Seduction

by Molly Cochran

“Yes?” Belmondo asked, leaning toward me.

  “Can I ask you about Joelle?” I blurted.

  “Joelle?”

  “She’s disappeared.”

  “Really? I thought she was in Vienna.”

  “Vienna? When did she go to Vienna?”

  “After the party. I took her to the airport.”

  The airport? “You mean . . .”

  He laughed. “Did you think that Joelle and I were going out?” His face took on a pained expression. “Definitely not my taste.”

  “Oh,” I said. He gestured toward the Jaguar’s open door. “I don’t really know where I want to go,” I said.

  “I do. I’m taking you to my apartment.”

  That was what I was afraid of. “No,” I said, my disappointment evident in my voice. I was just so tired and freaked out. I didn’t want to fight off a guy, even one as good-looking as Belmondo. “A hotel would be better.”

  “Relax,” he said. “I won’t be there.”

  “Huh?”

  He shooed me into the car and stashed my suitcase in the backseat. “I have to spend three weeks in London with my band. I’ll be driving there tonight. My bags are already in the trunk.” He started the engine, and the car took off like a rocket.

  “Then why did you come to the Rue des mes Perdues?” I asked as we zipped through the crowded streets.

  He shrugged. “I just wanted to help.” He looked over at me. “I thought you might not want to stay in the house.”

  “You were right,” I said. Then, in a small voice: “Belmondo?”

  He laughed. “Yes?” he squeaked, imitating me.

  I cleared my throat. “Um . . . how old are you?”

  He was smiling, but his brows knit together. “Twenty-five. Why?”

  “So you’re saying you don’t know what they do? The Enclave?”

  He shrugged. “They have parties. I know that.” He laughed. “I guess everyone within a two-kilometer radius knows that.”

  So maybe he was telling the truth when he said he wasn’t one of them, I thought. Relief washed over me like a wave. He was twenty-five.

  Sitting next to him, I could sense his warmth, the electric vibrancy of his energy. Stop it, I told myself. But it was so hard to stay away from him. I wanted so much to touch him, as if that would erase all my questions and fears and make me feel safe again.

  We walk toward evil willingly, Azrael had said. But this wasn’t evil, was it? Just an attraction.

  Don’t walk. Don’t.

  We drove in silence for a while. Finally he said, “I’m sorry about Marie-Therèse.” When he saw my surprised face, he added, “Apparently, the butler at the Vincennes house said that she’d died.”

  “Something else the witches found amusing?” I asked bitterly.

  He didn’t answer. I looked out the window.

  “She was old,” he said after a long silence.

  “That wasn’t why she died.” I sighed. “She was killed.”

  “What?” The car swerved wildly. “What are you talking about?”

  I looked at my hands in my lap. “It was Peter,” I said, feeling the words turn to sand inside my mouth.

  “Peter?” His voice was almost a whisper.

  “Please don’t go to the police,” I begged. Already I was feeling as if I’d betrayed Peter even by speaking his name.

  “Of course not,” Belmondo said. He pulled the car off the road. “But murder . . .” His voice trailed off.

  “Before she died, I asked Marie-Therèse if Jeremiah Shaw had done something to make her so sick and old-looking, and she said no, that it was ‘the young one’ who’d done that.” I looked up at him, wishing desperately that he could say something, anything, that would make it not be true. “The life was drained out of her.”

  “Oh, Katy,” he said. I knew that Belmondo wanted to make me feel better, but he just didn’t know how.

  I brushed my hand across my eyes. “I’m fine, really,” I said. “I mean, you can go on driving.”

  “Why? We’re here.” He gestured toward the handsome limestone building beside us on the fashionable Rue Foubourg St. Honoré. He popped the trunk and got out. “Do you want to go in?”

  Suddenly I was terribly confused. There was a long and awkward moment between us, but he finally said, “You don’t have to worry,” as though he were reading my mind. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t even going to be here,” I said.

  He smiled as he came over to my side of the car and opened the door for me. “There won’t be any danger from me,” he said. “And I have some influence with the Enclave, in case they’re planning some kind of dirty trick.”

