickling into my eyes. Heavy footfalls echoed around me, landing blow after blow against my knees, my sides, my hip. A booted foot came into view, and I reached around the foot as its owner attempted a strike at my chest.
I pulled, snatching his foot out from beneath him. His weapon—a metal rod—flew from his hands and clattered to the ground on my other side. The boy, I realized by the sound of his voice, shouted and landed hard on his back. His head hit the floor with a sickening crack. He kicked at me half-heartedly while I groped for the rod, but it was too far away. My head and chest ached, but he was already recovering.
Forcing myself up, I swung toward him. My big fist connected with his shoulder. My body followed, the force of the swing drawing me up and over. He tried to deflect the blow but only opened himself to a harder strike. Fury replaced the pain as I landed on him, raining down blow after blow against his face. I stopped only when the meaty squelch of bloody muscle echoed through the dark room. The young man lay dead beneath me.
I rose, the only sound in the flat that of my labored breathing. Even the pacing above me stopped. Those who had been there were gone now. The air in the house was empty.
My fist ached, the ruined knuckles dripping with a mixture of my blood and his brain matter. I moved up the stairs as quietly as my large frame would allow. The room above was empty, I found, having been vacated during the tussle. A candle on the single table released a thin wisp of smoke, the half-hardened wax trickling down its side still semi-transparent.
A book lay beside it, open to a page near the center.
Daemonology, the cover said. The text was English—an odd find for a rented room in the heart of France. Several other books rested on the floor beneath the table. One in particular caught my attention. The binding was a lighter material, more exotic. I lifted it from the stack and turned it over in my hands. The finish was slick, as if it had been recently oiled, with a porous but smooth texture. This book, I realized, was made of human skin.
Chapter 6
It would be days yet before Luke arrived, my message having only just left. My body ached from the previous day’s assault. My fingers were stiff, the torn skin newly healed while I slept. I would be expected to fight tonight, but the distraction of my original intent commanded my attention.
The skin-book rested on the foot of my bed, confounding me more and more as I stared at it. It was a mystery, and one I desperately desired to solve. The language was a Germanic dialect, but not one with which I was familiar. The entire book appeared hand-pressed and stitched. The pages felt to be highest quality vellum, inked in alternating strokes of black and red. It appeared to be a bible of some kind. If Luke knew this woman—and the more I thought on it, the more I began to suspect that personal connection—then perhaps he could demystify this scenario for me and set me on the right track.
But there were pieces missing—large pieces if my frustration was any indication—and I was no closer to solving this puzzle than when I arrived in Paris. If anything, I was more confused.
Confusion led to restlessness that, in turn, became anger. I could do nothing else until the vampire arrived, and even then, my success depended entirely on his willingness to provide me with information I needed to end this battle.
Rising from the chair, I took up the book and pushed it between the mattress and the bed’s frame for safekeeping. Then I returned to the street. If I continued to sit, I would accomplish nothing except, perhaps, for devising a plan to destroy my closest friend.
A light burned in the upstairs window of the flat with the blue door. A body moved about the space, its shadow casting the occasional haze across the curtains. I remained in the shadows of the buildings across the street, watching as the moon rose over the city. No one came or went. It appeared only the one person remained. The building was not large enough to house the missing children. Again, I did not have the full collection of puzzle pieces, and my map needed updating.
I found the door locked, but the w
indow to the right was loose in its frame. The half-rotted wood came away easily and with very little noise, as did the glass behind it. No one came running as I squeezed my large frame through the opening. The room remained dark as I crossed to the stairs. No attack came.
Thin, watery light filtered down the stairwell, bathing my sallow skin in an unearthly yellow-green glow. The shadow passed by above, momentarily obscuring the light. A quiet, feminine voice muttered something incoherent.
The stairs creaked under my weight, but the voice never faltered. She continued to pace, to speak in her broken, angry tongue.
At the top of the stairs, I paused. A woman unlike any other I’d ever seen stood in the corner. She was tall and plump, with long arms draped in gauzy, white linen. It trailed along her arms, stopping just above her wrists, which tapered into twisted, blackened fingers. The material spiraled up her body from what appeared to be the skirt of a wedding gown, twisting around her neck and up. It obscured her entire face, save her mouth, which was twisted into a maniacal grimace. Her skin was pale beneath the fabric, thick blue veins like ropes coiled under her skin. A thin, red cord danced between her mangled fingertips. She followed it in a zigzag trail across the room, much as a spider would spin her web.
She paused when I stepped onto the landing, her head cocked toward me. I stopped walking and held my breath as she listened for any sound of me. Her head listed from side to side and she leaned forward, her gnarled fingers sliding absently along the cord. She tipped her head back and sniffed at the air, then smiled.
“Who is there?” she croaked, her French words thick and scarred by a heavy, Eastern accent.
I said nothing.
She turned slowly, her head rising. She sniffed the air. A spindly finger pointed toward me. “Who are you?” she asked. “You are not one of mine.”
“I am not.”
“Who are you?”