“Patience, Little Prince. Put on your best clothing. Tonight, we hunt.”
I tug on my frock coat. The rustle of fabric against my skin sends me reeling with ecstasy. Everything is so much sharper – pleasure, pain, longing. Arabella is constant in my thoughts.
First, Lucien shows me that he’s kept his promise. My brother is no longer chained in the basement. Lucien hands me the stub of a steamer ticket to England. Jacob is safe and far away from me. It’s up to him to make his own fortune now.
We head out, to everyone on the streets a pair of merry bachelors. But inside my skin, a monster claws, desperate to escape. The people passing by – ladies in their dazzling dresses, the men in their top hats and opera gloves – are but tempting fruits ripe for the plucking. Colours swirl behind my eyelids. I’m drowning in one of Claude’s paintings.
Lucien’s first stop is a meeting with the owner of a loud, busybrasserie à femmes, the air so thick with cigar smoke that were I still human, I would barely be able to see my sire – mymaster, I suppose, now – through the fog. Men thump their tables and women dressed in provocative provincial costumes slam down glasses of cheap alcohol. The owner’s face pales when he sees Lucien striding through his establishment, but he greets the vampire with a smile and invites him back to his office. Lucien leaves me outside the door while he disappears inside, touching the jewels at his throat to trigger the good fortune that – were it not for me – should still belong to Arabella.
I have paid the ultimate price for my betrayal – my humanity. Now that Lucien’s got what he wanted, he’ll forget all about Arabella.
I should forget her, too, but I cannot. I must warn her of the monsters who hunt at night, the very monsters who now count me among their ranks. I have to tell her that I’m sorry for stealing her collar, and that I love her, and—
But how to get to her without drawing Lucien closer to her? I stand, still as a statue, hunger gnawing my insides as a dozen frantic escape plans compete for my attention. The smell of fresh blood pumping just beneath the skin of the brasserie’s clientele, mixed with the cloying scent of cheap wine and rich meat, makes my head spin, which explains why I don’t notice a dark-suited shadow in the crowd until he’s literally in my face.
“Gideon Rougon,” the shadow hisses.
I startle at my name. Something about the shadowy figure is familiar, but I can’t place them. The shadow beckons with a bony finger. I catch the scent of a predator – he’s a vampire, like me.
I follow him into the street. He walks briskly, floating through the crowds like a ghost. I jog to keep up with him, aware that even with the speed Lucien’s blood has given me, I can’t keep up.
He stops near the dilapidatedbouquinistesalong the bank of the Seine. He steps beneath one of the gaslamps and pulls down his hood, revealing his features in stark relief. I suspect he was once handsome, but his sharp cheekbones and high, noble forehead are slashed with deep, messy scars. One eye is sewn shut, the other a bulging, lizard-like orb. His nose barely exists. His lips are a ruin of torn skin. I smell blood on him.
A chill runs down my spine as I recognise him. He’s a patron of La Petite Mort, usually seated at one of the corner booths, his scarred, horrible face cast in darkness.
The shadow smiles, pulling back those hateful lips to reveal long, sharp fangs.
“Do we know each other?” I ask, my fingers moving to the knife in my pocket. I assume he’s an associate of Lucien, perhaps thinking he can get to my sire through me. I will snap him like an overcooked frog’s leg.
The monster’s mouth tugs into a grotesque shape that might be a smile. “We are not yet acquainted, but I am familiar with you, and you are intimately familiar with one of my possessions – one Arabella Macquart.”
My throat closes over. I don’t want this rotten creature anywhere near her. “Arabella is no one’spossession.”
“Oh, little mouse,” he chuckles. “You have no idea about the world in which you live. My Arabella has been naughty. She likes to play these games of hers. Running away to Paris, hosting her little parties, dancing for other men to make me jealous. She likes to tease, as I’m sure you’re aware. But she always knows to whom she belongs. I’m here to take home my property and make sure that no little mice from this cursed city follow us.”
He’s lying. Arabella would never love a monster such as this. She would never consent to being possessed.“Arabella is not your property.”
He laughs. “How she will laugh when I describe the expression on your face! How that eyebrow of hers will twitch! Of course she is mine. She has always been mine. You are merely the next in a long line of her toys – pretty distractions I allow her because it’s fun for us both to watch a cat play with its food.Shesent me to you, little mouse. She told me where to find you. She’s informed me of your pathetic attempts to woo her with hot air balloon rides and naked paintings by that upstart Monet. All the while, she returns each night to my bed and I kiss the little mole on her upper thigh, and we laugh at you. What is it you call her?Ma petite déesse.So sweet! She wants her property back – a collar of dazzling Egyptian jewels. Return this trifle to me and we shall have no more business together.”
How does he know about the hot air balloon? About Claude’s painting?
About the mole?
He could only know if Arabellatoldhim. If she’s had him in her bed.
She’d never reveal such personal details, unless…
… unless he’s telling me the truth.
… unless she is his.
My heart – heavy and racing with Lucien’s blood – ices over. Frost creeps through my swollen arteries. I am cold, bitten by poison, dead inside and out.
None of it was real.
She was never mine.
I think of the jewels hanging around Lucien’s neck, hidden beneath the silk of his shirt, gifting him with wealth and power. Jewels that I stole from the woman I love. A woman who has beenlaughingat me this entire time with this… thing.