  “So if someone kills me . . .”

  “They won’t.”

  We stood facing each other on the sidewalk. “Or you’ll break their heads?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Worse than that. I’ll kick them out. I’m the landlord, remember? My family has owned that building for three hundred years, and what I say goes!” He shook a fist. I tried to smile. “Now, do you want to come up or not?”

  “I . . . I don’t know,” I said miserably. It was a terrible decision either way. I really didn’t want to wander the streets, but I wasn’t an idiot, either. I knew that by going into Belmondo’s apartment, I was making myself vulnerable in too many ways. Even if he wasn’t a card-carrying member of the Enclave, he was still a handsome, charming man who could easily make a fool of me. And I was already so heartsick and tired that I just didn’t want any more problems.

  He took my bags out of the trunk. “Okay, I’ll make it easier for you,” he said, handing me a set of keys. “These are for you. There’s a deadbolt inside the door. Use it. Even I won’t be able to come in then. Fair enough?”

  I blinked. It seemed safe. At least for one night, or however long it would take me to find another place to live.

  “Come on.” Gently, he took my arm and led me into the building, where he spoke to the doorman before carrying my bags to the elevator. “I can take these up for you,” he offered.

  “That’s okay.” I picked them up myself, but as I headed into the elevator, the shopping bag that held most of my small possessions ripped open and everything spilled onto the pink marble floor. When I got on my knees and started to pick things up, I nearly collided with Belmondo, who was doing the same thing.

  “Let me help you,” he whispered, his face inches from mine.

  I felt my heart beating inside my chest and my arms tingling with goose bumps. A part of me wanted to collapse inside his arms. I could almost feel his breath, so close were our faces. Almost involuntarily, I closed my eyes. Yes, I thought, yes, yes . . .

  His hand enveloped mine. “Get up, Katy,” he whispered.

  I blinked. He was standing over me, trying to pull me to my feet. “Oh, sure,” I said, mortified.

  My ears burned during the interminably long elevator ride to Belmondo’s apartment on the twelfth floor. Had he known? I wondered as I tried to avoid looking at him. Had he sensed what I’d been feeling about him, that mixture of desire and fear and guilt that had confused me so badly that I hadn’t even known if I was sane or not?

  When the elevator doors opened, I realized I’d been holding my breath for the entire ride up.

  “It’s right over here,” Belmondo said, turning down the corridor. “Use your key.”

  Almost in a daze, I put the key he’d given me into the lock and turned it. The door opened onto a gorgeous room where one wall was made of glass, giving the impression of being suspended in space somewhere above the city of Paris.

  “It’s beautiful,” I whispered as I walked over to the enormous window, but Belmondo didn’t hear me. He stayed outside the front door.

  “I’m not coming in,” he said. When I looked over, he gave me a shy shrug. “I want you to feel safe,” he added.

  I walked over to him. “It’s not that I don’t trust you,” I said.

  “
I know. I’m the one who doesn’t trust me around you.” He grinned, but his eyes were sad.

  I should have thanked him then and closed the door. And that was what I was going to do, I swear. After all, I really didn’t know anything about Belmondo. All I was sure of was that Gram would be so disappointed in me if I lost my head over someone just because he turned me on.

  So I had no excuse for what happened next. When he turned to leave, I—I, with no encouragement from him—reached out for his sleeve and pulled him back toward me. Then I pressed against him so closely that I heard him utter a little strangled sound in his throat as he closed his eyes as if he were in pain. And then I kissed him full on his mouth until my blood thrummed through my body like deep music.

  And all I could think of was wrong, wrong. This is so wrong.

  He pulled away first. “Katy—” His voice was ragged.

  “I’m sorry,” I breathed. “I didn’t mean—”

  “I know,” he said. “That’s why I need to leave you now.” He touched my cheek with his fingers. “Au revoir, ma belle Katarine,” he whispered. Then: “You don’t know how long I have waited for you, only to let you go.”

  And then he walked away.

