He looked so sad. “Where will you disappear to?”
“The catacombs, I guess. I don’t know where else to go. Maybe I can figure this out down there, away from everyone.”
“I’ll visit you.”
“I’d like that.” I took a breath. “But it’s not safe.”
“Tosh—”
I leaned into him, brushing his lips lightly with mine to distract him, to distract me, choosing this moment, this sweet ache, as something I could remember forever if I needed to. An endless, intimate now that my worst secret couldn’t pollute. I kissed him like I didn’t know if I’d see him again. I felt like we were riding on a carousel in a war zone.
Someone pushed me. I caught the scent of hot asphalt, and an angry male voice snapped, “Hé, les gosses. Bougez.” Another shove. He wanted us to get out of the way. He muttered something about blocking the door and pushed me again, like he wanted us to scuttle off, out of his street. Like we were an insult to him. He could have gotten around us;we weren’t hogging the whole step, and I’d squished up tight against Nick at his first push. He seemed angry that we were there at all. Nick and I scrambled up to give him more room, and he mounted the steps, saying something I didn’t catch. Nick did, though, and he spat back in fast, slangy, pissed-off French. The guy took a menacing step toward us, then another, keeping up a stream of abuse. I heard his heartbeat. Then the world went red. I was surprised by how easily he went down. I tasted his delicious fear and felt as powerful as God. I was riding a wave of euphoria when Nick grabbed me. I saw his horrified face. I looked down at my blood-spattered shirt. Shocked, I put my hands to my mouth. When I pulled them away, they were covered in blood. I hung in that horrible moment for a lifetime, searching for a crumb of excuse or explanation.
Then I ran.
Chapter 20
Six Weeks Ago
I ran without thought or plan, focused only on getting away. On escaping Nick’s horrified expression and the body collapsed in front of that chipped green door. I ran till I couldn’t breathe, ducking into shadowy doorways to catch my breath, and then running again. Unlike the other times, there was no warning. V mode had consumed me instantaneously. One second I was me; the next I was a monster.
I could feel cobbles under my feet, and the streets were narrower. I must have been in one of the older sections of the city. I jogged on, too frightened to stop and rest, hoping for some kind of sign that would tell me what to do next. I felt shaky from running and leftover adrenaline, and that was when a set of steps rose straight from the sidewalk to trip me, sending me sprawling. As I pulled myself to my knees, I saw that they belonged to a ratty, dismal-looking little church. An image of Quasimodo swinging from Notre-Dame’s bell ropeshouting, “Sanctuary!” swam into my head. A church is a place where the law can’t touch you. If I was inside a church, I’d be safe, and other people would be safe from me. For a while, anyway. I got to my feet, eyeing the medieval iron lock. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t been updated. Martine had shown me how these old locks worked, and for a few moments I just stood there, my hand on the door, clinging to the memory of her disassembling one that we’d bought at the flea market as she explained its mechanics. All I wanted was to go back to that time. The time when I was normal.
Finally, I forced myself back to the present and picked the lock, sending her a silent thanks. I let myself into the church, shutting the old wooden door with a squeak of hinges that made me freeze. After a few minutes, when no one came to investigate, I let myself relax and look around. Although the grimy stained glass held the dark in, my heightened senses let me see the bare, neglected interior clearly. I walked over to the votive stand at the back of the nave. Dust puffed up at every step, tickling my nose. The stand was small and rusty and empty of candles, although there were several discs of melted wax with blackened wicks too short to light. People had sought comfort here, but that was a long time ago. I sighed and moved into the nave, where the few remaining chairs were scattered, as though the congregation had fled in panic. I sat down on the closest one, raising another cloud of dust. When I stopped sneezing, I took out my matches and lit one. Staring into the flame, I said, “Hi, Mom,” like always, and waited to feel her presence. Nothing happened. No sense of warmth enveloped me. NoHello, my darling daughtersounded in my head. I waited, straining to hear her voice,but it wasn’t there, not even a whisper. I tried again. “Mom, I need you.” My voice quavered. She’d always answered when I’d called. Always. I waited. Maybe she hadn’t heard me. I tried again, louder. “Mom? Please?” The church remained empty and cold. I sagged in my chair, feeling the weight of her absence like a judgment. I’d thought she’d love me no matter what. I’d thought she’d always come when I needed her. But I was no longer human enough for her to answer me. Despair wrapped its bony arms around me.
