Page 13

Andi looks at me intently, as if trying to decide whether I am serious, before answering, “I don’t believe in magic, but I was raised around it. Granny Jean is a devout Wiccan. But I’ve never seen anything that science can’t explain.”

“Funny you should work at La Couronne Bleu and not believe in magic.”

She gives me another funny look. “Why’s that?”

“La Couronne Bleu was made as a sanctuary for the Other World in the 1920’s by a witch with a love of jazz and theater. It has always attracted those other than human.”

Andi looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “There’s nothing other than humans.”

Apparently, I have no patience for delicacy. I pull the shadows in the room around me, shrouding myself in darkness, an unmistakable display of magic, and let my eyes go a glowing red. My fangs descend, and I know that I look like a thing of nightmares.

“That, ma souris,” I say, talking around my fangs, “is where you are wrong.”

Chapter 7

Andi

I start back in my chair, rearing from the sudden change in front of me. One moment, I was talking to an eccentric, handsome man, and now he’s transformed. He looks like something out of a bad trip, wreathed in darkness, the shadows almost moving around him. Only his face is clearly viewable, his eyes glowing and wicked, huge fangs in his mouth. What kind of special effects is this? Or did he drug the food that I ate? What is going on?

No matter what’s going on, my instincts are screaming at me to run, and I shove back my chair, getting ready to stumble away, but in the blink of an eye, he’s in front of me, arms caging me in my seat as his hands grip the armrests of the high-back chair I am sitting in.

“So fast,” I whisper in horror, unable to help myself.

“Do not run, ma souris,” he practically purrs, his voice a monstrous bass, “it will only make me want to chase you.”

“What is this?” I ask, my voice coming out in a bare whisper. “Did you drug me?”

He laughs darkly. “This is no hallucination, ma souris. This is real.” He takes my hand, which trembles in his grip, and brings my fingers to his left fang. He grins, letting me feel the wet smoothness of the tooth under my fingers, my touch telling me that this transformation in him is tangibly real.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

I begin to hyperventilate, and tears roll down my cheeks; I can’t help it. Fear courses through me, the actual panic of someone staring into the eyes of a predator. Am I going to pee myself? Am I going to die? My instincts scream to run away, to somehow escape the grasp I am trapped in, but my body is frozen. I can’t even scream. What a useless way to react in the face of death.

The Commandant moves again, too quick for my eyes to read, and his hand is on my chin again. He tilts back my head, and I am helpless but to let him. I stare into his glowing red eyes, and his pupils pulse. Actually grow and shrink in front of my captive gaze.

“Calm down, Andi,” he commands, still in that crazy deep voice. “Breathe slowly, in and out.”

Weird calm tries to take hold of my mind, but it feels foreign, wrong. I instantly reject it. I won’t be lulled into a false sense of peace. But still, I’m frozen, and I just whimper and keep hyperventilating.

“Calm!” he commands again, more forcefully, his pupils pulsing again.

“You . . . calm!” I breathe back before a fresh wave of tears cascades down my cheeks. Probably not the smartest thing to talk back to him, but my logic has been replaced by panic and instinct, both of which aren’t that clever.

The Commandant’s eyes dim slightly, almost back to the dark shade I saw earlier, only a faint ring of red on the outside of the iris. He looks confused. “This should work. Why isn’t my compulsion working?”

“I . . . I . . . I . . .” My mouth doesn’t work as I stutter. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say, just that a part of me feels like I have to answer his question. Placate him. Like, not pleasing him could mean my death. Which it very well might.

My breathing speeds up even more, and the edges of my vision start to go white. I’m going to pass out. I just stare into his eyes, his face, the last thing I’ll see before I die, and wait for him to end me. He just stares back, looking more and more perplexed, then finally sighs. The last rim of red is gone, and his fangs suddenly snap back into his gums. The shadows disperse, returning to the corners of the room, and we are left in the warm, dim glow of the fluorescents once again. Then, surprising me, the Commandant pulls me into his arms, holding me in a tight embrace. My every muscle tenses, and a little yelp escapes my lips, but he only holds me tighter, almost to the point of pain.

“Shhhh.” He makes a sound like you would gentling a startled horse, his voice back to normal. “Shhhh, ma souris. Calm. No one will harm you here. Shhhh.”

I don’t know what magic trick he’s using now, but this time, it works. My breathing slows, and my muscles soften. I take a shuddering breath.

“That’s right,” he murmurs softly into my ear. “Perfect. You are doing so well, ma jolie fille. In and out. Slowly. You are in no danger from me.”

His words wrap around my brain like a spell, and slowly I breathe in and out. My vision starts to clear, the white receding. The fog of terror that was on my brain hesitantly lifts, like it’s not quite sure we are safe, but I can think a little more clearly. I relax into his hold, but his embrace stays tight.

When I am mostly back to normal, only one question is on my mind. “What are you?” I whisper.