  “Belmondo.” Only my mouth formed the name. There was no sound.

  • • •

  Inside, I rested my head against the cool glass of the huge window. What have I done? I asked myself. I’d kissed him. Even if he wasn’t a member of the ageless coven, he would have been too old for me. I’d known that from the beginning. Belmondo wasn’t someone I could introduce to my family, or tell my secrets to. He was someone I’d always have to lie about, sneak out to be with, worry about, distrust.

  When our lips touched, I’d felt a rush of heady pleasure mixed with bald fear. That wasn’t what love was supposed to feel like, was it? At least I had never felt like that with Peter, as if I were doing something dirty that I was ashamed of. That I wanted to do again.

  We walk toward evil willingly.

  Maybe I’d done that. In Whitfield, the witches believed the Darkness was a real, tangible thing, an entity with consciousness and intelligence that made its way into people through their weakness and corruption. I’d had enough experience with the Darkness that I wouldn’t have been surprised if it walked into my room and asked for a cup of coffee. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d already been singled out as the Darkness’s new best girl.

  Why else would I have kissed a man—a grown man—about whom I knew next to nothing?

  But had that really been evil? It was a kiss, that was all. And his lips had been so soft . . .

  I touched my mouth, remembering. Had Peter ever kissed me like that?

  Did that even matter? Peter wasn’t the same boy who’d kissed me in Whitfield. This Peter, the one in Paris, had left me for a coven of corrupt witches. This Peter would remain young forever while I grew old and died.

  It was the young one, Marie-Therèse had said.

  This Peter had killed my friend for the privilege of eternal youth.

  I heard a low wail escape from me as a shudder of horror threatened to tear me apart.

  How much sweeter it was to think of Belmondo. His name for me—Katarine—sounded in his mouth the way honey tastes.

  Remember that, I told myself. Remember his lips as they spoke your name. Katarine. Katarine.

  CHAPTER

  •

  FORTY-FIVE

  The chiming clock in Belmondo’s apartment had struck two some time before, but there was no way I’d be able to sleep. Not with the memory of that sweet, forbidden kiss that kept coming back to me in waves of shame and longing.

  I took a shower. I walked around the apartment, admiring the artwork on Belmondo’s walls. I listened to the radio. I stared out the panoramic window. I tried to watch television, but I couldn’t concentrate on the stupid show that was on, and since there were four remotes, I couldn’t figure out how to change the channel.

  On the cut glass coffee table, beside the remotes, was a slim black leather booklet. At first I’d thought that it was a TV Guide—which wouldn’t do me any good, since I didn’t know how to do anything with the television except turn it on and off—but then it occurred to me that it might be a user’s manual. I hate reading instructions, even in English, but I was beginning to obsess about watching TV. So I picked up the booklet, hoping for some nonverbal international symbols that would tell me how to use the remotes.

  But it wasn’t a manual. It didn’t have anything to do with the television. It was exactly what it looked like, a book. Another spiky-lettered, handwritten book.

  I groaned. Did everyone in Paris keep diaries? On the other hand, if it was a diary, it would be Belmondo’s diary. And he hadn’t hidden it, so he really couldn’t complain if I read it, could he?

  I wondered if he mentioned me in it. With my breath coming fast and my fingers twitching, I tried to make out the pages. Like the writing in Azrael’s book, this script was florid and old-fashioned, obviously written with a fountain pen. As my gaze settled on the words, I thought again of our kiss, of the sweet warmth of his lips on mine.

  1831

  The Last Chapter

  I stand naked in front of the mirror. My body is thrilling to watch: the muscular thighs, the taut belly, the strong arms. I pull on trousers made of moleskin, soft against my flesh. I pick up my shirt, white linen, and circle it like a cape around me so that its brightness catches the light from the lamp before I tame the expanse of cloth with buttons. I add a lace jabot and a black silk scarf, knotted precisely. Then a waistcoat to show my slim physique to best advantage, and a jacket of black Scottish wool with a huge collar and cutaway lapels and swallowtail—to mimic walking into the wind, I suppose, since those innovations serve no practical purpose.