I stared at the dust-covered altar, trying to erase the image of what I’d done from my mind, but I’d never be able to unsee it. I should have just told Madame Dupuy thetruth. I should have let her end me. That man would still be alive if I had. To the right of the altar, a statue of Saint Jude eyed me. “This is beyond even your powers,” I told him. He agreed. Behind him, a set of stairs descended into the crypt. I wanted to hide in its shadows. To put myself as far away from the world as I could. I set my feet on the worn steps and descended to a low, empty room whose vaulted ceiling was supported by columns. Flat gray gravestones tiled the floor, so old that the carvings had been worn away by generations of feet. The stones in the corners, though, away from the foot traffic, retained their inscriptions and skeleton-reaper carvings, which grinned at me like old friends. Across the room, an open doorway showed another set of stairs going down. I made my way carefully between the stones to the stairway and descended another level. The staircase continued down into the dark, but I stopped. The room I’d entered was full of old broken things: chairs, panels, railings. I was broken, too; I belonged there. I sank onto the cold stone floor and putmy head on my knees. I was so tired. I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up, but every time I closed my eyes, I saw the man I’d attacked, his blood glistening under the streetlight. My clothes and hair were stiff with his blood. I rubbed my face, and dried blood fell off in tiny flakes, like gory dandruff. Worse even than that, though, was the memory of Nick’s horrified face. He’d remember me forever like that: feral, bloody, monstrous.
This wasn’t supposed to be my life, in a junky cellar under a forgotten church. I was supposed to hang out with my friends and kiss Nick and eat pastries. And grow up and get a job and make a difference. I let myself imagine the future I could have had. I could see my apartment. The kids were in bed and the dishes were done and it was just the two of us, sitting together on the couch with our stocking feet up on the coffee table watching the eight o’clock news and maybe having one more glass of wine. I wanted that. I wanted it so hard—the job and the urgency of family and the stress of being pulled in too many directions. The glow of a successful day at work and the painful throb of a bad day. I wanted to grow up and take my place in the world. Tears slid down my face and dripped off my chin. Le Bec had made me a monster against my will. He had taken away my future. I couldn’t live my life preying on people like he did, though. It would be so much better if I didn’t exist at all.
The worst part was that I couldn’t explain why to my friends. Nick would tell them what I’d done, and they’d hate me. Noor would understand, but what could she do? How would she survive this? I thought that I needed to stop being alive—or whatever it is that vampires are. I didn’t want toleave this world without leaving some kind of mark, though—something to say I’d been here, even if not for long enough. I leaned my head back against the stone wall. Limestone feels so hard, but it’s a soft stone, easy to carve. I’d learned that on my trip to the catas. I’d noticed street names chiseled into the walls and wondered why anyone would go to all the work of carving them when they could have painted them more easily. Youssef had grinned at me and then carved his initials into the wall with the edge of a euro coin. It had taken less than a minute, and his initials would still be there in two hundred years.
I took one of my lockpicks and scratchedNWinto the stone. Nick Wallace. The boy who gave me Paris. Under it, I carvedNS, Noor Sidi, who knew my pain because it was hers, too. Next, I wroteMS. Martine Sardou’s Epic Pastry Quest would remain unfulfilled.YRfollowed. Youssef Rachedi’s video clips of my friends sharing their favorite Paris places made me feel connected when I couldn’t be with them in person. At the base of the stack, side by side like foundation blocks, I incisedMTandLP. Mina Tran and Lily Parish, best friends since forever, who’d believed me about Cole. I stood back and looked at the letters. Then I enclosed them with a heart. They’d shared themselves with me. They’d buoyed me up. They were my people, my note to the world, my explanation.
I knew what I had to do. I squared my shoulders and started prowling through the junk, picking up busted chair legs and then discarding them (not pointy enough), eyeing sections of wrought iron (good pointy bits; too unwieldy), and covering myself in grime and cobwebs. I climbed overbent railings and shoved panels of wood aside. A two-legged chair blocked my path. I picked it up and found a tumble of spikes and saucers underneath. I pulled one out and saw that it was a flat, shallow dish pierced through the center by a two-ended spike. Maybe some kind of candleholder? The end that poked up into the saucer was just long enough to stick a candle on. The end below the saucer was five or six inches long with a sharp point that looked made to jab into something, maybe a bowl of sand. I shrugged. It didn’t matter how it was meant to be used. All that mattered was that it would do what I needed it to. I found a spot between my ribs and tried a poke. It hurt, and my arm pulled back involuntarily. Maybe I should find a place to wedge it and just fling myself onto the point. I was looking around for a suitable crevice when my phone played Madame Dupuy’s ringtone. I yelped, dropping the makeshift stake. I saw a bunch of texts from Nick as I picked up the call.
“Where are you?” she snapped before I could say anything.
“I’m a vampire,” I said, and started crying.
“Yes. Nick told me.”
“He told you what I did?”
“Yes.”
“I tried so hard to suppress it.” Tears rolled down my face and dripped off my chin. “I really thought smoking would work.”
“Smoking helps?” She sounded interested now, not just angry.
“Yeah. If you’re not caught off guard and get really angry really fast.”
She made a “hmm” noise. “Where are you?”
“I’m not sure.” I looked around the room of broken things. “It doesn’t matter. I found something I can use for a stake. That’s how you do it, right? A stake in the heart?” My voice broke.
There was a long pause. “Yes.”
“And if I do it that way, will I stay dead?”