  Thus prepared, I don my tall hat and leave the old man’s dungeon, heading for the lights of the Palais Royale. I have a party to go to.

  • • •

  What was he talking about? Holding my place with my finger, I turned the small leather-bound book front to back, looking for a title, a copyright, anything, but there was nothing but the handwritten text. It was a diary, then, but it seemed to have started in the middle of things. And it couldn’t be Belmondo’s, because the clothes he described were all wrong.

  Unless . . . unless he lied to me.

  Peter had said Belmondo was lying when he’d told me he wasn’t part of the coven.

  But then, Peter himself had been lying. And he’d been lying about more than just his membership with the witches at the Abbey of Lost Souls.

  So was Belmondo one of the near-immortals of the ancient coven of Paris? Had Peter sold his soul to the Darkness?

  Did anyone tell the truth anymore?

  Feeling as if my heart had been replaced by an anvil heavy as the weight of the world, I found my place in the book and continued reading.

  • • •

  During the past three decades, so much has happened: For one thing, Maximilien Robespierre, the Revolution’s master executioner, was himself guillotined, to loud cheers. For another, Napoleon, that self-proclaimed champion of the people, abandoned all thought of anything resembling the Republic he was supposed to have represented and instead crowned himself not just king, but Emperor of France. After he was deposed and sent into exile, the nephew of the executed King Louis the Sixteenth (this one called himself Louis the Eighteenth) took the throne for a few years, until the silk workers staged a revolt and the crown passed to his brother Charles the Tenth, who in turn was booted out of the palace and fled, like his brother, to England. At present, our monarch is named Louis-Philippe, who also considers himself a “man of the people” despite the fact that his father lost his head in the wholesale slaughter of the nobility.

  You’d think at least he would have learned a lesson about the unreliability of power, non?

  And so here we are in the palace, while outside the peasants are fomenting another rebellion. Eighteen years from now, this king wil
l also be taking a midnight ride to England, leaving the throne of France to his ten-year-old grandson. “Better him than me” will be Louis-Philippe’s epitaph.

  Only one thing is certain: Nothing will ever change. How many lives were taken in service to an ideal of liberty, equality, and brotherhood? Thirty years after the first heads rolled off the executioner’s platform, are the poor any cleaner? Are the rich any kinder? Is anyone better off?

  Of course not. It was all for nothing. Pain, misery, suffering, despair, war . . . they are always for nothing.

  The night is dark, and as I walk, I fill my lungs with it.

  • • •

  The brazen opulence of the court of King Louis-Philippe is laughable. These aristos who, thirty years ago, were hiding in public toilets while armed revolutionaries marched their families to the guillotine are now dancing again as if the horror of those times had never happened.

  I am one of them now, incidentally. In the confusion following the Reign of Terror, it was easy and commonplace for nobodies with money to buy titles. I am, I will admit, truly Nobody, but I have a title now, the fifteenth Duc du Capet.

  It was easy enough to come by: My ancestors shared the name. It was my father who foolishly forsook it in favor of the life of a tradesman and farmer. Jean-Loup de Villeneuve never appreciated the heady pleasure that power brings. Having possessed the greatest magic possible—the ability to create gold—he chose instead to dine on thin soup and live in a tunnel like a sewer rat.

  But that has changed. I am the duke now. I have the power. In my blood stirs magic greater than poor Villeneuve could ever imagine.

  The occasion I am attending is a ball, and I am looking for a woman. A particular woman, a young witch who has learned that she can remain young and beautiful forever if she will decline marriage to the fop her father has chosen for her and join the Abbey of Lost Souls.

  The young woman’s name, I believe, is Helène, or Helena—something falsely Grecian. She is not a very talented witch. I think I was told that she starts fires, which means she could easily be replaced by a hot coal or a piece of flint, but no matter. If her freakishness were to be discovered by the outside world, she would surely be persecuted, as her kind has always been, unless she were clever enough to hide it. But these girls are rarely clever.